When the car stopped spinning that day I ended up on the floor of the backseat, and I think something bopped my head because I touched my head and I was bleeding. This scared me, but what scared me worse was that Mom was leaning back on the seat like dead people do on the TV shows she likes to watch. The air bag was all empty in front of her like a pillowcase. People were already running up, though, and pretty soon there were sirens and Mom was sitting up in the front seat and talking and holding me in her lap. She called my grandpa because my dad didn’t answer his phone.
Then the police officer and my mom had an argument. Then she blew into a little machine and by then Grandpa Turner was there and he’s a doctor so he looked at my head and told me it wasn’t deep and I’d be fine, but I didn’t care about that.
On my bed, I wrap my arms around my stomach and curl up tighter. I kinda wish I’d been hurt bad in the crash so that I’d been at the hospital and not there to see the next part. It’s the part I keep thinking of when I can’t sleep.
I saw the policeman put handcuffs on my mom, and put her in the back of the police car. She was cussing him. She didn’t even look back at me. My grandpa said the police just had to talk to my mom, but I’ve watched enough shows to know that she got arrested. I shouted “Mommy!” but she didn’t hear me, and my grandpa told me it would be okay and not to worry.
But every time grown-ups say that, there’s always reason to worry. Always.
My grandpa took me back to his house, where Grandma made me cookies and let me watch all the SpongeBob I wanted until Daddy got there, and he looked like a zombie, he was so greeny-white.
And there were lots of grown-ups whispering. And I learned what “drunk” meant.
And then Mommy moved out, and we don’t see her very much.
I used to wish really hard to rewind time back to that kindergarten day. And in the movie that plays in my head, this time I just write my numbers backward, and maybe the teacher frowns at me but my mom is still home and everyone’s together.
But I know that can’t really happen. So instead I put our family picture on the vision board and maybe if I hope really hard, “put it out to the universe” like the book says, then my mom will come home.
She didn’t smell like drunk today, so that’s good. That’s really good.
But if Dylan doesn’t come home, it doesn’t count.
I stretch out my hand and touch his face in the picture, and think of him giving me a horsey ride, so I go ahead and cry on my pillow.
Someone’s shaking my arm.
I open my eyes, and it’s dark in my room and it feels like night. But it can’t be. I’m not in pajamas. My dad is there, and the hallway light is on. He’s still wearing his work clothes. I must have been napping.
“Hey, babe. Come down and get something to eat.”
“Where’s Dylan?” I stretch. My neck is all kinked up because I slept weird. “And what time is it?”
“It’s six o’clock. He’s not home yet.”
“Why isn’t he home?”
“I don’t know, baby. Did he . . . Did he say anything to you? About school, or anything?”
I shake my head. I know Dylan loves me and stuff because he’s my brother, but it’s not like he tells me secrets. He’s way older than me.
I put my hand on Dad’s arm before he gets off the bed. “Are you worried about him?”
He stops, and he’s got his thinking face on for when he’s trying to think how to answer me. I hate that. But then he drops that face and he sighs. “Yeah,” he says, and he pulls me in for a hug. “Yeah. I am.”
He stands up and takes my hand and I let him hold it even though I’m a big girl and I don’t need his hand to get down the steps. “We got pizza,” he says. “No one wanted to cook.”
“Do you have any leads?”
He stops on the steps and gives me this funny half-smile. “Leads? Where did you pick that up? You’re not reading murder mysteries, are you?”
“Not yet. I saw it on CSI.”
“CSI? Your mother lets you watch—”
He interrupts himself and bites his lip, looking away, and my stomach pinches up because I did it again, tattled on Mom, but I didn’t mean to. He starts back down the steps. “Anyway. No, not yet.”
My mom rushes up to hug me when I get downstairs. She tries to smooth down my hair. “Baby, are you okay? Are you feeling sick?”
I shake my head. I’ve learned my lesson about admitting to stomachaches.
“Hi, kiddo,” says Casey.
I almost didn’t see her because she’s sitting on a high barstool in the corner of the kitchen, balancing a paper plate on her knees. She looks like she could be as young as Angel, especially with her hair in a ponytail. And I’m not sure exactly why, but that really makes my mom mad, and Angel, too.
Well, I do know why it bugs Angel. She’s told me before that Casey tries to be her friend and she doesn’t want to be Casey’s friend. That just because she wears high-top Converse doesn’t make her “cool,” and it’s embarrassing to think that Casey might be our stepmom when she looks like a kid instead of like the other moms. One time at the mall a lady thought Casey was our big sister, and I thought Angel was going to barf.
I sneak Casey a little smile, then look quick at my mom, who was talking to my dad and didn’t see it.
The adults are talking again, so I pretend to be invisible so maybe they’ll forget I’m here and stop changing what they say around me.
My dad is talking about how he must have some other friends they don’t know about, someone who knows what’s going on, maybe he’s sneaking around with a bad crowd or something, since none of his band friends know anything, and since his best friend Jacob isn’t his friend anymore. That’s news to me, and it’s a bummer. I liked Jacob.
They all look at Angel, and she goes, What? Stop looking at me, I told you I don’t know anything about it. Angel is ripping apart the pizza with her fingers, pretending to eat it. She’ll throw it away, later, when none of the adults are looking.
My mom starts talking to my dad about why he doesn’t know all his friends and we need to break into his Facebook account and they turn to Casey and she just looks down at her pizza and starts picking at it.
“I made him give me the password when he started Facebook,” Dad says, “just so I’d know, but that was a long time ago and he changed it.”
“Girl Genius can figure it out, though. Right?” says Mom, pointing at Casey, her hand making like a gun, like she’s playing cops and robbers.
They don’t allow that at my school, not even pretend-finger guns.
“I can try,” Casey says, still picking at the pizza. “But it’s not like the movies where anyone who knows a little code can punch buttons and break into anything. It would be just me, guessing the password. Anyway, didn’t you make him take you as a Facebook friend? Look at his profile. You might not have to break into anything.”
My dad looks down at his feet. “I tried that already, at work. I think he put me on restricted view of his profile because there’s pretty much nothing on it. Angel, what about you?”
She tosses her hair behind her shoulder. “No. Not since he wrote on this guy’s wall and told him he was being a jerk to me. I defriended him.”
My dad stands up straight, his eyes wide all of a sudden. “Wait! Casey, you set up a network backup. It automatically backs up our computers over the network, right? Even e-mail.”
All the grown-ups and Angel start looking at each other, and they all stare at Casey.
“Well, that’s true—”
“Why didn’t you say something?” my dad shouts, slapping his hand so hard on the table it rattles his water glass. Everyone jumps at this, and Casey gasps out loud. “It’s dark out, and he’s been missing for almost twelve hours! Jesus, Casey!”
Her hands fly up to her face. “I just . . . I didn’t think of it right away . . .”
“Yeah, right,” my mom whispers loudly. I can tell by the look on C
asey’s face that she heard.
My dad goes over to Casey immediately, saying, “I didn’t mean to shout . . . I just . . . I’m getting desperate, here.” He tries to reach out to her shoulder, tries to pull her in for a hug, but she’s all rigid, like a flagpole.
Then Casey nods, and whispers something like “fine” or “okay” but I can’t tell. She walks around the table and away from Dad, out of the room, down the hall to the basement steps, where all her computer stuff is.
I could see the look on her face when she went by. I bet Casey has a stomachache, too.
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?”
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