Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 9

Michael



Mallory puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs lightly. I feel myself sag and realize how tense I’ve been.

“She just doesn’t get it. When you’re not a parent it’s hard to understand what it’s like to be afraid for your child.”

I shrug off Mallory’s hand. It wasn’t fair to explode at Casey, and from the look on her face, I might as well have punched her.

She’ll forgive me when it’s over. Mallory is right—it’s impossible to understand what it’s like to be a parent until you are a parent yourself.

Mallory strokes my hair above my ear, where it goes curly because I haven’t bothered with a haircut. I resist the urge to bat her hand away and instead just stand up.

“I think it’s time to call the police.”

I immediately wish I hadn’t said this in front of Jewel, whose face puckers into a snarl of worry. Angel’s eyes are round.

Mallory exhales. “Yes, I think we’d better.”

“Kids. I don’t think anything bad has happened to Dylan. He’s a smart guy. Obviously, since he’s covered his tracks. He’ll be okay,” I say, rushing past this because I’m not sure I believe it, “but because it seems he doesn’t want to be found and none of the friends we know about can find him, we have to get help. I’ll give Casey a little time to investigate his e-mail to see if we can give the police something useful to go on, and then I’ll call.”

Mallory seems refreshed, somehow, as if she’d just had a nap. She starts bustling in the kitchen, picking up the plates, packing away the leftover pizza, going instinctively to where our trash can is, since it hasn’t moved since she lived here.

I say, “Angel and Jewel, if you have any homework you should probably do it.”

“What?” shrieks Angel. “My brother is missing, and you’re making me do homework? Are you out of your mind?”

“Watch your tone. You still have school in the morning. All we’re doing is sitting around waiting here.”

“I am not going to school tomorrow.”

I open my mouth to object, and Mallory jumps in. “Honey, you can stay home.” She turns to me, one hand on her hip. “Really, Mike, what harm does it do for her to miss one day? It’s Friday tomorrow, she has the whole weekend to catch up. Do you honestly expect her to concentrate right now? And Jewel, too? Good grief, she’s only eight.”

In a flash I see myself as they see me. The Mean Dad, insisting on homework and school as important above all else, even now.

But it is important, so goes my internal dialogue.

But you sound just like your father.

My father. I suppose I’d better clue in the grandparents. They have a right to know what’s going on with their grandson. And maybe it’s possible Dylan confided in them, if he couldn’t talk to me.

I rub my temple, hating to cave in to Mallory, but hating worse the looks on my kids’ faces. “Okay. Fine. Both of you can stay home tomorrow, but we’ll pick up your homework and you’ll do it over the weekend. We’ll have found him by then. Life can’t stop because Dylan pulled this—”

I was going to say “stunt,” but that doesn’t seem right. A stunt is something you’d expect from a hothead, a rebel. Dylan is considerate and serious. I have to confess he’s run away, but he must have felt like he had a damn good reason.

This has to be true. Because otherwise I don’t know my son at all.


I leave Mallory in the family room watching crap TV with the girls, trying not to care they are watching a reality TV show about Playboy bunnies. I’d almost forgotten this side effect of living with Mallory: the constant feeling of my best parental intentions being eroded, so gradually I hardly notice, until they’re eating frozen pizza four nights a week and staying up as late as they want and doing homework in front of the television.

So then I come down harder to make up for her slack, and become the Mean Dad. It’s a wonder the kids were willing to live with me.

Though Mallory is not always a ball of fun, and we never know which version we’ll get.

I go up to my own room to call my parents. Regrettably, my father answers.

“Dr. Turner,” he says, as if he’s still working and on call for cardiac surgery.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, son. How goes the battle?” as he always asks, because he knows my life seems to be filled with mortar rounds broken by tenuous cease-fires. Less so since my divorce, but still.

“I have to tell you something.”

He mutes the TV, where he’d likely been watching the History Channel, his favorite.

“Go on.”

“We can’t find Dylan. I dropped him off at school this morning and he went in the building, but no one has seen him since and he hasn’t come home.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this at lunch? My God, he’s been gone twelve hours now!”

“I thought he’d turn up.”

“What difference would that have made? I deserved to know this.”

“Right, because the number-one thing on my mind is how you feel.”

“Don’t attack me. It’s not my fault he’s gone.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

I brief my father on what’s happened, and he listens quietly.

“So, it’s clear what you do now.”

“Is it?” I ask, rubbing the bridge of my nose because my father is always clear about everything.

“Yes, of course. You go to the media, seeing as you’re a member of the media.”

“Dad. The media doesn’t do runaways. There are no Amber alerts for runaways, for example. It’s not news.”

“So you say.”

“Don’t you think I’d know?”

“I can’t believe you won’t try.”

“I’m telling you, the newspaper is not going to give me special treatment because I work there. Probably the opposite, so they don’t look like they’re doing favors. Just last week Aaron had to tell this hysterical mother that we weren’t going to do a story about her kid who ran away, and they can’t very well turn around and put Dylan’s face in the paper.”

“Hmmm. Maybe I’ll see what I can do.”

“Look, can I talk to Mom?”

Without preamble my father hands over the phone. I brief Mom about it, and she gasps in all the right places. Thank God she understands. Of course she would.

“And Mom, please tell Dad not to bother with the media. I don’t think they’ll do a thing, even for Dr. Henry Turner.”

“I’ll see what I can do, dear,” my mother replies. “Although you know that when your father makes up his mind, there’s little even I can do to change it.”

“Can’t you slip him a mickey?” I say, laughing weakly.

She ignores the joke. “Just call me the minute you know something and tell me if there’s anything I can do. Do you need me to come over?”

“No, it’s a little crowded already. Mallory’s here.”

“Oh, dear.”

“It’s all right, actually. She’s in good form.”

“I’ll pray for him. Let me know, honey. He’ll be okay. I’m sure it’s just a boy thing and he’ll come home soon.”

“I never did anything like this.”

“Well, you had . . . Things were different for you.”

We say our good-byes, and I slump back on my bed. I listen for sounds of mayhem in the house. Everything sounds normal.

It’s an understatement to say things were different for me, an only child of a driven, ambitious doctor. Though I certainly knew other children of ambitious, successful parents who did their share of screwing up.

I grimace now to think of the furious desperation with which I studied, only barely aware that I was doing it for attention. I told myself that I wanted good grades so I could get into the college I wanted. I was staying in on Saturday nights because I didn’t want to end up sloppy drunk and knocking up a girl in high school like Mitch Donnelly.

And all I got for it was a nod and a twitch of mustache.

Now Mom, on the other hand, lavished me with praise. That should have helped, and I did—I do—feel glad she’s proud of me, but I always knew the reason her praise was so voluminous, so effusive, was because Dad’s was so lacking.

There’s a soft knock at the door. Casey must have some news.

“Yeah, come in.”

Mallory slides in through the door, her head down, peeking up at me through her white-blond hair. She’s got a beer in her hand, and my stomach drops. Great. She’s going to start drinking, here, now, of all times. I didn’t even know we had beer in the house. I sit up on the edge of the bed.

“Thought you might need this.” She holds it out to me. I accept it warily, and look back at her.

She reads my expression and smiles, but there’s no light in her eyes. Rueful. A look I seldom see from her. “Yes, you’re wondering where my drink is, no doubt. Nope, I’m not drinking these days. I don’t suppose you knew that.”

I didn’t. She could have told me she’d sawed off one of her own legs and I’d have sooner believed it. Yet she’s standing before me in arm’s reach of a beer and hasn’t taken a sip. “I didn’t know we had any.”

She shrugged. “I found one way in the back when I was looking for a Diet Coke.”

I take a sip, and it’s cold, but otherwise tastes like nothing to me. I set it down carefully on the nightstand.

I put my elbows on my knees and hold my head in my hands. “Jesus, Mal. Why would he do this? And where is he sleeping tonight?”

I’m not looking at her, but I can hear a thread of a crack in her voice. “I know. I thought I’d always know where he was sleeping. That’s silly, I guess, eventually I knew he’d grow up, but . . . And actually for me it’s been over two years since I tucked him in every night. I never would have guessed that at twelve years old he’d be living somewhere else.”

“Not now.”

“No, I know. I made that bed, didn’t I?”

My second shock in the past few minutes. I look up to see if it’s still really Mallory standing there. She’s holding her own arms like she’s cold. She might be; she’s only wearing a thin cotton shirt, and this place is drafty, especially upstairs.

“You look like you’re freezing. Let me grab you a sweater.” I stand up and go to my closet, selecting a navy blue wool sweater my dad bought me for Christmas that I rarely wear. I hand it to Mallory and she slips it over her head, stretching up as she does so, arching her back so that her breasts push against her shirt before pulling down the sweater. I wonder if that was for me, or if it’s just part of her general habit of pulling attention her way, like a planet pulls its moon.

She looks out the window at the dark evening. She bites her lip. She walks over to me and stands close, meeting my eyes. “Why won’t he call?”

Tears well up in her lashes, and I pull her to me. She turns her head to the side and rests her face on my shirt, her nose against my neck. We fit like puzzle pieces this way.

The door is still open, and when I hear a noise I look up to see Casey, holding on to a notebook. Her face is pale except for two dots of pink on her cheeks. She, too, looks cold, because her hands seem to be shaking.

“I found something,” she says.