House Rules (46 page)

1. If it hadn‘t been for me, would you have stayed?

2. Were you ever sorry you left?

3. Do you think one day we could be friends?

4. If I promised to try harder, would you consider coming back?

It is worthwhile to note that while we were sitting in my room we discussed apples, the medical examiner‘s testimony of yesterday, and the article in
Wired
magazine about whether Asperger‘s was on the rise in Silicon Valley due to the preponderance of math-and-science genes in the geographical area. Yet I did not ask him a single one of these questions, which are still on a list in the back of my bottommost left desk drawer.

We all ride to the courthouse together in my father‘s rental car. It is silver and smells like pine trees. I am sitting in my usual seat in the back behind my father, who is driving. My mother sits next to him, and Theo‘s beside me. As we drive I look at the spaces between the power lines on the telephone poles, which narrow at the ends and then widen in the middle, like giant canoes.

We are five minutes from the courthouse when my mother‘s cell phone rings. She nearly drops it before she manages to answer the call. I‘m fine, she says, but her face gets red.

We‘ll meet you in the parking lot.

I suppose I should be nervous, but I‘m actually excited. Today is the day that Oliver gets to tell everyone the truth about what I did.

Now, Jacob, my mother says. You remember the rules?

Let Oliver do the talking, I mutter. Pass him a note if I need a break. I‘m not a moron, Mom.

That‘s a matter of opinion, Theo says.

She twists around in her seat. Her pupils are large and dark, and a pulse beats in the hollow of her throat. It‘s going to be harder for you today, she says quietly. You‘re going to hear things said about you that might not make sense. Things that maybe you even think aren‘t true. But just remember, Oliver knows what he‘s doing.

Is Jacob testifying? my father asks.

My mother turns to him. What do
you
think?

I was just asking, for God‘s sake.

Well, you can‘t come in at the third act and expect me to tell you what you‘ve missed, she snaps, and silence fills the car like sarin gas. I start to whisper the Fibonacci sequence under my breath, to make myself feel better, and Theo must feel the same way, because he says, So … are we there yet? and then laughs hysterically, as if he‘s told a really funny joke.

As we drive in, Oliver is leaning against his truck. It is an old pickup that, he says, is more suited to a farrier than an attorney, but it still gets him from point A to point B. We are parked in the back of the courthouse, away from the cameras and the television news vans. He glances up as we drive by, but this isn‘t my mother‘s car, so he doesn‘t realize it‘s us. It isn‘t until we park and step out of the rental car that Oliver sees my mother and comes forward with a big smile on his face.

And then he notices my dad.

Oliver, my mother says, this is my ex-husband, Henry.

Are you kidding? Oliver looks at my mother.

My father sticks out his hand to shake Oliver‘s. Nice to meet you.

Um. Right. Pleasure. Then he turns to me. Oh, for the love of God … Emma, I can‘t let him go into the courtroom like this.

I look down. I‘m wearing brown corduroy pants and a brown shirt, with a brown tweed blazer and the stretchy brown tie that Theo tied for me.

It‘s Thursday, and he‘s dressed in a jacket and tie, my mother says tightly. You might imagine that this morning I had a lot on my plate.

Oliver turns to my father. What does he look like to you?

A UPS driver? my father says.

I was thinking
Nazi.
Oliver shakes his head. We don‘t have time for you to go home and change, and you‘re too big to fit into my Suddenly he breaks off and sizes up my father with one glance. Go trade shirts with him in the bathroom.

But it‘s
white,
I say.

Exactly. The look we‘re going for is not modern-day serial killer, Jake.

My father glances at my mother. See, he says. Aren‘t you glad I came?

The first day I met Jess for social skills training I happened to be fearing for my very life. I had been in Mrs. Wicklow‘s English class that year. It wasn‘t a particularly interesting class, and Mrs. Wicklow had the bad fortune to have a face that looked a little like a sweet potato long and narrow, with a few sprouting hairs at the chin and an orange spray-on tan.

But she always let me read aloud when we were doing plays, even if I sometimes had trouble remembering my place, and the time I forgot my notebook on the day of the open-book exam she let me take it the next day. One day, when she was out with the flu, a boy in the class named Sawyer Trigg (who had been suspended once for bringing NyQuil to school to sell in the cafeteria) ignored the substitute teacher and plucked bits of the spider plant off, then stuck it to his chin with gum. He jammed wadded-up paper under his shirt and started prancing through the aisles between our desks. I‘m Mrs. Witchlow, he said, and everyone laughed.

I laughed, too, but only to fit in. Because you‘re supposed to respect teachers, even if they‘re not there. So when Mrs. Wicklow came back, I told her what Sawyer had been doing, and she sent him to the principal. Later that day, he slammed me up against my locker and said, I could fucking kill you, Hunt.

Well, I spent the rest of the day in an utter panic, because he
could
kill me, I had no doubt of that. And when Jess arrived at the school to meet me for the first time, I had a butter knife in my pocket stolen from the cafeteria the best I could do on short notice just in case Sawyer Trigg was lurking in the shadows of the hallways.

She told me that what I said to her was private, and that she wouldn‘t tell my mother about anything I wanted to keep a secret between us. I liked that it sounded like having a best friend, at least the way it is always portrayed on television but I was too distracted to comment. Um, Jacob? Jess said, when she caught me looking over my shoulder for the eighth time. Is everything okay?

That was when I told her everything about Mrs. Wicklow and Sawyer Trigg.

She shook her head. He‘s not going to kill you.

But he said

That‘s his way of letting you know he‘s mad at you for tattling on him.

You‘re not supposed to make fun of teachers

You‘re not supposed to tell on your peers, either, Jess said. Especially if you want them to like you. I mean, Mrs. Wicklow
has
to be nice to you; it‘s part of her contract.

But you have to
earn
the trust of your classmates. And you just lost that. She leaned forward. There are all kinds of rules, Jacob. Some of them are explicit, like not making fun of teachers. But others are like secrets. They‘re the ones you‘re supposed to know, even if they never get said.

That was exactly what I never seemed to understand: those unwritten rules that other people seemed to pick up as if they had a social radar device that was missing in my own brain.

Did you laugh when Sawyer made fun of Mrs. Wicklow?

Yes.

He thought you were on his side, that you were enjoying the performance. So imagine how he felt when you tattled on him.

I stared at Jess. I wasn‘t Sawyer, and I had been adhering to a rule; whereas he was deliberately breaking one. I can‘t, I said.

A few minutes later, my mother came to pick me up. Hello, she said, smiling at Jess. How did it go?

Jess looked at me, making sure she caught my eye. Then she turned to my mother.

Jacob got another boy in trouble today. Oh, and he stole a knife from the school cafeteria.

I felt my heart go to stone in my chest, and my mouth was dry as cotton. I thought this girl was going to be my friend, was going to keep my secrets. And the first thing she did was turn around and tell my mother everything that had happened today?

I was furious; I never wanted to see her again. And I felt soft and spongy in my stomach, too, as if I had just gotten off an amusement park ride, because I knew my mother was going to want to follow up on this conversation on the drive home.

Jess touched my arm to get my attention.
That,
she said, is how Sawyer felt. And I will never do that to you again. Will you?

The next day I went to school, and I waited near Sawyer‘s locker. What are you doing here, prick? he asked.

I‘m sorry, I told him, and I really, truly meant it.

Maybe it was my face, or the tone of my voice, or just the fact that I sought him out but he stood there for a second with his locker open and then he shrugged.

Whatever, Sawyer said.

I decided that was his way of saying thanks. Are you still thinking of killing me?

He shook his head and laughed. I don‘t think so.

I‘m telling you, Jess Ogilvy was the best teacher I‘ve ever had. And she would have understood, better than anyone, why I had to do what I did.

Oliver

What happened last night was the single most remarkable experience of my sexual history, unless you count the time I was a sophomore in college and got a letter published in
Penthouse
the difference being, of course, that that was fictional, whereas last night really happened.

I‘ve been thinking about it. (Okay, I‘ve been thinking of nothing
but
it.) Once Emma and I had both admitted our biggest fears to each other, we were on equal footing. Vulnerability trumps age. When you‘re emotionally bare, the leap to being physically bare isn‘t all that far.

I woke up this morning with her hair loose over my arm and her body warm against mine and I decided that I didn‘t care if she had slept with me out of desperation or frustration or even distraction I wasn‘t going to let her go. I had charted every inch of her last night; I wanted to return to that territory until I knew it better than anyone ever had or ever would.

Which meant I had to get her son acquitted, because otherwise, she‘d never want to see me again.

To that end, I came to court this morning intending to give Jacob the best defense in the history of the State of Vermont. I was single-minded and focused and determined, until I saw her emerge from another man‘s car.

Her
ex‘s.

He has a right to be here, I suppose he‘s Jacob‘s father but Emma had led me to believe that he wasn‘t really in the picture.

I don‘t like the way Henry held on to her when we were walking up the steps of the courthouse. I don‘t like the fact that he‘s bigger than I am. I don‘t like the fact that the one time I touched Emma‘s arm, as we were about to come into the courtroom, Theo saw me do it and his brows shot up to his hairline, so I had to immediately pretend it was an accidental brush of the hand.

I
really
don‘t like the fact that I‘m preoccupied with Emma when I ought to be focused solely on her son.

As the jury files in, I take my seat beside Jacob. He looks like he‘s had sixty cups of coffee. He‘s bouncing, even though he‘s seated next to me at the defense table. Emma is on his right side, and I swear, I can feel the heat of her skin even with her son between us. I don‘t like this, Jacob mutters.

You and me both, kid. I think. What don‘t you like?

Her hair.

Whose hair?

Hers, Jacob says, and he points to Helen Sharp without glancing at her.

Today the prosecutor is wearing her hair loose around her face. It‘s auburn and brushes her shoulders. It actually makes her look almost compassionate, although I know better. Well, I say. It could be worse.

How?

It could be longer.

This makes me think of Emma last night, with her hair free and falling down her back. I‘d never seen it like that, because of Jacob.

It‘s a bad omen, Jacob says, and his fingers flutter on his thigh.

There seems to be a lot of that going around, I say, and I turn to Emma. What‘s Henry doing here?

She shakes her head. He showed up this morning when I was out for my
run,
she stresses, and doesn‘t meet my eye. Conversation closed.

Make sure you tell the truth, Jacob states, and Emma and I both jerk our heads toward him. Is Jacob more intuitive than either of us gave him credit for?

All rise, the bailiff says, and the judge strides in from his chambers.

If the defense wishes to deliver an opening statement, Judge Cuttings says, you may begin.

I would have preferred to give my opening statement back when Helen had given hers, so that the whole time the jury was watching Jacob‘s reactions during the prosecution‘s turn, they could have been thinking his inappropriate affect was because he has Asperger‘s not because he is a sociopathic killer. But the judge didn‘t give me that opportunity, and so now, I just have to leave an impression that‘s twice as deep.

The truth, Jacob whispers again. You‘ll tell them what happened, right?

He is talking about the jury, I realize; he is talking about Jess‘s murder. And there is so much riding on that one question that suddenly I have no idea how to answer Jacob without it becoming a lie. I hesitate, and then take a deep breath.
Hello. My name is Inigo
Montoya,
I murmur to Jacob.
You killed my father. Prepare to die.

I know he‘s grinning as I stand up and face the jury. During a trial, lawyers ask the jury to see in shades of gray. You‘re supposed to look at both sides of an issue. To not prejudge anything. To wait until you‘ve heard all the evidence to make a decision. The judge has instructed you to do this, and will instruct you to do this again at the end of the trial.

I walk toward them. But Jacob Hunt doesn‘t know how to do that. He can‘t see shades of gray. To him, the world is black or white. For example, if you ask Jacob to pitch a tent, he will toss it at you. Part of Jacob‘s diagnosis with Asperger‘s syndrome means that he won‘t understand the concept of a metaphor. To him, the world is a literal place. I glance over my shoulder at Jacob, who‘s staring down at the table. You might have also noticed that yesterday, during this trial, Jacob didn‘t look the witnesses in the eye. Or that he didn‘t show much emotion when the prosecution enumerated the horrors of a murder scene. Or that he might not be able to sit through testimony for long periods of time and needs a break in that room in the back. In fact, there may be many moments during this trial where it seems to you that Jacob is acting rudely, or immaturely, or even in a manner that makes him appear guilty. But ladies and gentlemen, Jacob cannot help it. Those behaviors are all hallmarks of Asperger‘s syndrome, a neurological disorder on the autism spectrum with which Jacob‘s been diagnosed. People with Asperger‘s might have a normal or even exceptional IQ but will also show severe deficiencies in social and communication skills.

They might be obsessed by routine or rules, or be fixated on a certain subject. They can‘t read expressions very well, or body language. They are overly sensitive to lights, textures, smells, and sounds.

You are going to hear from Jacob‘s doctors and his mother about his limitations, and how they‘ve tried hard to help Jacob overcome them. Part of what you‘re going to hear is Jacob‘s very concrete sense of what‘s right and what‘s wrong. In his world, rules are not just important, they‘re infallible. And yet, he has no understanding of the underlying bases of those rules. He can‘t tell you how his behavior might affect another person, because it is impossible for Jacob to put himself in someone else‘s metaphorical shoes. He might be able to recite to you every line from
CrimeBusters
episode forty-four, but he can‘t tell you why the mother is upset in scene seven of the show, or how the loss of a child impacted the parents in that show. If you ask Jacob, he can‘t explain it. Not because he doesn‘t want to, and not because he‘s a sociopath, but because his brain simply doesn‘t function that way.

I walk behind the defense table and put my hand lightly on Jacob‘s shoulder.

Immediately he flinches, just like I figured, beneath the jury‘s watchful eye. If you spend some time with Jacob, I say, you‘ll probably think there‘s something …

different about him. Something you can‘t quite put your finger on. He may seem odd, or quirky … but you probably also won‘t think of him as insane. After all, he can hold a legitimate conversation with you; he knows more about certain subjects than I‘ll ever know; he isn‘t running around listening to voices in his head or setting small animals on fire. But the definition of
legal
insanity, ladies and gentlemen, is very different than what we typically think of when we think of the word
insanity.
It says that, at the moment an act was committed, the defendant as a result of a severe mental disease or defect was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his acts. What that means is that a person with a neurological disorder like Asperger‘s who commits a crime a person like Jacob can‘t be held responsible in the same way you or I should be held responsible. And what you will hear from the witnesses for the defense is proof that having Asperger‘s syndrome makes it impossible for Jacob to understand how his actions might cause harm to someone else. You will hear how having Asperger‘s syndrome might lead a person like Jacob to have an idiosyncratic interest that becomes overwhelming and obsessive. And you will see, ladies and gentlemen, that having Asperger‘s syndrome impaired Jacob‘s ability to understand that what he did to Jess Ogilvy was wrong.

Behind me, I hear whispering. From the corner of my eye, I see a dozen notes, stacked on my side of the defense table. Jacob is rocking back and forth, his mouth tight.

After a minute he starts to write notes to Emma as well.

No one is suggesting that Jess Ogilvy‘s death is anything less than a tragedy, and our sympathies must lie with her family. But don‘t compound that tragedy by creating a second victim.

I nod, and sit back down at the table. The notes are brief and angry:
NO.

YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM.

WHAT I DID WAS RIGHT.

I lean toward my client. Just trust me, I say.

Theo

Yesterday, I was sitting alone in the back of the courtroom squished between a woman who was knitting a newborn baby cap and a man in a tweed jacket who kept texting on his phone during the testimony. No one knew who I was, and I liked it that way. After Jacob‘s first sensory break, when I went to the little curtained room and the bailiff let me slip inside, my secret identity was not so much of a secret anymore. The knitting woman, I noticed, moved to a spot on the other side of the courtroom, as if I had some dread contagious disease instead of just a last name shared with the defendant. The man in the tweed coat, though, stopped texting. He kept asking me questions:
Had Jacob ever been
violent before? Did he have the hots for Jess Ogilvy? Did she turn him down?
It didn‘t take long for me to figure out he was some kind of reporter, and after that, I just stood in the back near one of the bailiffs.

Today, I‘m sitting next to my father, a guy I don‘t know at all.

When Oliver starts talking, my father leans toward me. What do you know about this guy?

He likes long walks on the beach, and he‘s a Scorpio, I say.

Here‘s what I really know. Oliver was rubbing my mom‘s arm today. Not in the oh-you‘re-about-to-fall-are-you-okay way, but in a sweet-child-o‘-mine mode. What the fuck is
that
all about? He‘s supposed to be saving my brother‘s ass, not hitting on my mother.

I know I should be relieved that my father is here, but actually, I‘m not. I‘m sitting here wondering why we are spectators at a murder trial, instead of on the first base line at Fenway, watching the Sox play. I‘m wondering how I learned to tie a tie, like I did for Jacob today, considering that my own father wasn‘t the one to teach it to me. I‘m wondering why sharing the same DNA with a person doesn‘t make you automatically feel like you have something in common.

As soon as Oliver finishes his statement, I turn to my father. I don‘t know how to fish, I say. I mean, I wouldn‘t know how to stick a worm on a hook, or how to use a pole, or anything like that.

He just stares at me, frowning a little.

It would have been cool if we‘d fished, I say. You know. Like in that pond behind the school.

This, of course, is just plain stupid. I was six months old when my father left us. I could barely hold myself upright, much less a fishing pole.

My father ducks his head. I get seasick, he says. Even just standing on a dock.

Always have.

After that, we don‘t really talk at all.

I went to Dr. Moon once. My mother thought it would be a good idea for me to talk to a shrink about feelings I might be having, given the fact that my brother sucked up all the time and energy in our household like some giant karmic Hoover. I can‘t say I remember much about her, except that she smelled like incense and told me I could take off my shoes, because she herself could think better without shoes, and maybe I would, too.

On the other hand, I do still remember what we talked about. She said that, sometimes, it would be hard for me to be the younger brother, because I had to do all the stuff the older brother usually did. She told me that this might frustrate Jacob and make him mad, and that would make him act even more immature. In this she was the psychological equivalent of a weather forecast: she could tell me with precise probability what was coming, but she was completely unequipped to help me prepare for the storm.

She looks different on the witness stand than she does when she is at her office. For example, she is wearing a business suit, and her crazy long hair is tamed into a bun. Oh, and she‘s wearing shoes. At first, Jacob was diagnosed with general autism spectrum disorder. Then we tweaked his diagnosis to pervasive developmental disorder. It wasn‘t until sixth grade that we amended his diagnosis to Asperger‘s syndrome, based on his inability to interpret social cues and to interact with peers in spite of his high IQ and verbal ability. For kids Jacob‘s age, that progression of diagnoses is very common. It doesn‘t mean he didn‘t always have Asperger‘s he did it just means that we didn‘t necessarily have the correct language to label it.

Can you give a definition of Asperger‘s syndrome for people who aren‘t familiar with it, Doctor? Oliver asks.

It‘s a developmental disorder that affects the way information is processed in the brain, and it‘s considered to fall at the upper end of the autism spectrum. People with Asperger‘s are often very intelligent and very competent in this, they differ from profoundly autistic children, who can‘t communicate at all but they have crippling disabilities in the area of social interaction.

So someone with Asperger‘s might be smart?

Someone with Asperger‘s might even have a genius-level IQ. However, when it comes to making small talk, he‘ll be completely inept. He has to be taught social interaction as if it‘s a foreign language, the way you or I would need to be taught Farsi.

Lawyers sometimes have trouble finding friends, Oliver says, raising some laughter on the jury. Does that mean we all have Asperger‘s?

No, Dr. Moon responds. A person with Asperger‘s desperately wants to fit in but simply can‘t understand social behavior that‘s intuitive to the rest of us. He won‘t be able to read gestures or facial expressions to assess the mood of the person he‘s speaking to. He won‘t be able to interpret a nonverbal cue, such as a yawn signifying boredom when he‘s hogging the conversation. He won‘t be able to understand what someone else is thinking or feeling; that kind of empathy is unnatural to him. He truly is the center of his own universe and will react based on that principle. For example, I had a patient who caught his sister shoplifting and ratted her out not because he thought he was morally responsible to report his sister‘s crime but because he didn‘t want to be known as the boy whose sister had a criminal record. Whatever a child with Asperger‘s does, he does because he‘s thinking of how it will affect
him,
not anyone else.

Are there other hallmarks of the disorder?

Yes. Someone with Asperger‘s might have difficulty organizing and prioritizing rules and tasks. He‘ll tend to focus on details instead of the big picture and often will become obsessed for months or years at a time by one specific subject. And he can talk about that subject even if it‘s a sophisticated topic for hours at a time. For this reason, the disorder is sometimes referred to as the Little Professor syndrome. Children with Asperger‘s speak in such an adult manner they often get along better with their parents‘

friends than with their own peers.

Does Jacob have that sort of obsessive focus on one subject?

Oh, yes. He‘s had several over the years dogs, and dinosaurs, and most recently, forensic science.

What else might we notice about a person with Asperger‘s syndrome?

He‘ll adhere slavishly to routine and rules. He‘s painfully honest. He will dislike making eye contact. He might have hypersensitivity to light or noise or touch or taste. For example, right now, Jacob is probably working very hard to block out the sound of the fluorescent lights in this courtroom, which you and I can‘t even hear. One moment a child with Asperger‘s might present as an extremely bright, if awkward, child and the next, when his routine is disrupted, he might have a meltdown that lasts between ten minutes and several hours.

Like a toddler‘s tantrum?

Exactly. Except it‘s a lot more debilitating when the child is eighteen and 180

pounds, Dr. Moon says.

I can feel my father staring at me, so I turn to him. Does that happen a lot? he whispers. The tantrums?

You get used to it, I say, although I‘m not sure this is true. In reality, you don‘t ever change the hurricane. You just learn how to stay out of its path.

Oliver is walking toward the jury now. Will Jacob ever be cured of Asperger‘s?

At present, the shrink says, there‘s no cure for autism. It‘s not something you outgrow; it‘s a condition you have forever.

Dr. Murano, which of the symptoms you‘ve related here today has Jacob manifested over the years?

All of them, she says.

Even now, at age eighteen?

Jacob‘s gotten much better at rolling with the punches if a routine is disrupted.

Although it‘s still upsetting, now he has coping mechanisms he can draw upon. Instead of having a screaming fit, like he did at age four, he‘ll find a song or a movie and repeat the lyrics or lines over and over.