It’s another Monday morning, and after three full weeks at home, a ringing doorbell is a major event in my life. So I drop The Lord of the Rings on my bed and trot to the landing at the top of the front hall staircase. I bend down to look, and I can see that Mom is standing in the front doorway. And I listen.
“Mrs. Phillips?”
“Yes?”
“How do you do. My name is Officer Martha Pagett, and I’m from the school and truancy division of the State Department of Children and Family Services. May I come in?”
“Is there a problem?” When Mom says that, I tiptoe to my room, pull off my clothes, and hustle down the back stairs. I want to see the action.
By the time I get up to the front of the house, Mom is still standing squarely in the doorway. She’s not even going to let the woman into the front hall. I’m about four feet away, looking at them through the French doors that open to the front hall from the parlor.
The woman is shorter than Mom—most women are. She’s got a narrow face, and her brown hair is pulled back into some kind of twisty thing. Thick lenses in her wire-frame glasses make her eyes look big. She’s wearing a blue skirt and jacket. Her coat has a small American flag on the left lapel. Her white shirt is buttoned all the way up, and there’s a black briefcase in her left hand.
The lady is smiling, nodding, talking, and Mom is listening, trying to look pleasant, her arms folded across her chest. “…so naturally, there’s some concern about Bobby. I’m sure you’ll agree that three weeks is an uncommonly long illness. Since the school has not received a note from a physician, we’ve been asked to make a visit and simply verify that Bobby’s on the mend and that everything’s fine at home.”
So this isn’t just a chat. This lady wants to see a body. My body.
I can see the wheels spinning behind Mom’s eyes. She’s smiling, and it looks like a real smile, but I know better. That’s her I’m-just-barely-not-ripping-your-head-off smile.
Raising her eyebrows, still smiling, Mom says, “And you believe you have the authority to march up my front steps and into my home and ask to see my sick child? Is that what you’re saying? Do you have a search warrant?”
This social worker doesn’t know Emily Colton Phillips. For example, she doesn’t know that Mom got pushed around by Chicago cops when she was eighteen during the 1968 Democratic Convention. And Mom pushed back. I’ve seen the news footage. Then two years later, she chained herself to the door of the university president’s office. And she stayed there six days—until he promised to hire more women as professors.
The lady looks up at Mom. I can see her stiffen and tighten her grip on the handle of her briefcase. She keeps smiling too, but I can see it’s just a mask. I’m looking at a small war between two smart women. Without raising her voice, she says, “You mean today? Do I have a search warrant right now? No, Mrs. Phillips, not today. But I can assure you that I do have every right under the child protection laws of the state of Illinois to have a brief visit with your son, and if I need to have a search warrant to accomplish that, then I can certainly get one.”
Mom waves her hand as if to whisk away that idea. “Oh, don’t mind me, Miss Badger.”
“It’s Ms. Pagett,” says the woman in blue.
Mom laughs lightly, still smiling. “Yes, Ms. Pagett. Please forgive me. I must sound like I’m ready to call a press conference and accuse you of being a jackbooted government thug or something. That’s just my old radical upbringing talking. Of course you can talk to Bobby. You could talk to him right now, except for one problem—he’s not here.”
The lady looks surprised, almost as surprised as I am. She says, “Oh. I see. Do you mind my asking where he is?” She’s stooping now, putting her briefcase flat on the porch floor. She opens it and takes out a pen and a yellow legal pad.
“Not at all. It’s so cold and damp this time of year in Chicago. What with his illness and the accident and all, Mr. Phillips and I decided that some time away would be good for Bobby. He left Thursday to stay with a relative in Florida for a month or so.”
Ms. Pagett is surprised again. “Florida?” She’s standing up now, writing.
Mom nods, smiles sweetly. “Yes. We’re withdrawing Bobby from school for the rest of this semester. He just missed his midterm exams, you know, and we don’t want him to feel burdened with all that makeup work. It’s just too much right now, and his health has to come first.”
Scribbling on the yellow pad, the woman nods. “Yes, of course. And where in Florida will he be?”
Mom says, “Down in the southern part, where it’s nice and warm.”
The woman frowns slightly, but keeps writing, and without looking up she says, “And when do you expect Bobby to come home?”
With a shrug and a smile, Mom says, “Hard to say. Certainly not until he’s feeling like his old self again. Now, Miss Pagett, is there anything else I can help you with this morning?”
The lady looks up into Mom’s face, her eyes slightly narrowed, her lips pressed together. There’s a pause, and the silence is filled with questions, questions like, “Where is he—really?” and “Do you know how fast I could have a search warrant?” and “You know this isn’t over, don’t you?”
Then she bends down to put her pad and pen back into the briefcase. The latches click, she straightens up, looks Mom in the face, and says, “I think that’s all the help I need today, Mrs. Phillips. Thanks so much for your time.”
Mom meets the lady’s eyes, and smiles. They both know that round one is over. Mom won. “You’re quite welcome. Bye now.”
When the lady’s heels have tapped across the wooden porch and down the steps, Mom turns around and calls softly, “Bobby?”
I open one of the French doors. “In here, Mom. So now I’m in Florida, huh? Cool.”
“I can hear you smiling, Bobby, and you shouldn’t be. This isn’t funny.” Mom moves quickly to the lace curtains on the front bay window and peeks out. “These people are like pit bulls. See that?”
I look over her shoulder, and the social worker is standing on the porch next door, talking with Mrs. Trent, taking notes.
“That lady is on a case. You are the case, Bobby. And your father and I. The school nurse and the Board of Health and the Department of Children and Family Services have got their little collective brain into a tizzy about one missing boy, and they’re going to push until they get answers. This isn’t funny.”
But I think it is. “Right, so what do they think? Do they think you murdered me and put me down the garbage disposer or something? Or maybe I’m locked in a closet? Come on, Mom. Get real.”
Mom isn’t smiling. Her face is so pale that the bruises under her eyes look bright as goldfinches. Her lips are tight, her words clipped. “No, Robert, you get real. You do not understand this situation. This is not a joke. This is the state. These people have real power, and they are not afraid to use it. Kids do get hurt by their parents and others, and someone’s got to be allowed to look around if things are suspicious. And right now, our situation looks very suspicious. It’s not going to surprise me one bit if that woman and six of Chicago’s finest come back here in one hour with a search warrant and complete authority to tear this house apart—looking for one Bobby Phillips, male Caucasian, age fifteen years, last seen by Mrs. Trent getting out of a cab on the evening his parents were involved in a car crash, when he was already supposedly home from school with a severe case of the flu. So don’t laugh about this. This is a real mess—and it’s dangerous for you. I don’t want these people taking you away from me. And now I’ve got to call Aunt Ethel.”
Mom runs to the den and calls her aunt and tells her that if she gets a contact from anyone asking about me, she’s to say that I’ve been there since March thirteenth, and that I arrived by train. Or maybe it would be a good idea to let her answering machine screen the calls for the next week or so, because if you don’t talk to anyone, you can’t very well be charged with perjury. And, really, maybe the best idea is to go check into a nice hotel under her maiden name for a week or so—at our expense, of course—would she mind terribly? And if you want to talk, please call our cell phone number.
And when Aunt Ethel asks for details, Mom feels like she has to give them to her. So she takes about three minutes and tells the condensed version of how Bobby became a fugitive from the law.
And Aunt Ethel is the only one so far who isn’t fazed by the idea of an invisible teenager. She says something like, “Well, isn’t that curious! He must fly down here at once so he can be my bridge partner!” So now Great-Aunt Ethel is in on the secret.
Mom’s wrong about one thing, though. It’s when she says that the social worker could be back in an hour with a search warrant to tear the house apart.
Actually, it only takes Ms. Pagett forty-five minutes.