Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Robbie never took drugs,” she said.

“No.”

“He was happy,” she said. “Wasn’t he?”

“Happy?”

“Wasn’t he happy? Did he seem unhappy to you?”

“No, he … he … seemed fine.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said. “Would he?”

“Wouldn’t what?”

“You know.”

“Run away? You think Robbie would run away?”

No, not Robbie. Never. Cat poured herself another glass of vodka, spilling some. For once Hall didn’t say anything about it, and she wanted to give him something in return, some gesture of trust. They could not afford to hate each other now. “I think something happened to him,” she said. “I think we should call the police.”

The next day he called the police in Pequod, where Robbie had last been seen. But this time it was different — it was not the way it had been with Hall junior.

“You’re talking about an adult,” the officer said.

“He’s eighteen.”

“That’s an adult. He has legal rights. He can just walk away if he wants to. Eighteen-year-olds disappear all the time; younger ones too. They come back after a few days, a few weeks. Wait till vacation’s over. He’ll turn up at school.”

“Our son wouldn’t just disappear and then turn up again.”

“Were there any circumstances indicating involuntary disappearance?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Hall snapped.

“Did he talk about suicide?”

“Robbie? Never.”

“Was he mentally or physically incapable?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why don’t you talk to his friends,” the police officer said. “I bet he told some of them where he was going.”

“His friends have scattered for vacation.”

“Then give it some time. First of all, you’d have to come here to make a report in person, and from what you’ve told me there’s no reason to. He just took off. Don’t worry about it.”

Hall hung up and turned to look at Cat. She had been listening on the extension and came back into the room, feeling like a sleepwalker.

“When that little bastard comes back,” Hall said, “unless there’s a damn good reason, I’m going to take away his car.”

“He’s an adult,” Cat said in a dead voice. “Can you take away an adult’s car?” She started to cry.

He made a move as if to comfort her, and then drew back. He was not quite sure if she was being ironic or taking one of her customary digs at him. She wished he had put his arm around her so she would not feel so alone, but it was probably too late. She wasn’t even sure if what she’d said had been her usual angry reaction to his narrow-minded stubbornness, or if she had been voicing aloud something she had just discovered that shocked her and made her cry. Robbie was their child, no matter whether or not the law said he was never to be considered a child anymore. What was wrong with their home that they had existed all this year treating Robbie as if he were a little boy, a “teen-ager,” when in reality he could do anything the law said she and his father could do and no one could stop him? He could get married. He could leave college. He could move away. It was no longer called running away. He belonged to himself.

Cat realized then that their other son — the Hall junior they remembered — had vanished forever. They remembered the sixteen-year-old. If Hall was still alive he was an adult too, and would never again belong to any of them. When she had been growing up she had been taught that families were forever, but that had only been another of the world’s lies. Now she was forty-three years old, her family had fallen apart, and she of all of them was the only one who still felt like a child. She was the only one who could not take off, run away, do what she wanted. The law might allow her to, but nothing in her conscience or upbringing would. She would worry too much about the others.

“Don’t drink any more,” he said. “It makes you depressed.”

“Drinking is the only thing that makes me able to survive, ” Cat said.

“Well, at least you admit how much you drink.”

“So what? I admit it.” She took a big swallow of her vodka. It went down comfortingly.

“That’s the first step in being able to stop,” he said.

“I don’t want to stop.”

“But maybe someday you will.”

“Mmm.” She looked at the colorless liquid in her glass. It was kinder to her than anyone she knew.

“When Robbie comes back,” he said. “When this tension is over. Maybe then you will.”

“When I want to is when I will,” Cat said. “Not when you want me to.”

“That’s all right,” he said.

But the days went by and Robbie neither came home nor called. His friends phoned often, none of them aware that he wasn’t there where he was supposed to be. He’s away, Cat would say — a half lie — didn’t he tell you his plans?

His friends were all disappointed. They had parties to invite him to, or just wanted to see him. No, Robbie hadn’t told them he had decided not to come to Greenwich for Spring Break. Cat didn’t tell them Robbie hadn’t told his parents either.

She couldn’t bear to think that people would be talking about her, saying it had happened all over again with the younger son. No matter what the law or the police called him, her friends didn’t think Robbie was an “adult” who could just walk away, and neither did she.

All the students but one came back to Grant after Spring Break. At first it simply looked as if Robbie had returned with the rest of them. His door was open, his room was neat — with the exception of his desk, which was covered with the customary student clutter — his clothes were in the closet, and his stereo was gone. If anyone had wondered where he was it would appear he had taken the stereo into Pequod to be repaired. It would not occur to anyone immediately that he had gone away leaving his door unlocked and therefore someone had stolen it. It was extraordinary that the thief had not taken his records too, but whoever it was had been in a hurry.

Kate was happy to be back in her cozy nest with Daniel. They unpacked quickly so they could find Robbie and Jay Jay. Daniel was so neat. Kate knew if she hadn’t been living with him she would have tossed everything on her bed and gone to find her friends first. But trying to be less sloppy was a small price to pay for all the sweet things he did for her. They were back and forth from their two rooms (she had decided to think of her room as theirs too, this term) when Jay Jay came running down the hall waving a piece of paper in his hand.

“Something’s happened to Robbie,” Jay Jay said. “I left this note on his bed three weeks ago and it was still lying in the same place when I went in. I’m worried.”

“You mean he left school with his door open?” Daniel said. He shook his head. “Even Robbie wouldn’t do that. He’s around somewhere.”

“I asked everybody on his floor,” Jay Jay said. “His car is in the parking lot but nobody’s seen him all day.”

“What’s unusual about that?” Daniel said.

“He didn’t come to see us,” Kate said. “Were his clothes and everything there?”

“Yes,” Jay Jay said. “When I put the note on his bed there were wrinkles like he’d been lying down, and they’re still there.”

“Ah,” said Daniel pleasantly in a gypsy accent, “the famous wrinkle reader.”

Kate felt uneasy. “Maybe he went home before you left the note, and when he came back he just didn’t notice it.”

“A weak excuse,” Jay Jay said. “Robbie’s bed was always so perfectly made it looked like he was in the Army. He would have seen my note the minute he came back and he would have felt bad for abandoning me, and he’d have come to find me and apologize. You know that’s what Robbie would do.”