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