Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 16

Michael



I hand Mallory a pair of my sweats out of the laundry basket on the floor of the bedroom. With the drawstring waist she should manage okay.

She accepts them and glances at the bed.

It’s the same bed we had, the one we purchased together just before we moved into this house. Casey and I did buy some new sheets, but that’s the same bed, the same mattress.

I see Mallory still staring at it and wonder what exactly she’s remembering.

“You can’t sleep in here,” I blurt out.

“I wasn’t going to ask. What, you think I came here to seduce you?” She smirks now. “You wish.”

Despite this, she pulls off both my old wool sweater and her T-shirt in one swipe, not bothering to turn around or leave the room, exposing her lacy red bra.

I turn my back to her. “Jesus, Mal.”

“Oh, like you haven’t seen them before.”

I hear a soft fall of fabric, and I know she’s dropped the bra to the floor.

Oh, dammit.

I sit down on the other side of the bed, facing away from her, not just because she’s undressing in front of me, but because my stupid penis is springing up like it’s party time.

It’s been a while for Casey and me. A hungry man is not picky about his meal.

And if I’m honest, sex was one way in which Mallory and I were very, very compatible.

I think of the unsexiest things I can imagine. I think about work, that always does the trick at the worst possible times.

But work makes me think of Kate.

“It’s safe now,” Mallory says, chuckling.

Not hardly. I say, without standing up, “Go on downstairs, I’ll get you some blankets for the couch.”

She doesn’t move, and for a moment I’m terrified she’s going to come around to my side of the bed.

Mallory walks out, though, closing the door with a soft click behind her.

I ponder taking a cold shower, but the thought of Casey walking in this room just now seems to have done the job. I wait a few more moments to be sure, then go in search of blankets and a spare pillow.

Where is Casey, anyway? Maybe I should have let her take her phone. I could have called to check on her.

Downstairs, Mallory is mercifully clothed and not very sexy in my bulky gray sweats. She’s tossing back a pill with a glass of water. Headache, she tells me, after she gulps it down. She then stretches out, and it seems rude to just throw a folded blanket at her, so I snap it out and drape it across her.

Mallory stretches her arms and catches me around the neck. I freeze there.

Her hands are clasped snugly. Not tight exactly, but resisting my pull upward.

“Thank you,” she says.

I use my own hands to unclasp her arms, and stand up fully. “For what?”

“For being so kind.”

“What did you think I would do? Make you sleep on the porch? Make you go home and worry alone?”

“How do you know I’d be alone?”

I frown at her. Has she got a boyfriend again? God, that last one . . .

“I’m kidding, Mike. Yes, I am alone at the moment, if you must know.”

“Good night. I’ll wake you if I hear anything.”

I’d already called the police just after Casey left for her walk. They were sending the paperwork to the cell phone and e-mail companies and said they’d call when they knew more.

They were neutral and businesslike, and I know that’s how they should be, professional. In fact, that’s how I always act when I have to report on a tragedy. But now, on the other side of trauma, their coolness is infuriating.

“Mike?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever going to bed?”

I’d forgotten I was just standing there, hovering over Mallory. I give her a halfhearted wave and go upstairs.

Where the hell is Casey? I don’t want her tromping into the house late at night and waking everyone up.

The light is still on in Dylan’s room, from our earlier rummaging.

I should be telling him to turn out the light, close his laptop, and go to bed. I should be talking to him about band practice.

I try to imagine where he is. I picture him someplace relatively safe. Maybe he somehow got a motel room with this girl—with no credit card? Underage? Well, he got on a bus—and he’s warm and sleeping.

I can see him in his bed now as clearly as if he really were there. I can smell Dove soap on his skin. He takes a shower at night because it’s impossible to get in there around Angel in the morning, so every night he smells of Dove. We always used that on him, back to his toddler days when we were doing the scrubbing. It was good for his sensitive skin, which always seemed to break out red with the slightest dryness.

I bet he didn’t take his Eucerin. He’s going to be itchy.

I run lightly down the steps and grab my sneakers out of my gym bag. My hands buzz with unused energy. If I could run to Cleveland now, I would. I’ll drive there right now. When the police find him I’ll be partway there, then, and we won’t have to wait as long to be reunited. If Cleveland doesn’t pan out, I’ll drive to New York by the likeliest route and stop in every hotel lobby and show his picture. I’ll visit every bus station.

Casey and Mallory can watch the kids. Or not, my parents can, whatever.

My shoelace breaks. “F*ck.” I try to knot it, but one side is too short.

I slump over, leaning against the back door, defeated by a shoelace.

As my blood rush slows, reason resumes its seat. At the very least I need Casey here. I can’t dash off while she’s still out walking, or whatever the hell she’s doing.

I look at the clock. Nearly midnight. I should be worried about Casey, too. A young woman—a small, slight woman, at that—alone walking in the dark city, and I went and confiscated her cell phone.

I ignore my loose sneaker and grab my coat off the hook, slipping out the back door so I don’t wake Mallory.

My plan is to go around the block, her favorite walk route—and a route that would never take this long—when I happen to glance at the house and see something on our porch. Human-size, like some derelict has snuck up onto our porch swing to sleep.

I approach slowly, because if someone is nuts or high enough to sleep on a stranger’s porch . . .

“Casey?”

She rolls herself up to sitting in the porch swing. She’s shivering hard, her wet hair plastered to her head. From here her lips look blue, where they’re not red with the blood from her lip, which has split again.

“What are you doing?”

Her words are clumsy, like she’s been at the dentist and her mouth is numb.

“I’m l-l-locked out.”

I pull her up off the chair and get my own keys out of my pocket. “Didn’t you knock?”

“No one heard me.”

When I get her inside the warmth, she shivers harder. I wonder, with Mallory right there on the couch, why she didn’t hear the knocking. But I look over, and she seems to be snoring already.

“Go upstairs and take a bath. I’ll make you some tea.”

She nods and walks hunched, as if she’s frozen so stiff her joints won’t stretch.

After I make Casey some tea, I’m going to the computer to map a route to Cleveland. I’m not going to sleep until I know he’s safe.

I bring up Casey’s tea, and she’s wrapped in her bathrobe, the running tub steaming up the small bathroom. She nods her thanks.

Before I go, I take out her phone and rest it on the bathroom counter.

Our eyes lock for a moment, her face passive, watchful, before I close the door. I’m weary, and my sleepiness causes me to prop up for a moment against the hallway wall and close my eyes.

I’m a caretaker again, still, always.