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spnmysteryyearsGo here for Part II.
Panicked, Dean bolts from the bed and races down the stairs, realizing only when he’s slid to a stop in the kitchen door that he’s clutching his bare-bladed knife.
Sammy’s at the table, pale and weak-looking but upright. He’s eating cereal and smiling at something Pastor Jim has just said. The man himself is at the stove, cooking bacon if the sizzle and the smell are any indication.
He turns to see Dean, pauses with his spatula above the spitting pan. “You won’t need that in here,” he says mildly, turning back to his task.
“What’s wrong, Dean?” Sammy croaks, looking from the knife to Dean’s face and back to the knife.
“Nothing, Sammy. Just…” Embarrassed, Dean turns around and returns to the bedroom to hide the knife away and get dressed.
When he rejoins them, Pastor Jim is at the table eating, and a third plate, filled with hot bacon and fluffy scrambled eggs, has been set catty-corner to Sam’s seat.
“I wanted your brother to stay in bed, but he insisted he was well enough to come to the table,” Jim explains. Sotto voce from behind his hand, he adds, as though filling Dean in on a secret, “Your brother can be pretty stubborn.”
Dean laughs at the understatement and laughs again when Sammy adds his own wheezing version to the chorus.
But Sammy doesn’t make it through half the cereal before he’s swaying in his seat, eyes half closed. Jim scoops him up, returns him to bed, and under Dean’s watchful eye administers more medicine.
Sammy’s tucked in and fast asleep in seconds.
Jim lingers at the bedside, brushing Sam’s over-long bangs out of his eyes. “Your brother needs a haircut.”
“Yeah, that’s what Dad’s always saying.”
Jim smiles at the comparison, but says nothing, moving past Dean to the hallway and closing the door most of the way behind him.
“I have to work in the church for much of the day. I suppose you’d like to stay close to Sam?”
“Yes, Pastor.”
“Well, I think I have some work for you to do in the kitchen, if you’re willing.”
“Yes, sir.”
Which is how he comes to spend the morning and most of the afternoon opening waxed white paper lunch bags, dripping wax from a taper candle into the bottoms, and sticking little metal-clad votives inside.
One after another after another.
At lunch, Jim asks if Dean’s ever been to a midnight service.
Dean shakes his head, happy to have a mouthful of grilled cheese, and reaches for his glass of milk as Pastor Jim follows up with a second question about church.
Still, it’s not prying. Dean can tell Jim’s just interested in how they spend their lives. He’s good at saying things without sounding like he means anything by them except what the words themselves say. Dean, who’s learned the art of lying from a master, appreciates Jim’s honesty even as he’s a little suspicious of it.
“We line the sidewalk in front of the church and up the stairs to the doors with the luminaria. It’s a pretty sight, but it’s also a lot of work. Frankly, I’m glad you’re here to help me with it.”
Dean’s learned that grown-ups sometimes throw him a bone like that, as if it’ll make him value the tedium more. In fact, he’s happy to help. It makes him feel a little less like a burden.
Pastor Jim makes up a plate for Sam, and Dean delivers it when the minister returns to the church. Sammy is awake, staring at the bunk-bottom above him.
“Hey,” Dean says.
“Hey.” He sounds better, maybe even a little bored, which Dean thinks is a vast improvement over delirious. Judging from the way Sam plows through the sandwich, chips, and milk, he must be feeling better, too.
“You want to come downstairs and help me for awhile?”
“Okay.” Sammy’s still pretty weak, and it takes some time to get him into a hooded sweatshirt over his sleep clothes and double socks (they haven’t had slippers that fit in a long time) and then even longer to make it all the way down the stairs, Dean balancing empty plate and cup in one hand, the other keeping a grip on Sam’s hood in case he starts to fall forward down the stairs.
The afternoon passes slowly, Sammy doing a luminarium and then stopping to cough or take his meds or have a drink of water. Dean’s happy to have the company, happier that it’s Sammy, even if his little brother isn’t much fun, still being sick and all.
Around two o’clock, Dean notices how pale Sammy’s gone and orders him upstairs, helping him get into bed, tucking him in, giving him more medicine.
“Dean?”
“Yeah, Sammy?” He’s in the door, just on the point of closing it.
“Do you think Dad’ll be here for Christmas?”
“Sure, Sam. You know he doesn’t miss those.”
“Do you think he’s mad at me?”
“For what, Sammy?”
“If I hadn’ta got sick, we wouldn’t have to be here.”
Though he’s worried himself about Dad’s reaction to all of this, Dean doesn’t let on that it’s bothering him.
“No, Sammy. You couldn’t help getting sick. And Pastor Jim is Dad’s friend. I’m sure he doesn’t mind us being here.”
He leaves out the part about the heat being shut off, about them running out of money. About how overdue Dad is for checking in.
“Get some sleep, Sammy, and if you’re up for it, you can come downstairs for dinner. Pastor Jim said he’ll make hamburgers and mac and cheese.”
“Great!”
Dean chuckles as he closes the door most of the way and heads for the stairs. Sammy sure sounds like he’s back to his old self, even if his throat still sounds scratchy and sore.
At dinner, Sammy proves that he’s better by eating two burgers and a big helping of mac and cheese.
“You must eat your Dad out of house and home,” Jim comments, wondering look on his face.
Dean looks up from his plate to gauge Jim’s expression, slows his own eating down in case there isn’t enough or they’re taking too much. Sammy, oblivious to such things, goes right on eating, nodding vigorously and saying around a mouthful of cheesy pasta, “I’m hungry!”
“Sammy,” Dean admonishes, and his little brother gives him a guilty look and mumbles, “Sorry, Pastor Jim,” in the direction of the bemused minister.
“Have as much as you’d like, Sam. You too, Dean. There’s plenty where that came from. The ladies of the parish sometimes overdo it at the holidays. I’ve got three tuna casseroles in the freezer and a half a ham in the fridge!”
Dean thinks about how their Dad likes ham, which leads him to wondering why they haven’t heard from him at all, and while he’s running through the usual excuses—he’s out in the middle of nowhere without a phone; he’s trapped in a snowstorm in northern Michigan; he’s tracking the werewolf and doesn’t have time to stop—Sam asks Pastor Jim something.
Dean’s only aware that the question might have been awkward by the silence that follows it.
He looks from Pastor Jim, who’s got a carefully neutral expression on his face, to Sam, whose eyes are still over-bright with illness and whose lips are parted both to help him breathe and because he seems eager to hear Jim’s answer.
“Your brother just asked me when your father will be here,” Jim supplies, apparently reading Dean’s confusion in his face.
“I told you, Sam. He never misses Christmas.”
He never has before. Dean’s learned that tradition doesn’t actually mean much, but he has to believe that their father will get there somehow.
“But he hasn’t called Pastor Jim, has he?”
The minister answers. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Your Dad’s business sometimes takes him to out of the way places.”
The tension Dean felt as the Pastor had begun his explanation is eased by the man’s careful words. What Sam doesn’t know can’t scare him, Dean figures, at least where their father’s real occupation is concerned.
“Speaking of Christmas,” the minister continues. “Would you like to come into town with me tomorrow, Dean, and pick out some presents?”
Jumping on the obvious excuse, Dean says quickly, “Someone’s got to stay here with Sam.”
“The Ladies Auxiliary will be decorating in the church tomorrow, and I thought one of them could keep an eye on Sam. We won’t be gone long.”
“And I’m a big boy,” Sam insists, lower lip pouting outward, arms crossing in a familiar way. “No one needs to watch me. I can stay by myself for a little while.”
Given no other option but the truth, Dean tries to soften it. “We don’t really ‘do’ presents,” he explains, trying for sincere.
“Yes we do, Dean! Remember last year, Dad got me the hunting knife? And you got me a book about animal tracks, with all the pictures of the different ones in it?”
Busted.
Dean can barely stand to look at the Pastor, sure he’s going to see disapproval in his face for having caught Dean in a lie.
What he sees instead is worse, a kind of understanding that makes Dean’s face burn red.
“How about I loan you the money and you can pay me back when you get your allowance?”
Dean doesn’t actually get an allowance—money’s usually too tight for that—but sometimes Dad lets Dean buy something that’s not a necessity, and usually he does let Dean pick out a gift for Sam for Christmas. Still, they already owe the minister so much…
“And Sam, you can tell me in private what you’d like to pick out for Dean, and I’ll get it for you and you can wrap it. How does that sound?”
“Can we, Dean?”
Sammy’s voice is full of excitement and hope, his face alight with joy, and Dean can’t possibly deflate his brother’s happiness with a reminder of their debt to their host.
“Okay, Sammy. But nothing too big, alright?”
“Alright, Dean!”
Sam scrambles down from his seat, swaying a little as he regains his balance, and then moves up beside Jim to tug on his sleeve.
“C’mon,” he says, and Pastor Jim puts down his napkin and rises.
“I’ll help with the dishes. Let me get Sam tucked in first.”
Ordinarily, his little brother would protest going to bed so soon after his supper, but in this case, he seems so eager to share his gift ideas with the minister that he doesn’t seem to notice the time.
Dean smiles a little to see Sammy so happy, but that smile quickly fades when he considers that the next day is Christmas Eve, and they still haven’t heard a word from Dad.
Distracting himself by scraping the plates and soaking the dishes, Dean hums “Jingle Bells” to himself and tries not to think about Christmas.
That effort lasts less than a minute, as he catches the sight of the luminaria lining the spare counter space in the kitchen.
Sighing, he works harder, and when Pastor Jim returns from getting Sam’s gift ideas for Dean and giving him his evening dose, the dishes are all done but for the drying.
“Don’t worry about your Dad, Dean,” Jim says without any lead-in. “He’s a great hunter and can take care of himself. There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong.”
This is the kind of line he’s used to getting from adults besides his Dad. Dad never sugarcoats anything, but other grown-ups, Dean’s noticed, like to tell little lies, thinking kids can’t hear the truth.
He doesn’t dispute his host, however, since that would be rude. Instead, he says, “I think I’ll go up to the room and say goodnight to Sammy and then get ready for bed.”
“It’s only seven o’clock.”
Dean shrugs. “Maybe I’ll read a little, first. I should brush up on my Latin.”
Ordinarily, Dean is loath to do anything like homework, and he’s not especially fond of what his father calls “research,” either. But he figures maybe it’ll soften his father up if he’s at least put his time to good use here.
“Alright. The ladies are coming at 8:00 tomorrow morning, and I have to meet with them. Why don’t you plan to be ready at 9:00, and we’ll go into town then? Can you see that you and Sam get some breakfast and that Sam takes his morning doses?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jim wishes Dean a goodnight, rests a hand on his shoulder briefly, and says again, “Your Dad’s fine, Dean. Don’t worry.”
Dean only nods and hurries toward the stairs, anxious to be out from under the Pastor’s watchful eyes for a little while. It’s hard always being on his game.
*****
She looks reliable enough, but Dean’s still not entirely convinced that he should leave Sammy in the care of Mrs. Reicher, who Pastor Jim had introduced as the “Vice President of our Ladies’ Auxiliary.” By the way she’d beamed in response, Dean guesses it’s a big deal.
It means nothing to him.
The pastor’s waiting in the car, though, and Dean can’t stall any longer. He gives Sammy a last long look, which his brother returns with happy, distracted eyes—Mrs. Reicher has promised to bake Christmas cookies with Sam.
“Be good, Sammy. And don’t burn yourself on the stove. And if you start to feel sick, let Mrs. Reicher help you to bed, okay? I’ll be back soon.”
Sammy nods, eyes tracking the portly, auburn-haired woman as she gets out cookie sheets and a mixing bowl.
Dean feels a little better seeing how familiar she is with the rectory kitchen. Pastor Jim must trust her.
Sighing and swallowing down the lump of misgiving taking up most of his breathing space, Dean goes out the kitchen door and down the driveway to where Pastor Jim sits in the running car, window open, talking to another strange woman.
Pastor Jim is good at making small talk, which is fine, since Dean is not. He doesn’t have to offer much, and the other man seems content to hum along to the “All Christmas, All the Time” radio station he’s got playing softly on the station wagon’s radio.
“What did you have in mind for Sam? There’s a toy store across town.”
“Is there a bookstore here?”
He can tell the pastor’s looking at him, but he makes an effort to look like he hasn’t noticed, counts the power poles as they slow for a red light.
“Sure.”
Dean had actually forgotten how much Sammy had liked the animal tracks book he’d gotten him last year, but the way his brother’s face had lit up at the memory had given Dean an idea.
It takes them awhile to find a parking spot in the long, narrow strip mall with the ubiquitous Chinese take-out place, a chain coffee shop, an office supply store, a dance studio, and on one end, anchoring it, a bookstore—Pearson’s, according to the blue neon sign taking up a good chunk of the façade.
Inside, the place is a stew of humanity, people shoulder to shoulder at the wooden shelves, help threading their way through with books in stacks held over their heads like rescue signals.
Dean’s not used to so many people in such tight quarters, and he’s happy that the pastor sticks with him, though he’d never admit it.
He doesn’t even mind that every third person stops them to talk. He’s introduced to more people in twenty minutes than he thinks he’s met in his whole life.
Aren’t there any other churches in Blue Earth?
Finally, though, they reach the kids section, and Dean spends some time considering big, colorful pop-up books about machines and magicians and other stuff before finding the nature books and settling in for choosing.
It takes him a minute and a half.
The book is large, with big, glossy pages splashed across with the brilliant colors of real photographs. Better yet, there are words, a lot of them, the kind that Sam likes to follow along with his finger and read out loud, sounding them out.
“That’s a pretty big book for a little boy,” Pastor Jim remarks. Dean just nods.
“And it’s for ten and up,” the minister adds.
Dean just clutches the book a little more tightly as a spectacled, pig-tailed hurricane in pink coat and fur-lined cap barrels up.
“I’m ready,” he says, giving Pastor Jim a serious look.
The minister nods and makes a hole for Dean to pass through the crowd and up to the registers in front.
“I have to make a stop, too, but you’re going to have to wait in the car.” There’s a jolly note in the man’s voice that hints at the reason for his stop. Dean works up an appropriate smile and tries to ignore the nervous feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t like to think about what they owe the minister. Doesn’t like to think, either, about the fact that they might be opening presents for each other without their Dad there to see it.
Almost idly, out of habit and practice, Dean has been surveying the people on the street. No one rings any bells—alarm or otherwise—and in a few minutes, Jim is back, tossing a medium-sized paper bag into the backseat and saying, “Where did you want to go to get your dad’s gift?”
The question startles Dean. He hadn’t really thought about it. Usually, Dad tells them not to waste their money on him. Besides, most of what he wants it’s illegal for Dean to buy.
He ticks over the obvious choices as Pastor Jim starts the car and pulls away from the curb. Rock salt. Too common. Shotgun shells. Too easy. Holy water…
“Actually…”
*****
Go here for Part IV.
Peace,
SW
Panicked, Dean bolts from the bed and races down the stairs, realizing only when he’s slid to a stop in the kitchen door that he’s clutching his bare-bladed knife.
Sammy’s at the table, pale and weak-looking but upright. He’s eating cereal and smiling at something Pastor Jim has just said. The man himself is at the stove, cooking bacon if the sizzle and the smell are any indication.
He turns to see Dean, pauses with his spatula above the spitting pan. “You won’t need that in here,” he says mildly, turning back to his task.
“What’s wrong, Dean?” Sammy croaks, looking from the knife to Dean’s face and back to the knife.
“Nothing, Sammy. Just…” Embarrassed, Dean turns around and returns to the bedroom to hide the knife away and get dressed.
When he rejoins them, Pastor Jim is at the table eating, and a third plate, filled with hot bacon and fluffy scrambled eggs, has been set catty-corner to Sam’s seat.
“I wanted your brother to stay in bed, but he insisted he was well enough to come to the table,” Jim explains. Sotto voce from behind his hand, he adds, as though filling Dean in on a secret, “Your brother can be pretty stubborn.”
Dean laughs at the understatement and laughs again when Sammy adds his own wheezing version to the chorus.
But Sammy doesn’t make it through half the cereal before he’s swaying in his seat, eyes half closed. Jim scoops him up, returns him to bed, and under Dean’s watchful eye administers more medicine.
Sammy’s tucked in and fast asleep in seconds.
Jim lingers at the bedside, brushing Sam’s over-long bangs out of his eyes. “Your brother needs a haircut.”
“Yeah, that’s what Dad’s always saying.”
Jim smiles at the comparison, but says nothing, moving past Dean to the hallway and closing the door most of the way behind him.
“I have to work in the church for much of the day. I suppose you’d like to stay close to Sam?”
“Yes, Pastor.”
“Well, I think I have some work for you to do in the kitchen, if you’re willing.”
“Yes, sir.”
Which is how he comes to spend the morning and most of the afternoon opening waxed white paper lunch bags, dripping wax from a taper candle into the bottoms, and sticking little metal-clad votives inside.
One after another after another.
At lunch, Jim asks if Dean’s ever been to a midnight service.
Dean shakes his head, happy to have a mouthful of grilled cheese, and reaches for his glass of milk as Pastor Jim follows up with a second question about church.
Still, it’s not prying. Dean can tell Jim’s just interested in how they spend their lives. He’s good at saying things without sounding like he means anything by them except what the words themselves say. Dean, who’s learned the art of lying from a master, appreciates Jim’s honesty even as he’s a little suspicious of it.
“We line the sidewalk in front of the church and up the stairs to the doors with the luminaria. It’s a pretty sight, but it’s also a lot of work. Frankly, I’m glad you’re here to help me with it.”
Dean’s learned that grown-ups sometimes throw him a bone like that, as if it’ll make him value the tedium more. In fact, he’s happy to help. It makes him feel a little less like a burden.
Pastor Jim makes up a plate for Sam, and Dean delivers it when the minister returns to the church. Sammy is awake, staring at the bunk-bottom above him.
“Hey,” Dean says.
“Hey.” He sounds better, maybe even a little bored, which Dean thinks is a vast improvement over delirious. Judging from the way Sam plows through the sandwich, chips, and milk, he must be feeling better, too.
“You want to come downstairs and help me for awhile?”
“Okay.” Sammy’s still pretty weak, and it takes some time to get him into a hooded sweatshirt over his sleep clothes and double socks (they haven’t had slippers that fit in a long time) and then even longer to make it all the way down the stairs, Dean balancing empty plate and cup in one hand, the other keeping a grip on Sam’s hood in case he starts to fall forward down the stairs.
The afternoon passes slowly, Sammy doing a luminarium and then stopping to cough or take his meds or have a drink of water. Dean’s happy to have the company, happier that it’s Sammy, even if his little brother isn’t much fun, still being sick and all.
Around two o’clock, Dean notices how pale Sammy’s gone and orders him upstairs, helping him get into bed, tucking him in, giving him more medicine.
“Dean?”
“Yeah, Sammy?” He’s in the door, just on the point of closing it.
“Do you think Dad’ll be here for Christmas?”
“Sure, Sam. You know he doesn’t miss those.”
“Do you think he’s mad at me?”
“For what, Sammy?”
“If I hadn’ta got sick, we wouldn’t have to be here.”
Though he’s worried himself about Dad’s reaction to all of this, Dean doesn’t let on that it’s bothering him.
“No, Sammy. You couldn’t help getting sick. And Pastor Jim is Dad’s friend. I’m sure he doesn’t mind us being here.”
He leaves out the part about the heat being shut off, about them running out of money. About how overdue Dad is for checking in.
“Get some sleep, Sammy, and if you’re up for it, you can come downstairs for dinner. Pastor Jim said he’ll make hamburgers and mac and cheese.”
“Great!”
Dean chuckles as he closes the door most of the way and heads for the stairs. Sammy sure sounds like he’s back to his old self, even if his throat still sounds scratchy and sore.
At dinner, Sammy proves that he’s better by eating two burgers and a big helping of mac and cheese.
“You must eat your Dad out of house and home,” Jim comments, wondering look on his face.
Dean looks up from his plate to gauge Jim’s expression, slows his own eating down in case there isn’t enough or they’re taking too much. Sammy, oblivious to such things, goes right on eating, nodding vigorously and saying around a mouthful of cheesy pasta, “I’m hungry!”
“Sammy,” Dean admonishes, and his little brother gives him a guilty look and mumbles, “Sorry, Pastor Jim,” in the direction of the bemused minister.
“Have as much as you’d like, Sam. You too, Dean. There’s plenty where that came from. The ladies of the parish sometimes overdo it at the holidays. I’ve got three tuna casseroles in the freezer and a half a ham in the fridge!”
Dean thinks about how their Dad likes ham, which leads him to wondering why they haven’t heard from him at all, and while he’s running through the usual excuses—he’s out in the middle of nowhere without a phone; he’s trapped in a snowstorm in northern Michigan; he’s tracking the werewolf and doesn’t have time to stop—Sam asks Pastor Jim something.
Dean’s only aware that the question might have been awkward by the silence that follows it.
He looks from Pastor Jim, who’s got a carefully neutral expression on his face, to Sam, whose eyes are still over-bright with illness and whose lips are parted both to help him breathe and because he seems eager to hear Jim’s answer.
“Your brother just asked me when your father will be here,” Jim supplies, apparently reading Dean’s confusion in his face.
“I told you, Sam. He never misses Christmas.”
He never has before. Dean’s learned that tradition doesn’t actually mean much, but he has to believe that their father will get there somehow.
“But he hasn’t called Pastor Jim, has he?”
The minister answers. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Your Dad’s business sometimes takes him to out of the way places.”
The tension Dean felt as the Pastor had begun his explanation is eased by the man’s careful words. What Sam doesn’t know can’t scare him, Dean figures, at least where their father’s real occupation is concerned.
“Speaking of Christmas,” the minister continues. “Would you like to come into town with me tomorrow, Dean, and pick out some presents?”
Jumping on the obvious excuse, Dean says quickly, “Someone’s got to stay here with Sam.”
“The Ladies Auxiliary will be decorating in the church tomorrow, and I thought one of them could keep an eye on Sam. We won’t be gone long.”
“And I’m a big boy,” Sam insists, lower lip pouting outward, arms crossing in a familiar way. “No one needs to watch me. I can stay by myself for a little while.”
Given no other option but the truth, Dean tries to soften it. “We don’t really ‘do’ presents,” he explains, trying for sincere.
“Yes we do, Dean! Remember last year, Dad got me the hunting knife? And you got me a book about animal tracks, with all the pictures of the different ones in it?”
Busted.
Dean can barely stand to look at the Pastor, sure he’s going to see disapproval in his face for having caught Dean in a lie.
What he sees instead is worse, a kind of understanding that makes Dean’s face burn red.
“How about I loan you the money and you can pay me back when you get your allowance?”
Dean doesn’t actually get an allowance—money’s usually too tight for that—but sometimes Dad lets Dean buy something that’s not a necessity, and usually he does let Dean pick out a gift for Sam for Christmas. Still, they already owe the minister so much…
“And Sam, you can tell me in private what you’d like to pick out for Dean, and I’ll get it for you and you can wrap it. How does that sound?”
“Can we, Dean?”
Sammy’s voice is full of excitement and hope, his face alight with joy, and Dean can’t possibly deflate his brother’s happiness with a reminder of their debt to their host.
“Okay, Sammy. But nothing too big, alright?”
“Alright, Dean!”
Sam scrambles down from his seat, swaying a little as he regains his balance, and then moves up beside Jim to tug on his sleeve.
“C’mon,” he says, and Pastor Jim puts down his napkin and rises.
“I’ll help with the dishes. Let me get Sam tucked in first.”
Ordinarily, his little brother would protest going to bed so soon after his supper, but in this case, he seems so eager to share his gift ideas with the minister that he doesn’t seem to notice the time.
Dean smiles a little to see Sammy so happy, but that smile quickly fades when he considers that the next day is Christmas Eve, and they still haven’t heard a word from Dad.
Distracting himself by scraping the plates and soaking the dishes, Dean hums “Jingle Bells” to himself and tries not to think about Christmas.
That effort lasts less than a minute, as he catches the sight of the luminaria lining the spare counter space in the kitchen.
Sighing, he works harder, and when Pastor Jim returns from getting Sam’s gift ideas for Dean and giving him his evening dose, the dishes are all done but for the drying.
“Don’t worry about your Dad, Dean,” Jim says without any lead-in. “He’s a great hunter and can take care of himself. There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong.”
This is the kind of line he’s used to getting from adults besides his Dad. Dad never sugarcoats anything, but other grown-ups, Dean’s noticed, like to tell little lies, thinking kids can’t hear the truth.
He doesn’t dispute his host, however, since that would be rude. Instead, he says, “I think I’ll go up to the room and say goodnight to Sammy and then get ready for bed.”
“It’s only seven o’clock.”
Dean shrugs. “Maybe I’ll read a little, first. I should brush up on my Latin.”
Ordinarily, Dean is loath to do anything like homework, and he’s not especially fond of what his father calls “research,” either. But he figures maybe it’ll soften his father up if he’s at least put his time to good use here.
“Alright. The ladies are coming at 8:00 tomorrow morning, and I have to meet with them. Why don’t you plan to be ready at 9:00, and we’ll go into town then? Can you see that you and Sam get some breakfast and that Sam takes his morning doses?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jim wishes Dean a goodnight, rests a hand on his shoulder briefly, and says again, “Your Dad’s fine, Dean. Don’t worry.”
Dean only nods and hurries toward the stairs, anxious to be out from under the Pastor’s watchful eyes for a little while. It’s hard always being on his game.
*****
She looks reliable enough, but Dean’s still not entirely convinced that he should leave Sammy in the care of Mrs. Reicher, who Pastor Jim had introduced as the “Vice President of our Ladies’ Auxiliary.” By the way she’d beamed in response, Dean guesses it’s a big deal.
It means nothing to him.
The pastor’s waiting in the car, though, and Dean can’t stall any longer. He gives Sammy a last long look, which his brother returns with happy, distracted eyes—Mrs. Reicher has promised to bake Christmas cookies with Sam.
“Be good, Sammy. And don’t burn yourself on the stove. And if you start to feel sick, let Mrs. Reicher help you to bed, okay? I’ll be back soon.”
Sammy nods, eyes tracking the portly, auburn-haired woman as she gets out cookie sheets and a mixing bowl.
Dean feels a little better seeing how familiar she is with the rectory kitchen. Pastor Jim must trust her.
Sighing and swallowing down the lump of misgiving taking up most of his breathing space, Dean goes out the kitchen door and down the driveway to where Pastor Jim sits in the running car, window open, talking to another strange woman.
Pastor Jim is good at making small talk, which is fine, since Dean is not. He doesn’t have to offer much, and the other man seems content to hum along to the “All Christmas, All the Time” radio station he’s got playing softly on the station wagon’s radio.
“What did you have in mind for Sam? There’s a toy store across town.”
“Is there a bookstore here?”
He can tell the pastor’s looking at him, but he makes an effort to look like he hasn’t noticed, counts the power poles as they slow for a red light.
“Sure.”
Dean had actually forgotten how much Sammy had liked the animal tracks book he’d gotten him last year, but the way his brother’s face had lit up at the memory had given Dean an idea.
It takes them awhile to find a parking spot in the long, narrow strip mall with the ubiquitous Chinese take-out place, a chain coffee shop, an office supply store, a dance studio, and on one end, anchoring it, a bookstore—Pearson’s, according to the blue neon sign taking up a good chunk of the façade.
Inside, the place is a stew of humanity, people shoulder to shoulder at the wooden shelves, help threading their way through with books in stacks held over their heads like rescue signals.
Dean’s not used to so many people in such tight quarters, and he’s happy that the pastor sticks with him, though he’d never admit it.
He doesn’t even mind that every third person stops them to talk. He’s introduced to more people in twenty minutes than he thinks he’s met in his whole life.
Aren’t there any other churches in Blue Earth?
Finally, though, they reach the kids section, and Dean spends some time considering big, colorful pop-up books about machines and magicians and other stuff before finding the nature books and settling in for choosing.
It takes him a minute and a half.
The book is large, with big, glossy pages splashed across with the brilliant colors of real photographs. Better yet, there are words, a lot of them, the kind that Sam likes to follow along with his finger and read out loud, sounding them out.
“That’s a pretty big book for a little boy,” Pastor Jim remarks. Dean just nods.
“And it’s for ten and up,” the minister adds.
Dean just clutches the book a little more tightly as a spectacled, pig-tailed hurricane in pink coat and fur-lined cap barrels up.
“I’m ready,” he says, giving Pastor Jim a serious look.
The minister nods and makes a hole for Dean to pass through the crowd and up to the registers in front.
“I have to make a stop, too, but you’re going to have to wait in the car.” There’s a jolly note in the man’s voice that hints at the reason for his stop. Dean works up an appropriate smile and tries to ignore the nervous feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t like to think about what they owe the minister. Doesn’t like to think, either, about the fact that they might be opening presents for each other without their Dad there to see it.
Almost idly, out of habit and practice, Dean has been surveying the people on the street. No one rings any bells—alarm or otherwise—and in a few minutes, Jim is back, tossing a medium-sized paper bag into the backseat and saying, “Where did you want to go to get your dad’s gift?”
The question startles Dean. He hadn’t really thought about it. Usually, Dad tells them not to waste their money on him. Besides, most of what he wants it’s illegal for Dean to buy.
He ticks over the obvious choices as Pastor Jim starts the car and pulls away from the curb. Rock salt. Too common. Shotgun shells. Too easy. Holy water…
“Actually…”
*****
Go here for Part IV.
Peace,
SW
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 06:11 pm (UTC)That line kills me.
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Date: 2009-12-10 01:08 am (UTC)