First he ignores it. Works on the Impala, avoids Sam's doe eyes, picks up a loaded gun and shoots something full of rock salt. And then he remembers how his Dad taught him to load and shoot a gun.
And how Dad would always be suckered in by Sam's pleading puppy face.
And how Dad gave him the Impala.
Seventeen times.
That's how many strikes against the Impala it takes to beat out his father's death. Seventeen times he thought his father had been killed on a hunt. Seventeen times his father had been late for his birthday. Seventeen times, the number of years he'd had to look after Sammy by himself.
And still it doesn't rain.
And he cries. Not for himself, not for Sam. Not for their father. He cries because he feels so ungrateful to be alive. His life, always at the cost of another; and one day he's going to have to pay the price.
And late that night, when the rain finally comes, he turns in his motel bed to face the wall; turns away from Sam so he won't see. And he lays there with his sorrow and his confusion and his guilt. And his index finger wraps itself around the thin sheet and pulls it up to his top lip. He slides his thumb into his mouth and begins to suck gently on it. He rubs the material of the sheet against his top lip, finding comfort in the slight abrasion. And he nurses quietly on his thumb, curled into a foetal position.
And his grief begins to wash away like spit in the rain.