When I Think Of Death - Maya Angelou
When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with alarming frequency,
I seem at peace with the idea that a day will dawn when I will no longer be among those living in this valley of strange humors.
I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else.
I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return.
Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake.
I answer the heroic question 'Death, where is thy sting? ' with ' it is here in my heart and mind and memories.'
Sam didn't miss Dad. I told myself that. He didn't miss Dad as much as I did, at least. And I wouldn't point out to myself that I missed Dad so freaking much that anything less could've been as massive and deep as the five Great Lakes put together.
No, I told myself that Sam didn't miss Dad and he didn't need to grieve and that it was okay to hardly answer at all whenever he tried to talk to me about Dad.
He didn't need to grieve, and I didn't want to grieve.
"Hey – remember when Dad…" Sam tried a few times on our hot, humid drive through Iowa. I'd only grunt him some answer and he'd look at me, silent, then turn back to the window, to the road, and to his not grieving.
He didn't miss Dad. He couldn't miss Dad. He'd run away from Dad to get to college. And even if not – Dad hadn't died for Sam. Sam wasn't carrying the weight and the agony of knowing that Dad was dead because he was alive.
I had that burden.
We were headed to a hunt in White Cloud, Kansas. Any other time, and I'd have been making toilet paper jokes nonstop just to annoy Sam. But right now, I wasn't sure I was even breathing. Talking, joking, anything at all, would've sucked my lungs right out of my body.
"Whyn't you take another pain pill?" I asked him, when I sensed him gearing up to say something else. When I thought I could talk without dying myself.
He'd gotten some good painkillers from the ER when he got his hand casted a few nights before. If he took another one, especially if he took it before he was actually supposed to, maybe he'd chill out and stop trying to get me to talk about Dad.
"I'm fine," he said.
He was fine. Sure. Whatever.
We kept driving. Whatever he'd been going to say got left behind and we drove another couple hundred miles and I started looking around for a place to eat and a place to crash. It didn't matter where.
I found a diner first, with signs promising a motel farther down the road. I didn't bother asking Sam if he was hungry or not, I pulled in and parked and got out of the car and Sam followed me.
The diner was small and dingy, half-full of dingy patrons. A few of them looked at us when we walked in. I guess that should've been my first clue. People who pay attention to you in a dingy diner are never good news. I sat at the first table that didn't look like something was going to crawl across it and Sam took the opposite chair with a pointed sigh.
Our waitress acted like she didn't care if we lived, died, ordered, or spit on the floor. She dropped two greasy menus on the table, slopped coffee into our cups without asking if we wanted any and walked away looking like the only thing keeping her upright was a deep breath.
I checked the menu looking for anything that might not give me ptomaine poisoning but Sam only gave his a passing glance and dropped it. "Not hungry."
"You should eat something."
"I think I've spent enough time in the Emergency Room lately."
I gave a glance around to see what anybody else might be eating – the regulars ought to have an idea what was safe.
What I saw was maybe safe, but sure not appetizing. Behind the counter, even the pie looked petrified.
"Maybe you're right," I said. I dropped a couple of bucks on the table to cover the coffee we didn't drink and we stood up. Then some dingy guy stopped dead in front of me.
"You're the Winchesters, aren't you?" he asked, in a tone that was too smug to start with and got even worse when he said, "I heard your old man got himself roasted."
Seriously? We're deep in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, and we run into a hunter?
I didn't recognize him, he only looked as old as Sammy, and I was going to push past and leave but I heard Sam pull in the world's deepest breath and when I looked at him he seemed to have grown two inches taller and five inches wider.
"What'd you say?" he asked, and his voice was deep.
Deep breath, deep voice – that guy was in deep shit, and he seemed to realize it. His eyes got wide and he backed up a step or two. "I – I – I – "
Sam gave him a shove and asked him again, even deeper, "What did you say?"
I put my hand on Sam's arm but he pulled away and didn't even look at me. He advanced on the idiot who kept backing up, babbling. "Nothing, I didn't say anything. All right? Forget it."
Most of the other patrons didn't seem to care what was going on, the waitress didn't even stop her waitressing, but two other guys stood up. Older than the idiot. Hunters, too, probably.
The younger guy turned to get away but Sam grabbed his arm and demanded again, "What did you say about my Dad?" and the idiot kept stammering and one of the other guys, the oldest looking guy, piped up.
"Berg, you said something about his father?"
"I just – I was just – I didn't mean anything. You know what we heard happened, Wall. I just wanted to know if it's true."
"Ryan, get him outta here 'fore he gets his head shot off," the guy, Wall, said and Berg got dragged off by Ryan into the back room, still sputtering and stammering.
"Smart hunter, stupid kid," Wall said, jerking his head in the direction Berg had gone. "Sorry for his big mouth." He paused but Sam didn't answer, although his breathing had at least slowed from sounding like a bull about to charge.
"Anyway, so, yeah," Wall kept on. "There's been talk that John cashed his check. We expect it every day and still get blindsided." He focused his attention specifically on Sam then. "I'm real sorry for your loss."
And Sam nodded and swallowed and his shoulders dropped a few inches. "Thanks."
"Yeah," Wall said. He walked away to the back room and Sam hurried out of the diner. When I caught up with him, he was standing at the back passenger door, staring into the car.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"I miss Dad," he said. I almost said, I know, but I didn't know, did I? I didn't know because I didn't want to know. I didn't want it to be true.
"Sammy," I started but he opened the back door.
"My arm hurts, I'm gonna lay down for a while." He got in, shut the door, and laid down with his head behind my seat, where we couldn't see each other, even in the mirrors.
I got in and got us on the road. I decided to skip the local motels for something farther away. Much farther away.
From the backseat I heard Sam let out a deep sigh. "I just wanted somebody to care," he said.
The End.