Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 6

Michael



I guide Casey into the bedroom and sit her down on the edge of the unmade bed. She’s massaging her right shoulder but seems otherwise intact.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, which seems wholly inadequate for having to pull my ex-wife off of her. I push a strand of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear, tracing her jaw with my fingers. “I’m sorry,” I say, a little louder, because I really am sorry for so much.

She shrugs, not looking at me.

For years, married to Mallory, I apologized for her. So sorry, she had a bit too much eggnog, or I know, Mrs. Martin, she didn’t need to scream obscenities at you over the phone because your daughter pulled Jewel’s hair, and No, my wife isn’t coming to parent-teacher night, she has a headache.

I thought when I divorced her, I’d get to stop doing that.

Casey is short, and perched on the edge of the bed, her feet don’t quite touch the floor. She swings them slightly, like a kid waiting for a scolding. With her ponytail and blue jeans she looks very small and young indeed.

“It’s not your fault.”

She shrugs. “Small comfort, if . . .”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but I hear her anyway. If we don’t find him at all.

“I think we should call the police.”

Casey jerks to attention. “What about all those reassuring things you just said out there?”

“I’m trying to keep Angel from panicking. Mallory will panic if she wants to, I can’t stop that, never could. But I’m telling you the truth now. My son has been missing for hours, and . . . I’m about a hair away from calling the police, but before I do that, I want to be able to tell them something useful. Can you get into his e-mail?”

Casey wrinkles her face. “I hate to pry.”

“I know, but Case—”

She nods, cutting me off with a wave. “I’m not a magician, though, okay? I’m just a programmer, not a hacker or a spy.” She rubs her arm where Mallory grabbed her, her gaze on the floor again, unfocused. “He’s going to be mad about the snooping.”

“I’m mad at him! He could get himself hurt doing God knows what with . . . who knows? What if he’s on drugs? What if he’s been . . .”

I trail off, unable to speak it aloud.

It’s hereditary, so I’ve read. Mental illness. Not that Mallory has been officially diagnosed. I couldn’t get her to attend therapy with any regularity. And anyway, she laughed in the face of the first shrink I dragged her to, after milking her for a Valium prescription.

My father once called her “a case study in crazy.”

He said that the day after I found her white and groaning on the bathroom floor, her stomach full of Tylenol, after a particularly vicious fight. For months after that I laid awake debating if it was an attention-getting stunt or a suicide attempt, however halfhearted. Maybe both. Mallory herself likely wouldn’t know.

That was the first time I left, packing the kids off to my parents’ house in East Grand Rapids, just a few miles as the crow flies but a whole other world with its brick and ivy and leather furniture.

Dylan has always seemed to be on an even keel. Old before his time. But he is his mother’s son, too.

Casey has remained silent, but now I can feel her watching me. She puts her hand on my knee and squeezes, her trademark gesture, started as a secret I love you under the table when we were still trying to be coy about our feelings in front of the kids.

I put my hand over hers, my secret gesture back.

“So how do we get Mallory out of here?” Casey asks.

I swallow hard at this. “Well . . .”

Casey stands up. “She attacked me just now! If you hadn’t pulled her off me, she’d have yanked out my hair or God knows what! You’re going to let her stay?”

“It’s not that simple. She’s Dylan’s mother, and she’s worried.”

“Oh my God. You’re not going to ask her to leave. What would she have to do, Michael? Break my nose? Send me to the hospital?”

“Don’t you get hysterical, too.”

“Don’t you compare me to her.” Casey’s not shouting. Her voice is even, and cold like the air outside.

“That’s not what I meant,” I rush to say, though this is a lie and I’m sure she knows it. “But think about it. If I try to send her home it will be more fireworks, more drama. She will probably refuse, and then what? Do I physically throw her out and get arrested for assault? Do we really want to waste all that energy?”

Casey wilts from her ramrod angry posture, seeming to resign herself to the bitter reality of managing Mallory. “So, what, she gets to beat me up so we don’t upset her?”

“I’ll talk to her while you look for Dylan’s computer, then we’ll call the police.”

“Fine.” She walks past me without meeting my eyes. I reach out to her, but she doesn’t see me try.


Downstairs, I tell Mallory and Angel that Casey is going to get into the e-mail, adding, “I guess he lost his right to privacy when he pulled this stunt.”

“Assuming he did this himself,” Mallory says, biting her lip and jiggling her knee, perched on the edge of the couch next to Angel.

“For God’s sake. This is not the time for your melodrama. We’ve got quite enough regular drama, thanks.”

“Oh, is it Pile On Mallory Day again? So soon, and I haven’t even put up the decorations.”

“Yeah, Dad,” interjects Angel. “She’s worried. Why aren’t you?”

“I am worried!”

Angel leaps up from the couch. “You’re never worried! You’re always like, ‘It’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.’ It’s like you don’t even care!”

“Someone has to keep it together in this house! Do you want me to start wailing and beating my chest? What good is that going to do?”

Mallory stands up on the other side of the couch. “Stop yelling at her!”

“I’m not yelling!”

The house rings with the echo of my words. How many times has it been this way? Mallory, me, and a kid in a triangle, shouting, my resolve to stay calm crumbling like a burned-up coal at the slightest touch.

I close my eyes. My heart is still hammering along as I say quietly, “Angel, I’m sorry. Do you believe me now that I’m upset, too? I just don’t show it the same way.”

“Whatever.” Angel flips her hair out of her face.

“Great, now I have a headache,” Mallory growls, rooting around in her purse. “Angel honey, will you get me some water?”

I turn away from them, heading up the stairs two at a time to go check on Casey’s progress in Dylan’s room.