In Loving Memory, Frank Warren

Chapter 12: Unauthorized Flight

"Your mother should spend the night," Frank suggested, staring down at his sofa. "I don't have another bedroom but the couch is pretty comfortable. I do have extra sheets and a pillow."

"Why?" Dean asked, pouring coffee into their respective to-go travel mugs. "She can come over in the morning. Mom is a morning person, like me. I promise she'll be here in time to go shopping for the party."

"I don't like it." Frank felt like a random track stuck on repeat.

A low groan issued from the kitchen. "Okay, I give. What don't you like about it? Give me an explanation, just one, and I promise to talk to her. But I won't do it just because you don't like it, I need more.

"And if you keep this up much longer I'm going to be late for work." Dean waved him into the kitchen. "Come on, Baby. Let's go."

Shuffling his feet as he went Frank tried to put his feelings, the dread, into words.

"Well?" Dean demanded, pressing his coffee mug into his hand.

"Give me a minute," Frank snapped, irritable over not being taken seriously enough, "I don't rush you when you're thinking."

"Sorry. Sorry." Dean held his hands up in surrender before heading for the front door to gather his things.

Dragging his feet, Frank stared at the pristine white tile floor while he pondered this intolerable situation. Why was it so bad? Why did he have this horrible foreboding if Dean's mother came over by herself she would never arrive?

Of course, he had it. It was obvious.

Frank's head whipped up to glare at Dean. "It's an unsupervised flight. One of us should bring her over, she shouldn't make the walk by herself." He gestured with his hands, ignoring the fact Dean was holding out his briefcase. "There's no telling what could happen. She could be mugged, hit by a bus, frozen crap dropped by an airplane could land on her head and kill her, it's too dangerous."

There. If this was not enough to convince him then Dean did not deserve to have a mother at all.

"And Mom says I'm paranoid," Dean groaned, following it up with a heavy sigh. "Do you feel it's that important?"

"You don't think your mother's life is important?" he demanded, shocked and outraged.

"Damn it." Dean dumped their briefcases back on the small table by the front door. Then he set his coffee mug down. Turning to face Frank, Dean reached out to grasp him by the shoulders.

"That's not what I said. All right? I never said my mother's life wasn't important. I asked how important was it to you for us to bring Mom over tonight, so she won't have to walk over in the morning. Is it really important to you?"

"Yes." His voice might have cracked. "I'll get on my knees and beg if necessary."

"No, no." Dean's grip held Frank upright. "Okay, if it means this much to you I'll talk to her. I'm sure I can talk her into it if you're this worried."

"I can't believe you're not." Frank snatched his briefcase off the table. "I mean, she is your mother."

Storming off, Frank left the locking of the door up to Dean. He was so upset he honestly did not care if his television was missing when he came home. All he cared about was Missus Smith not taking some unsupervised flight.

Speaking of, they never had the unsupervised flight argument, did they? Nope. How could he forget an important item related so closely with this issue? No wonder Dean was not taking him seriously.