Around eight Ellen took charge of bath time. Fifteen minutes later she handed me a squeaky clean Sam. "Bed time story?" Sam asked hopefully.
"Sure, sure." I sat on the couch and balanced him on my knee. "Okay, there once was a fairy princess named... Tinkerbell."
"What she look like? She pretty?"
"Um sure, she had blond hair brown eyes and ... Fairy wings."
"Why her name Tinkerbell?"
"Because she was a handy fairy, good at fixing things. And she was from the South so she was a belle. There you have it, a Tinker-Belle. So any way she lived in a diner and she helped her friends fix things and she didn't know she was a princess."
"Why?"
"Um... Because her fairy god mother never told her. So she lived a normal life and ate cheeseburgers... The end."
Sam made a pouty face and crossed his arms, "No fair."
"Why is that not fair? That's life. I mean she got to be a fairy at least, that's cool."
Sam shook his head, "She's a princess, why not say so?"
Jo wandered in and sat next to us, "What's up little man, ready for bed?"
"Not princess!" Sam yelled wanting an explanation.
"He's mad because Tinkerbell works at a diner."
Jo gave me a quizzical look, "You're on your own, I have no idea."
"Well look at it this way," I told Sam, "if Tinkerbell became a princess she'd have to go live in a castle and leave her friends and run countries and stuff. This way she can stay with her friends and be a regular fairy girl."
"You have entirely missed the point of a bedtime story: they don't have to be realistic, that's the point." Jo leaned back, twirling her hair around her finger.
"Fairytales are so unrealistic, they leave out the whole part about dragons stealing virgins and fairies enslaving people and stealing first borns... They stink; they make kids get the wrong idea."
She laughed, "Yeah because the real stories are so much better."
"What's so bad about working at a diner? Tink gets free pie and probably doesn't get ridiculed for being a fairy because she feeds people and people like food."
"Yes but it isn't fair that she can't live up to her full potential," Jo said, "The whole point is that she can aspire to be a princess because she has the opportunity. That's what bedtime stories are about, aspirations."
"Jo-Jo, you finish it," Sam commanded.
Jo cleared her throat and started twisting a tale that was probably more interesting than any story I could come up with. I sat and listened trying to pick up some pointers. By the end Sam was out like a light with his head resting on my stomach. Jo was gently rubbing his back and looked up at me, "And that, is how you end a story. With the sleepy kid sleeping. You don't even need an ending you just go with the plot until they fall asleep."
I tried not to laugh so I wouldn't wake him up, but it was difficult. That was actually a pretty good ploy.
"So this Tinkerbell," Jo said, "I take it she wasn't from Peter Pan."
"Say what now?"
"Have you seen any kids' movies?"
"Apparently not that one, I only know Tinkerbell because this girl I dated was her for Halloween..."
"I'm beginning to think Gabriel did all this because you missed out on your whole childhood and he has a soft spot for you."
"I think he's a dick and did this to spite me."
"Probably, that sounds more accurate. So no word on his whereabouts?"
"Cas is working on it, but no."
She squeezed my hand and got up to go to bed. "We will figure this out, okay? Hang in there."
She went off to her room leaving me to my own thoughts and Sam's soft snoring. I picked him up gently and walked over to the cot I'd been sleeping on. I laid him down on the side and got in next to him, pulling the blanket up. Technically he slept in the playpen surrounded by pillows but that was during the day when we were all alert and watching him. Call me up tight but I felt better having him at a reachable distance when I was asleep and not watching.