House Rules (39 page)

Jacob‘s crying into my shoulder, making small snuffling sounds as he tries to catch his breath. Okay, baby, I murmur into his ear. You and I, we‘re going to do this together. I tug until he starts to sit up, and then I wrap my arms around him, struggling to bear the brunt of his weight as we get to our feet. The bailiff opens the gate of the bar for us and leads us down the gallery aisle to the sensory break room. As we pass, the entire courtroom falls dead silent until we are ensconced within the black curtains and all I can hear outside is the tidal swell of a murmur of sound:
What was
that?
… Never seen anything
like it … The judge won‘t stand for stunts … A ploy to get sympathy, I‘ll bet …

Jacob buries himself beneath a weighted blanket. Mom, he says from beneath it.

She crumpled paper.

I know.

We have to fix the paper.

It‘s not our paper. It‘s the prosecutor‘s paper. You have to let it go.

She crumpled the paper, Jacob repeats. We have to fix it.

I think of the woman on the jury who looked at me with abject pity on her face the moment before she was hustled out of the courtroom.
That‘s a good thing,
Oliver would say, but he is not me. I have never wanted to be pitied for having a child like Jacob. I‘ve pitied other mothers, who could slip by on loving their children maybe only 80 percent of the time, or less, instead of giving it their all every minute of every day.

But I have a son who is on trial for murder. A son who behaved the same way the afternoon of Jess Ogilvy‘s death as he did minutes ago when a piece of paper was torn apart.

If Jacob is a murderer, I will still love him. But I will hate the woman he‘s turned me into one whom others talk about when her back is turned, one whom people feel sorry for. Because although I‘d never feel that way about a mother whose child has Asperger‘s, I
would
feel that way about a mother whose child took the life of another mother‘s child.

Jacob‘s voice is a hammer at the back of my head. We have to fix it, he says.

Yes, I whisper. We do.

Oliver

That must be a record, Mr. Bond, Judge Cuttings drawls. We made it a whole three minutes and twenty seconds without an outburst.

Judge, I say, thinking on the fly, I can‘t predict everything that‘s going to set this kid off. That‘s part of why you‘re allowing his mother to be here. But you know, with all due respect, Jacob doesn‘t just get ten hours of justice. He gets as much justice as he needs.

That‘s the whole purpose of the constitutional system.

Gee, Oliver, I don‘t mean to interrupt, Helen says, but aren‘t you forgetting the all-American marching band and the flag that‘s supposed to drop from the rafters right now?

I ignore her. Look. I‘m sorry, Your Honor. I‘m sorry in advance if Jacob makes you look silly or makes me look silly or I glance at Helen. Well. As I was saying, I certainly don‘t want my client having fits in front of the jury; it doesn‘t do my case any good, either.

The judge peers over his glasses. You‘ve got ten minutes to pull your client together, he warns. Then we‘re coming back in and the prosecution will have a chance to refinish her closing.

Well, she can‘t crumple the paper again, I say.

I believe you lost that motion, Helen replies.

She‘s right, Counselor. If Ms. Sharp is inclined to crumple a boatload of paper, and your client goes ballistic every time, it‘s to your own detriment.

That‘s okay, Judge, Helen says. I won‘t be doing that again. From now on, only folded paper. She bends down, picks up the little ball that sent Jacob sky-high, and tosses it in the trash can beside the stenographer‘s table.

I glance down at my watch by my calculations I have four minutes and fifteen seconds to get Jacob‘s perfectly Zen butt into the chair beside me at the defense table. I stalk up the aisle and slip between the black curtains of the sensory break room. Jacob is hidden under a blanket, and Emma sits doubled over a vibrating pillow. What else aren‘t you telling me? I demand. What else sets him off? Paper clips? When the clock reads a quarter to twelve? For Christ‘s sake, Emma, I‘ve only got one trial to convince the jury Jacob didn‘t snap in a fit of rage and kill Jess Ogilvy. How am I supposed to do that when he can‘t even make it ten minutes without losing control?

I‘m yelling so loudly that even those stupid curtains probably can‘t drown me out, and I wonder if the television cameras are picking everything up with their microphones.

But then Emma lifts her face, and I see how red her eyes are. I‘ll try to keep him calmer.

Aw, shit, I say, all the bluster fizzing out of me. You‘re crying?

She shakes her head. No. I‘m fine.

Right, and I‘m Clarence Thomas. I reach into my pocket and pull out a Dunkin‘

Donuts napkin, press it into her hand. You don‘t have to lie to me. We‘re on the same side.

She turns away and blows her nose, then folds folds, not crumples the napkin and tucks it into the pocket of her yellow dress.

I pull the blanket off Jacob‘s head. Time to go, I say.

For a minute I think he‘s coming, but then he rolls away from me. Mom, he mutters. Fix it.

I turn to Emma, who clears her throat. He wants Helen Sharp to smooth out the paper first, she says.

It‘s already in the trash can.

You promised, Jacob says to Emma, his voice rising.

Jesus, I mutter under my breath. Fine.

I stalk down the aisle of the courtroom and fish through the trash at the stenographer‘s feet. She stares as if I‘ve lost my mind, which isn‘t entirely impossible.

What are you doing?

Don‘t ask. The paper is underneath a candy wrapper and a copy of the
Boston
Globe.
I tuck it into my jacket pocket and walk back to the sensory break room, where I remove it and smooth it out as best as I can in front of Jacob. That‘s the best I can do, I tell him. So … what‘s the best
you
can do?

Jacob stares at the paper.
You had me at hello,
he says.

Jacob

I hated Mark Maguire before I even laid eyes on him. Jess had changed instead of focusing only on me when we had our sessions, she‘d answer her cell phone or fire back a text message, and every time she did, she smiled. I assumed that I was the reason for her distraction. After all, everyone else seemed to get sick of me quick enough when we were in the middle of a conversation, and it was bound to happen with Jess, although that was my greatest fear. Then one day she said she wanted to tell me a secret. I think I‘m in love,

she said, and I swear to you, my heart stopped beating for a second.

Me, too, I burst out.

CASE STUDY 1: Let me stop here for a minute and just talk about prairie voles. They are part of only a tiny fraction of the animal kingdom that practice monogamy. They mate for twenty-four hours, and then, just like that, they‘re together for life. However, the montane vole which is a close relative, sharing 99 percent of the prairie vole‘s genetic makeup has no interest in anything except a wham-bam-thank-you-ma‘am one-night stand. How come? When prairie voles have sexual intercourse, the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin flood the brain. If the hormones are blocked, prairie voles behave more like those slutty montane voles. Even more interesting, if prairie voles get injections of those hormones but then are prevented from having sex, they still become slavishly devoted to their would-be mates. In other words: you can make a prairie vole fall in love.

The opposite, though, isn‘t true. You can‘t give a shot of hormones to a montane vole and make it lovesick. It just doesn‘t have the right receptors in the brain. It does, however, get a flood of dopamine to the brain when it mates, the hormonal equivalent of
Man, that feels
good.
It‘s just missing the other two hormones, the ones that help pinpoint that ecstasy to a particular individual. Sure enough, if you genetically modify mice, removing the genes that affect oxytocin or vasopressin, they can‘t recognize mice they‘ve already met.

I am a prairie vole, trapped in the body of a montane vole. If I think I‘ve fallen in love, it‘s because I‘ve considered it analytically. (Heart palpitations? Check. Lack of stress in her company? Check.) And it seems to me to be the most likely explanation for what I feel, although I could not truly tell you the difference between feelings for a romantic interest versus feelings for a close friend. Or in my case, my
only
friend.

Which is why, when Jess told me she was in love, I reciprocated.

Her eyes widened, and so did her smile. Oh my God, Jacob, she said. We‘ll have to double-date!

That was when I realized we weren‘t talking about the same thing.

I know you like having time alone for our sessions, but it‘s good for you to meet people, and Mark really, truly wants to get to know you. He‘s a part-time ski instructor over at Stowe, and he thought maybe he could give you a free lesson.

I don‘t think I‘d be very good at skiing. One of the hallmarks of Asperger‘s is that we can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. I am forever tripping over my feet or stumbling on a curb; I could easily see myself falling off a chairlift or snowballing down a mountain.

I‘ll be there to help, too, Jess promised.

And so, the following Sunday, Jess drove me to Stowe and got me fitted for rental skis and boots and a helmet. We hobbled outside and waited near the ski school sign until a black blur whizzed down the hill and sprayed us in a tsunami of powdered snow. Hey, babe, Mark said, pulling off his helmet so that he could grab Jess and kiss her.

In one glance I could tell that Mark Maguire was everything I was not: 1. Coordinated

2. Attractive (if you‘re a girl, I mean)

3. Popular

4. Muscular

5. Confident

I could also tell that I was one thing Mark Maguire was not: 1. Smart

Mark, this is my friend Jacob.

He leaned down into my face and yelled,
Hey, dude, cool to meet you!

I yelled back,
I‘m not deaf!

He grinned at Jess. He had perfect, white teeth. You‘re right. He
is
funny.

Had Jess told him I was funny? Had she meant that I made her laugh because I told good jokes or because I
was
a joke?

In that instant I hated Mark Maguire viscerally, because he‘d made me doubt Jess, and up until then I had known, unequivocally, that we were friends.

So what do you say we give the bunny hill a try? Mark asked, and he held out a pole so that he could drag me to the rope tow. Like this, he said, showing me how to grab on to the moving rope, and I thought I had it right but my left hand got screwed up with my right and I wound up spinning backward and collapsing on the little kid behind me. The guy running the rope tow had to shut it off while Mark hauled me to my feet again. You okay, Jacob? Jess asked, but Mark brushed her off.

He‘s doing great, Mark said. Relax, Jake. I teach retarded kids all the time.

Jacob is
autistic,
Jess corrected, and I turned around so fast that I forgot about the skis and fell down in a heap again. I‘m not retarded, I shouted, but that statement is somewhat less resonant when one cannot even untangle one‘s own legs.

I will say this for Mark Maguire: he taught me how to snowplow efficiently enough to make it down the bunny hill twice, solo. Then he asked Jess if she wanted to take a run up the big hill while I practiced. They left me in the company of seven-year-olds in pink snowsuits.

CASE STUDY 2: In laboratory studies, scientists have learned that, when it comes to love, a very tiny portion of the brain is actually involved. For example, friendship lights up receptors all over the cerebral cortex, but this isn‘t true with love, which activates parts of the brain more commonly associated with emotional responses like fear and anger. The brain of a person in love will show activity in the amygdala, which is associated with gut feelings, and in the nucleus accumbens, an area associated with rewarding stimuli that tends to be active in drug abusers. Or, to recap: the brain of a person in love doesn‘t look like the brain of someone overcome by deep emotion. It looks like the brain of a person who‘s been snorting coke.

That day at Stowe, I did two runs with the help of a kid who was learning to snowboard, then inched myself toward the main ski lift. I leaned against a rack where people could store their skis while they were in the lodge getting hot chocolate and chicken nuggets, and I waited for Jess to come back to me.

Mark Maguire is wearing a suit. He has dark circles under his eyes and I almost feel bad for him, because he must be missing Jess, too, until I remember how he hurt her.

Can you state your name for the record? the prosecutor asks.

Mark Maguire.

Where do you live, Mr. Maguire?

Forty-four Green Street in Burlington.

How old are you?

I‘m twenty-five, he says.

And what do you do for a living?

I‘m a grad student at UVM and a part-time ski instructor at Stowe.

How did you know Jess Ogilvy, Mr. Maguire?

She‘d been my girlfriend for five months.

Where were you on Sunday, January tenth, 2010? Helen Sharp asks.

At Mama‘s Pizza in Townsend. Jess had a tutoring session with Jacob Hunt, and I liked to come along every now and then.

That is not true. He just didn‘t like that she was spending time with
me
and wouldn‘t give me up for him.

So you know Jacob?

Yes.

Do you see him in the courtroom today?

I stare down at the table so I can‘t feel the serrated edges of Mark‘s eyes. He‘s sitting over there.

Let the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant, the prosecutor says. How many times, before January tenth, had you met Jacob?

I don‘t know. Maybe five or six?

The prosecutor walks toward the witness box. Did you get along with him?

Mark is looking at me again, I can tell. I didn‘t really pay attention to him, he says.