There Were No Tears

I can't say I remember the entirety of that day, but I know that when it happened, I was outside.  My friend Zack was over, and we were playing on the blacktop by the garage.  What we were doing, I cannot, for the life of me, recall.  But what I do remember is that right in the middle of whatever the hell we were doing, Zack's mom told me about the call she'd just gotten.  My dad had a heart attack.  I didn't know what that meant at the time, but it didn't sound good.  Zack made a snarky comment about my dad dying, but his mom reminded him of an aunt of theirs who had a heart attack and lived.  I felt a lot better, and we went back to whatever the hell it was we were doing.  Then, whatever the hell it was we were doing was stopped again, this time by my mom pulling up in the driveway.  I ran up to her and asked about dad.  I'm not sure if there was any lead-in, but I remember the words "he died."  No tap-dancing around it. 

There were no tears.  I had every reason to cry right then, with no shame in it, and I almost felt like it, but no tears came out.  I just sulked.  And that's all I did for the longest time about it.  There was the occasional misty eye, but never bawling, never like what my mom or sister did.  At his wake, no tears.  His funeral, no tears.  At every cemetery visit for the next 5-odd years, no tears.  Just sulking.  Stoic solemness. Whatever you want to call it. 

It was not long before, at my aunt's house, my mom (or was it my Aunt Becky?) read to us The Fall of Freddie the Leaf.  What the story was, how it was resolved, I can't say.  All I know is that it made me feel better about the whole thing.  And, however shitty it sounds, that was the end of it.  For a while, at least.