House Rules

  --Mr. Bond?|| the judge prompts.

  Oliver clears his throat. He rests one hand on the railing of the witness stand, looking away from me. --All right, Jacob. You told us a lot about what you did after Jess's death. But you haven't told us about how she died.||

  --There isn't much to tell,|| I say.

  Suddenly, I realize where I've seen that expression on everyone's face in this courtroom. It's the one on Mimi Scheck's face, and Mark Maguire's face, and everyone else who thinks that they have absolutely nothing in common with me.

  I start to get that burning sensation in my stomach, the one that comes when I realize too late I might have done something that actually wasn't such a great idea.

  And then, Oliver throws me a lifeline. --Jacob, are you sorry for killing Jess?||

  I smile widely. --No,|| I say. --That's what I've been trying to tell you all along.||

  Oliver

  Here's the bittersweet thing: Jacob has made himself look more insane than I ever could with a witness's testimony. Then again, he's also made himself look like a ruthless murderer.

  Jacob is once again sitting at the defense table, holding his mother's hand. Emma is white as a sheet, and I can't blame her. After listening to Jacob's testimony--a detailed description in his own words of how to clean up after a mess of your own making--I find myself in the same position.

  --Ladies and gentlemen,|| I begin, --there's been a lot of evidence produced here about how Jess Ogilvy died. We're not disputing that evidence. But if you've been paying attention at this trial, you also know that you can't judge this book by its cover. Jacob is a young man with Asperger's syndrome, a neurological disorder that precludes him from having empathy for others in the same way you or I might. When he talks about what he did with Jess's body, and at Jess's residence, he doesn't see his involvement in a horrific murder. Instead, as you've heard, he takes pride in the fact that he set up a complete crime scene, a crime scene worthy of inclusion in a journal, just like an episode of CrimeBusters.

  I'm not going to ask you to excuse him for Jess Ogilvy's death--we grieve with her parents for that loss, and do not seek to diminish the tragedy in any way. However, I am going to ask you to take the information you've been given about Jacob and his disorder, so that when you question whether he was criminally responsible at the time of Jess's death--whether he understood right from wrong in that moment the way you understand right from wrong--you will have no choice but to answer no. ||

  I walk toward the jury. --Asperger's is a tough nut to crack. You've heard a lot about it these past few days ... and I bet you've thought, So what? Not being comfortable in new situations, wanting to do things the same way every day, finding it hard to make new friends--these are struggles we've all faced from time to time. Yet none of these traits impair our ability to make judgments, and none of us are on trial for murder. You might be thinking that Jacob doesn't fit your impression of a person with a diagnosable neurological disorder. He's smart, he doesn't look crazy in the colloquial sense of the word. So how can you be certain that Asperger's syndrome is a valid neurological disorder, and not just the latest label du jour for a kid with problems? How can you be sure Asperger's provides an explanation of his behavior at the moment a crime was committed--instead of just a fancy legal excuse?||

  I smile. --Well, I offer an example from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. In the fifties and sixties the Court was involved in deciding a number of obscenity cases. Since obscenity isn't protected under the First Amendment, they had to determine whether a series of pornographic films met the legal definition of obscenity, and so they'd screen them. Every week, on what was known as Obscenity Tuesday, the justices watched these films and rendered decisions. It was in Jacobellis v. Ohio that Justice Stewart became legendary in the legal field for saying that hard-core pornography was hard to define but that--and I quote-- I know it when I see it.'||

  I turn to Jacob. --I know it when I see it,|| I repeat. --You haven't just listened to experts and seen medical files and seen forensic evidence--you've also watched and heard Jacob. And based on that alone, it must be clear to you that he's not just a kid with a few personality quirks. He's a kid who doesn't communicate particularly well and whose thoughts are often jumbled. He talks in a monotone and doesn't show a great deal of emotion, even when it seems warranted. Yet he was brave enough to stand up in front of you and try to defend himself against one of the most serious charges a young man like him could ever face. What he said--and how he said it--might have been upsetting to you.

  Shocking, even. But that's because a person with Asperger's--a person like Jacob--is not your typical witness.

  --I didn't want my client to testify. I'll be honest with you. I didn't think that he could do it. When you're a witness in a trial, you have to practice saying things in a way that works to make your case. You have to present yourself in a manner that is sympathetic to the jury. And I knew Jacob could not--and would not--do that. Hell, I could barely get him to wear a tie here ... I certainly couldn't make him express remorse, or even sadness. I couldn't tell him what he should and shouldn't say in front of you. To Jacob, that would have been lying. And to Jacob, telling the truth is a rule that has to be followed.||

  I look at the jurors. --What you have here is a kid who isn't working the system, because he's physically and psychologically incapable of working the system. He doesn't know how to play to your sympathies. He doesn't know what will help or hurt his chances of acquittal. He simply wanted to tell you his side of the story--so he did. And that's how you know that Jacob's not a criminal trying to squeak through a loophole. That's how you know that his Asperger's can and did and still does impair his judgment at any given moment. Because any other defendant--any ordinary defendant--would have known better than to tell you what Jacob did.

  --You and I know, ladies and gentlemen, that the legal system in America works very well if you happen to communicate a certain way, a way Jacob doesn't. And yet everyone in this country is entitled to a fair trial--even people who communicate differently from the way that works best in court.|| I take a deep breath. --Maybe for justice to be done, then, in Jacob's case, we simply need people who are willing to listen a little more closely.||

  As I take my seat again, Helen stands up. --When I was a little girl I remember asking my mother why, instead of saying toilet paper on the wrapper, it said bath tissue.

  And you know what my mom told me? You can call it whatever you want, but all the words in the world can't dress up what it is. This isn't a case about a young man who has a hard time holding a conversation, or making friends, or eating something other than blue Jell-O on Wednesday--||

  Friday, I mentally correct. Jacob reaches for his pencil and starts to write a note, but before he can, I pluck the pencil out of his hand and slip it into my coat pocket.

  --It's a case about a boy who committed a cold-blooded murder and then, using his brains and his fascination with crime scenes, tried to cover his tracks. I don't contest that Jacob has Asperger's syndrome. I don't expect any of you to contest it, either. But that doesn't absolve him of responsibility for this brutal, vicious killing. You've heard from the crime scene investigators who went to the house and found traces of Jess's blood all over the bathroom floor. You've heard Jacob himself say that he washed it away with bleach and then flushed the toilet paper away. Why? Not because there's a rule about where toilet paper goes when you're done with it ... but instead, because he didn't want anyone to know he had cleaned up that mess. He told you, ladies and gentlemen, about how he set up that entire crime scene, and how much thought he put into it. He deliberately tried to lead police down the wrong trail, to make them think Jess had been kidnapped. He slit the screen and used Mark Maguire's boots to leave footprints, to purposefully suggest that someone else was responsible for the crime. He dragged Jess's body the length of three football fields and left it outside, so that it would be harder for people to find. And when he grew tired of playing his own little ga
me of CrimeBusters, he took Jess's cell phone and dialed 911.

  Why? Not because it was easier for him to interface with a dead body than a live one but because it was all part of Jacob Hunt's perverse plan to selfishly discard Jess Ogilvy's life in order to allow him to play forensic detective.||

  She faces the jury. --Mr. Bond can call this whatever he wants, but that doesn't change what it is: a young man who committed a brutal murder and who actively, over a period of days, covered it up with careful clues to mislead the police. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the MO of a calculating killer--not a kid with Asperger's syndrome.||

  Emma

  From the archives of Auntie Em:

  Dear Auntie Em,

  What do you do if all signs point to the fact that the world as you know it is going to come to a crashing halt?

  Sincerely,

  HumptyDumptyWasPushed

  Dear Humpty,

  HELP!

  Love,

  Auntie Em

  Three days later, the jury is still deliberating.

  We have settled into a routine: in the morning, Oliver brings Thor over for breakfast. Jacob takes him into the yard to throw a ball while Henry and Theo slowly animate themselves with coffee. Henry's been teaching Theo C# programming to create his own computer game, which has fascinated Theo to no end. In the afternoons, Oliver and I play Scrabble, and every now and then Jacob will call out obscure, legitimate words from the couch where he's watching CrimeBusters: Qua! Za! We don't turn on the news or read the paper, because all they talk about is Jacob.

  We are not allowed to leave the house for two reasons: technically, Jacob is still under arrest, and we must be in a spot where we can get to the courthouse in twenty minutes when the jury returns. It is still strange to me to turn a corner in my own house and find Henry there--I expected him to leave by now, to come up with the excuse that one of his daughters has strep or his wife has to visit a dying aunt--but Henry insists he's here until the verdict comes back. Our conversation is full of cliches, but at least it is a conversation. I'm making up for lost time, he says. Better late than never.

  We've become a family. An unorthodox one, and one cobbled together by someone else's tragedy, but after years of being the only parent in this house, I will take what I can get.

  Later, while the boys are getting ready for bed, Oliver and I take Thor for a walk around the block before he goes back to his apartment over the pizza place. We talk about the horse that stepped on his ankle and broke it. We talk about how I used to want to be a writer. We talk about the trial.

  We don't talk about us.

  --Is it good or bad if the jury can't reach a verdict?||

  --Good, I think. It probably means someone's holding out on a conviction.||

  --What happens next?||

  --If Jacob's convicted,|| Oliver says, as Thor runs back and forth in front of us, lacing up the path, --he'll go to prison. I don't know if it will be the same one he was in. If he's found not guilty by reason of insanity, the judge will probably want another psychiatric evaluation.||

  --But then he'll come home?||

  --I don't know,|| Oliver admits. --We'll get Ava Newcomb and Dr. Murano to put together an outpatient treatment plan, but it depends on Judge Cuttings. He could weigh the fact that Jacob committed murder and decide that he can't ignore that, and isolate him from the rest of the community.||

  He has told me this before, but it never seems to sink in. --In a state mental hospital,|| I finish. As we reach my driveway again, I stop walking, and Oliver stops, too, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. --I fought my whole life to have Jacob treated like ordinary kids in regular school, with regular programming,|| I say, --and now his only chance of staying out of jail means playing the Asperger's card.||

  --I honestly don't know what's going to happen,|| Oliver says. --But it's better to be prepared.||

  --I haven't told Jacob yet.||

  He looks down at his shoes. --Maybe you should.||

  As if we have conjured him, the door opens and Jacob stands in silhouette in his pajamas. --I'm waiting for you to say good night,|| he tells me.

  --I'll be right there.||

  Jacob looks at Oliver, impatient. --Well?||

  --Well what?||

  --Will you just kiss her good-bye already?||

  My jaw drops with surprise. Since my fight with Jacob, Oliver and I have been careful to steer clear of each other in his company. But now Oliver takes me into his arms.

  --I don't have to be asked twice,|| he says, and he presses his lips against mine.

  When Jacob was little, I used to sneak into his bedroom after midnight and sit on a rocking chair next to his bed so that I could watch him sleep. There was a wonderful magic brush that painted him when he was unconscious. In his bed, I could not tell that the hand curled under the covers was the same one that had stimmed fiercely that afternoon when a girl at the park came into the sandbox where he was happily playing alone. I couldn't tell that those eyes, closed, winced when I asked him to look right at me. I couldn't watch him, easy and relaxed in his dreams, and think this was the same boy who could not remember the sequence of words to ask the lunch lady for apple juice instead of milk.

  When Jacob slept, the slate was wiped clean, and he could have been any child. Any ordinary child.

  Instead, during his waking hours, he was extraordinary. And that truly was the definition for him--outside the perimeter of the norm. At some point in the English language, that word had acquired positive connotations. Why hadn't Asperger's?

  You could say I was different. I had willingly traded my own future for Jacob's, giving up whatever fame or fortune I might have achieved in order to make sure his life was a better one. I had let every relationship slide, with the exception of the one I'd built with Jacob. I had made choices that other women would not have made. At best that made me a fierce, fighting mother; at worst, it made me single-minded. And yet, if I walked into a crowded room, people did not mystically part from me as if there was an invisible magnetic field, a polarizing reaction between my body and theirs. People did not turn to their friends and groan, Oh, God, save me--she's heading this way. People didn't roll their eyes behind my back when I was talking. Jacob might have acted strangely, but he'd never been cruel.

  He simply didn't have the self-awareness for it.

  Now, I sink down on that same chair I used to sit on years ago, and I watch Jacob sleep again. He isn't a child anymore. His face has the planes of that of an adult; his hands are strong and his shoulders sculpted. I reach out and brush his hair back from where it has fallen over his forehead. In his sleep, Jacob stirs.

  I do not know what kind of life I'd have had without Jacob, but I don't want to know. If he hadn't been autistic, I could not love him any more than I already do. And even if he is convicted, I could not love him any less.

  I lean down, just like I used to, and I kiss him on the forehead. It is the age-old, time-honored way for mothers to test for fever, to give a blessing, to say good night.

  So why does it feel like I'm saying good-bye?

  Theo

  My sixteenth birthday is today, but I'm not expecting much. We're still waiting, six days later, for the jury to reach a verdict. I'm guessing, actually, that my mother won't even remember--which is why I am struck speechless when she yells --Breakfast|| and I come downstairs with my hair still wet from my shower and there's a chocolate cake with a candle in it.

  Granted, it's Brown Thursday and it's no doubt gluten-free, but beggars can't be choosers.

  --Happy birthday, Theo,|| my mother says, and she starts the round of singing. My dad, my brother, and Oliver all join in. I have a big, fat smile on my face. As far as I know, my father has never been to one of my birthday parties, unless you count the minute I was delivered in the hospital, and that wasn't really a party, I imagine.

  Was it worth it? A little voice inside me curls like the smoke from the candle. Was it worth all this to get a family like the ones
you used to spy on?

  My mother puts her arm around my shoulders. --Make a wish, Theo,|| she says.

  A year ago, this is exactly what I would have wished for. What I did wish for, with or without the cake. But there's something in her voice, like a string made of steel, that suggests there's a right answer here, one collective heart's desire for all of us.

  Which just happens to rest in the hands of twelve jurors.

  I close my eyes and blow out the candle, and everyone claps. My mother starts to cut slices from the cake and gives me the first one. --Thanks,|| I say.

  --I hope you like it,|| my mother replies. --And I hope you like this.||

  She hands me an envelope. Inside is a note, handwritten:

  Your debt is paid.

  I think of my crazy trip to California to find my father, of how much money those tickets had cost, and for a second I can't talk.

  --But,|| she says, --if you do that again, I'll kill you.||

  I laugh, and she wraps her arms around me from behind and kisses the top of my head.

  --Hey, there's more.|| My father hands me an envelope, which has a cheesy --To My Son|| Hallmark card inside, and forty bucks.

  --You can start saving for a faster router,|| he says.

  --That's awesome!||

  Then Oliver hands me a package wrapped in Bounty paper towels. --It was this or a pizza box,|| he explains.

  I shake it. --Is it a calzone?||

  --Give me a little credit here,|| Oliver says.

  I rip it open and find the Vermont Driver's Manual.

  --After this trial's over, I thought you and I could make an appointment at the DMV

  and finally get that learner's permit.||

  I have to look down at the table, because if I don't, everyone's going to realize I'm totally about to cry. I remember how, when I was little, my mother would read us these ridiculous fairy tales where frogs turned into princes and girls woke up from comas with a single kiss. I never bought into any of that crap. But who knows? Maybe I was wrong.