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.
Chapter 17
Mallory, 1995
Not until I heard Angel squeal “Daddy!” did I even notice Michael was in the house. I’d been concentrating so hard on Dylan’s little forehead. He’d been staring at me as he sucked away on his bottle like he was trying to figure me out and I was thinking, Join the club, kid, and my stitches hurt and Angel was jostling me as she pretended to read me Goodnight Moon and said good night to all the things in our living room.
I wondered how long he’d been standing there, staring at us. I imagined how we looked sitting there, how very domestic, and found myself amazed again at how normal things were.
He swung Angel up and nuzzled her neck, then as Angel wrapped her arms and legs around him to hold on like a barnacle told me, “Guess what I found out today?”
“Yeah?”
“I got the job!”
I hadn’t meant to startle Dylan, but I couldn’t help but shout with joy. He’d been slaving at that internship for too long, with a little money but no benefits, while his dad had been paying all our hospital bills.
Dylan shrieked fit to make my ears bleed, ignoring the plastic nipple. I teased his lips with it, and a shivery panic started to creep up my spine. But Michael untangled from Angel and scooped up his baby in his big hands, and I swear Dylan took one look at those clear blue eyes and settled right down.
“You’re amazing,” I told him, ignoring the whispering thought in my head, He loves his daddy better than you. “Professional reporter and father of the year, too.”
I rose gingerly, wincing at the stitches pulling, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “How are you today?” he asked me.
“Fine,” I answered breezily.
He didn’t answer, and when I met his eyes, he was staring hard at me. “Better,” I answered. “Pretty good.” And it was true.
Michael interrupted my thoughts by suggesting we go out and celebrate. I told him yes please, as long as I could shower.
I should have known dinner wouldn’t go well. Angel had missed her nap and Dylan was fussy, but I didn’t mind taking off early with doggie bags, since it made Michael so happy to take his family out at all. He was celebrating being a provider for us, with a steady income and everything.
On the way home now, with our still-warm food in Styrofoam containers in our laps and the kids dozing in their car seats, I stole a glance at Michael, the early autumn sun glowing in the car. I found myself stunned nearly every day that he loved me, was still with me, even knowing my sordid past, how I’d buried myself in sex with half strangers as a way to forget, maybe punish myself.
He always insisted it didn’t matter. He also insisted—the ever-practical doctor’s son—that we both get tested.
For this I bit down my impulse to be insulted and hurt, and made myself think differently and so far I’d been rewarded with a loving, attentive husband, if a bit stuffy at times, with a tendency to be critical.
Forcing myself to think differently was exhausting, though, and that’s how I thought of those dark periods. I needed to hibernate sometimes, to recover from that effort. When I felt the darkness creeping up—like in that old horror movie, The Blob, it would rise from the ground and gradually swallow me—I would call Michael to tell him I needed rest and crawl into bed for a few days.
That was better than the alternative, because if I ignored the Blob, it would go the other way, and soon I’d be throwing things, screaming, and this would make Angel cry.
It was easier to be different when pregnant, so that’s why I convinced Michael to have another baby, even before graduation. For one thing, he was different when I was carrying a child: even more careful and solicitous, treating me like blown glass.
Maybe now, I thought, tipping my head back on the headrest, the warm pasta heating my thighs, NPR softly on the radio, maybe now it will stick better, the even-keel feeling, because I’ll have so much to do. Two children, and a whole house to clean and maintain.
The Blob was so much more common when I was bored. Like it wanted to fill the emptiness.
Michael had been talking about his new job at the Herald, so I tuned back in.
I squeezed his thigh. “I’m so proud of you.”
He blushed a little, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He always reacted that way to praise, having gotten so little from that stuffed-shirt father of his.
In the house, after we slurped down our leftover meals, I gratefully let Michael take over with the kids. I stretched out on the couch, on my side, the only way I could rest that didn’t seem to hurt somewhere. I flipped channels and listened to him read to Angel, taking breaks to coo at Dylan in his bouncy seat . . .
The next thing I knew the house was quiet, and Michael was nudging me to make room on the couch. Dylan was dozing in his car seat at our feet, sucking on a pacifier.
I shifted slightly to make room for him, and then rested my head in his lap, facing the television. He stroked my hair back from my face.
He reported to me about all he’d done for the bedtime routine, as if I were going to grade his report card. I just murmured, still in the fog of dinner and my doze.
The telephone shrilling made me jump. Michael leaned forward to answer the cordless, sighing, both of us hoping it wasn’t the newspaper.
“Oh, hi Kate,” he said.
I felt my body go stiff. I pulled myself up, away from him, and listened to his side of the conversation.
“I can’t now,” he said. “I’m with my wife and kids.”
Oh yes, he’s twenty-two years old and already tied down with me, the fat, bloated cow, and the babies. Little Katie—I’d met her, she had round perky boobs and wore the shortest skirts I’d ever seen in an office—was practically shouting, so I could hear her just fine as she said, Oh, come on, he was allowed to go out and celebrate a new job, wasn’t he? The wife could watch the kids?
Michael flicked his eyes over at me. Was that guilt? It sure wasn’t a loving gaze.
“I should go,” he said. “I’ll see you at work.” He hung up and turned to me, and I could see him searching for explanations.
“Go then,” I spat. “Go have a drink with your little slut.”
“She’s not a slut, she just—”
“Oh, it’s perfectly normal for a single girl to call up a married man while his wife’s stitches are still healing from labor to ask him out for a drink? Go then, don’t let the ball and chain stop you.”
“She just doesn’t know how it works, she’s practically a kid.”
“She wouldn’t have called here if she didn’t think you might go. So is that who you have lunch with every day? And a drink? Is that why when I call you at the office I can’t reach you?”
“No! I’m not interested in her, okay? Not in the least.”
“Bullshit, you’re not. You’d have to be blind or gay not to be.”
He scooted closer to me. “I don’t want you to be upset. I will tell her not to call here ever again. I love you, Mal.”
“No matter what?” I asked, feeling the tears spill over then, my fear of his answer loud like drumbeats in my head.
“No matter what,” he said, pulling me back to him, tucking me in the crook of his arm.
He let me cry on his shirt, and he kissed the top of my head.
Then he said quietly, almost murmuring, as if he thought I wouldn’t hear, “I wish I knew how to make you believe me.”
I wish I did, too.
Chapter 18
Michael
Casey and I passed the night together in t
he kitchen, neither of us willing or able to sleep.
While Casey was still thawing out in the tub, I’d abandoned the idea of driving all night toward Cleveland, feeling too tired and scattered to focus, afraid I’d end up crashed on the side of the road, compounding tragedy with rash, pointless action. The Cleveland police were looking, the Grand Rapids police checking out the phone and e-mail records. That was their job.
Yet the idea of sleeping in my warm bed felt like a betrayal, not knowing where my son was, whether he was safe and warm himself. I kept returning to the missing children stories I’ve reported and read over the years, and wondered anew how the parents survived it. At least Dylan checked in once, at least we’re pretty sure he left on his own.
How could you ever go on with your life, the mundane things like eating, showering, mowing the lawn? Yet people do, especially if they have other kids depending on them. Birthday parties, school plays. All the while, not knowing.
We didn’t speak, Casey and I, the whole night. What else was there to say?
We moved in restless circles like hummingbirds from the kitchen chair, to the office chair, to the counter by the phone, steering clear of Mallory on the living room couch.
I eventually changed out of my work clothes, grabbing some sweatpants in the dark of the room.
The sun rising behind the cloudy sky provided no beautiful views, just a gradual erasure of darkness.
The phone shrills at 7:30, and I run for it.
“Mr. Turner? It’s Detective Wilson.”
My throat is frozen. I cough out, “Yes.”
“We got the information from the cell phone and e-mail companies. The phone and e-mail are both registered to a Harper household in Cleveland. We called the number and also talked to the Cleveland police.”
I grip the countertop. “And?”
“Ed Harper, the owner of the phone and computer in question, has also reported his daughter, Tiffany, missing. This should be some sort of relief for you, sir, as we’re satisfied that he is indeed with a girl as he believes.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Thank you. What now?”
“Mr. Turner, we’ve alerted Cleveland police to be on the lookout for your son and the girl, but I’m afraid that’s all we can do at this time.”
I close my eyes, put my head in my hand. “Running away is not illegal,” I mumble.
“Sir, may I suggest you contact the National Center for the Missing? They are set up to help parents in your situation. I’m sorry, I wish we could help you, but we simply don’t have the manpower to chase runaways.”
I hang up, forgetting to say good-bye to the officer.
The wood floor creaks as Mallory comes into the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket. Casey stands just where she was when the phone rang. She’s wrapped her sweater tight around her, and her eyes are big as she watches me. She bites her knuckle.
“Well?” shrills Mallory, her hair matted from sleeping, a jagged sleep wrinkle down the side of her face.
“The good news is, he apparently is meeting a girl. A real girl, who is also missing. The bad news is, now that the police are satisfied they are runaways, they’re not going to chase them anymore.”
“Oh, my God,” moans Mallory, sinking into a kitchen chair. “He’s never coming home.”
“We don’t know that,” I hasten to say, back to the exhausting job of reassuring, propping up.
Casey moves around in my peripheral vision, and as I join Mallory at the table, Casey plunks a coffee down in front of her.
“I need some cream,” Mallory says, taking the cup without looking at Casey. Like she’s a waitress.
I remember suddenly that it’s Friday. I’m supposed to be at work. Late at night I’d let a call from Kate go to voice mail and never did listen to it. I should have, it was probably about that staffwide meeting.
I bring a coffee with me to the office desk and dial up Aaron.
“Aaron, I’m not coming in today.”
“Shit,” he replies, his fingers clacking on the keys as he talks to me. “I’m shorthanded already. And listen, you should probably call Evelyn.”
Another round of layoffs, just like the last time they called an all-hands meeting.
“Oh, great. I’m toast, aren’t I?”
The clacking pauses. “We don’t know that. They’re talking to everyone individually.”
“I can’t deal with it now. I’m having a crisis at home.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“Your dad called this morning already.”
“Dammit.”
“Don’t worry about it, I know the drill. I ended up transferring him to Evelyn. She’ll say no, too, but I didn’t have time to argue with him. But listen, I am sorry. I wish we could help—”
“No, I know. Dylan’s not in town anyway, it seems.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta go, but listen, when you hear something, let us know, okay? Meanwhile, when you can, call Evelyn. About the meeting you missed.”
A voice interrupts us.
“Gotta run, Mike.”
I barely get out a “good-bye” when he hangs up. I don’t mind. The paper still has to come out. Life goes on and all that.
I glance out at the blowing snow whirling in the gunmetal sky. It’s daylight now, I could risk the drive more easily. Except my little Honda wouldn’t be of much use in a wreck. It would crumple like tinfoil.
I hear footfalls on the steps and turn to see Angel. She comes right to me, and I just shake my head. She throws herself into my arms, burying her face. When she steps back I can see from the pale blue hollows under her eyes that she’s slept very little.
“The good news is,” I tell her, smudging a tear away with my thumb, “is that they have confirmed that Tiffany really is a girl.”
I see her relax a few degrees. “Oh, good. Well, that’s good. Can I have some coffee, Dad?”
“We don’t have any lattes or anything, kiddo. Just the boring Maxwell House stuff.”
She shrugs. “I’m so tired.”
“Well, fine. Go ahead, if you can stand it.”
Angel rummages for a cup, and as she’s pouring coffee from the machine, the sight of her performing this simple, adult action thunks me in the chest like an arrow. My girl, my first child, who was a baby when we were still in college and babes ourselves.
Jewel emerges now, her hair knotted from her usual crazy sleeping. She’s rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses, skewing them as she does so they end up crooked on her face.
She looks at the kitchen clock and gasps. “Oh, no! We’ll be late for school!”
For a moment she stares around at everyone in pajamas, none of us hurrying, no one packing lunches. Then her face crumples in. “I forgot!” she cries, and flees back upstairs, wailing. “I forgot!”
Mallory is faster, and closer, so she gets there first. I follow them up the stairs.
Jewel sobs on her bed, burying her face in her blankie. She still keeps the blankie around, but I haven’t seen it much since the first weeks after Mallory and I split. Actually, I’d thought it was put away somewhere by now.
“Baby,” Mallory says, stroking Jewel’s hair, but her hand is shaking. “He’s okay. I’m sure he is. Don’t you ever get so mad sometimes you want to leave?”
Jewel shakes her head into her blanket.
“Well, teenagers do. And you know what? Pretty soon he’ll get hungry and cold and miss his own bed and he’ll decide to come home.”
At this Jewel picks her head up and looks at Mallory, her face puckered as if with confusion. “But doesn’t he miss me?”
I interject, “It’s complicated. Teenagers are confusing people, and they don’t always think very clearly.”
Jewel’s eyes dart between us, one hand already on her stomach.
I sit down with them on the bed, putting my hand on her mother’s shoulder, and my other hand on Jewel’s knee. “It’s okay. I’m sure he misses us and that’s when he’ll decid
e to come home. He’s a good kid, isn’t he? He’ll realize that we’re worried and he’ll come home.”
Jewel nods, but there’s no light in her eyes.
A moment passes, all of us ringed together, our hands on each other, joined by worry. In my line of sight is that picture on her bulletin board, the last picture taken of us as an intact family. It’s tacked up next to a magazine cutout of a pony.
Jewel breaks the silence. “Can I watch cartoons while I eat?”
“Sure,” answers Mallory, and I sigh but don’t protest.
Jewel runs downstairs at this, leaving Mallory and me alone in her room.
“Thanks,” I say.
She’s rubbing her own hands, threading the fingers through each other, twisting her turquoise silver rings. She stops suddenly, shaking her hands out.
“For what?” Now she starts playing with her hair. I’ve seen this before. It’s restless Mallory, usually followed by Mallory filling up a plastic cup with boxed wine.
“For . . .”
She smirks. “For not being crazy. Yeah. You bet. At your service.” She gives me a mocking bow, tipping an invisible hat.
“You’re not the only one upset.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Would throwing things make you feel better?”
“A little emotion never killed anybody.”
We slip right into the worn grooves on the record of our marriage. She’s too unstable, I’m cold.
I turn away from her and stomp back down the stairs, once again hearing a ringing phone, the sound sparking a mosaic of frightening and ecstatic possibilities.
Chapter 19
Casey
Angel taps her fingers on her coffee mug, her eyes unfocused on the center of the table. Every time she sips, she grimaces. I’d offer her more cream and sugar, but I don’t want to draw attention to my presence.
Lately it’s like she’s sunburned. I can’t so much as brush up against her. And that was before she read my journal.
It was a year ago in May that I first met them. Angel turned fifteen that summer, and I took her and some girlfriends to the mall one summer Saturday. I lagged behind them most of the time, enjoying their chirpy laughter and their habit of bursting into song, heedless of—or maybe because of—the stares. They were sharing earbuds from their mp3 players, and I tried not to make faces thinking about the ear germs.
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