House Rules (49 page)

So he‘s going to be sleeping right on the other side of this wall?

Sleeping
would be the operative word in that sentence, Emma says. He‘s here for Jacob. Believe me, there‘s no ulterior motive for Henry.

But you used to love him.

Her eyebrows shoot up. Do you think I‘ve been sitting here for fifteen years pining for him? Waiting for the moment he would walk through that door again so I could hide him in a bedroom upstairs and seduce him?

No, I tell her. But I wouldn‘t put it past
him.

She stares at me for a moment, and then she bursts out laughing. You haven‘t seen his perfect little wife and his perfect little girls. Believe me, Oliver, I‘m not the great love of his life, the one he‘ll never forget.

You are to me, I say.

The smile fades from her face, and then she rises up on her toes and kisses me back.

Don‘t you need this?

At the sound of Jacob‘s voice we jump apart, putting a few feet of space between us. He stands in the doorway, one hand still on the knob and the other one holding my legal briefcase.

Were you just … He stumbles over his words. Are you two … Without saying anything else, he throws my briefcase hard at me, so forcefully that I grunt when I catch it.

He runs down the hallway into his room and slams the door.

What did he see? Emma asks frantically. When did he walk in?

Suddenly Henry is standing in the doorway, looking quizzically down the hall where Jacob‘s gone and then at Emma. Everything all right up here?

Emma faces me. I think maybe you ought to go home, she says.

Emma

When I walk into Jacob‘s room, he is hunched over his desk, humming Marley and writing furiously across his green blotter:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233

I take the pencil out of his hand, and he turns in his swivel chair.
Do I make you horny,
baby?
he says, bitter.

No movie quotes, I tell Jacob. Especially not
Austin Powers.
I know you‘re upset.

Let me think about that. My mother is supposed to be practicing her testimony with my lawyer and instead she has her tongue halfway down his throat? Yeah, that might make me a little upset.

I tamp down the flash of anger that rises inside me. First of all, I‘m completely ready to testify. And second of all, I didn‘t expect to kiss him. It just happened.

Things like that don‘t
just happen,
Jacob argues. You want them to happen or you don‘t.

Well, all right then, I suppose after fifteen years of being alone I don‘t mind being attractive to someone.

Not
someone,
he says. My
lawyer.

He‘s completely focused on your trial, Jacob.

I don‘t care about him. I mean, if he isn‘t doing his job I can just fire him. But
you,

he yells. How could you do this to me right now? You‘re my
mother
!

I stand up, toe to toe with him. One who‘s given up her whole life to take care of you, I say. One who loves you so much she would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

But that doesn‘t mean I don‘t deserve to be happy, too.

Well, I hope you‘re really happy when I lose this trial because you were too busy being a slut.

And just like that, I slap him.

I don‘t know which one of us is more surprised. I have never struck Jacob in my life. He holds his palm to his cheek as the red print of my hand rises on his skin. I‘m sorry.

Oh, God, Jacob, I‘m sorry, I say, the words somersaulting over each other. I pull his hand down so that I can see the damage I‘ve done. I‘ll get you some ice, I say, but he is staring at me as if he‘s never seen me before.

So instead of leaving, I sit him down on the bed and I pull him against me the way I used to when he was little and the world became too much for him to bear. I rock, so that he doesn‘t have to.

Slowly, he relaxes against me. Jacob, I tell him. I didn‘t mean to hurt you. It is only after he nods that I realize I‘ve repeated the very same words Jacob said earlier to me about Jess Ogilvy.

In all the years that Jacob has had tantrums and meltdowns and panic attacks, I have restrained him; sat on him; held him like a vise but I have never hit him. I know the unwritten strictures:
Good parents don‘t spank. Reward works better than punishment.
Yet it only took a single moment of frustration, of realizing that I couldn‘t simultaneously be whom he
needed
me to be and whom I
wanted
to be for me to snap.

Is that what happened to Jacob, too?

Oliver has called four times tonight, but I didn‘t pick up the phone when I recognized the number on the caller ID. Maybe this is my penance; maybe I just don‘t know what to say.

It is just after two in the morning when my bedroom door opens a crack. I sit up immediately, expecting Jacob. But instead Henry enters. He‘s wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that reads THERE‘S NO PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1. I saw your light on, he says.

Can‘t sleep?

Henry shakes his head. You?

No.

He gestures to the edge of the bed. May I?

I shift over. He sits down on my side of the bed, but I see him staring at the pillow beside me. I know, I say. It must seem a little weird.

No … It‘s just that now, I sleep on the left side of the bed, like you. And I‘m wondering how that happened.

I lean back against the headboard. There are lots of things I don‘t have the answers for.

I … don‘t know exactly what all the yelling was about, Henry says delicately.

But I did hear it.

Yeah. We‘ve had better nights.

I owe you an apology, Emma, he says. First of all, for showing up like this. I should have asked, at least. You‘ve got enough on your plate without having to deal with me. I guess I was really only thinking of myself.

Luckily, I have a lot of practice with that.

That‘s the other thing I have to apologize for, Henry says. I should have been here all the other nights there was yelling, or … or tantrums, or anything else that was part of raising Jacob. I probably learned more about him today in that courtroom than I‘ve known in the eighteen years he‘s been alive. I should have been here to help during all the bad times.

I smile a little. I guess that‘s the difference between us. I wish you‘d been here for the
good
times. I look over his shoulder, into the hallway. Jacob is sweet, and funny, and so smart he leaves me reeling sometimes. And I‘m sorry you never got to know that part of him.

He reaches across the quilt and squeezes my hand. You‘re a good mom, Emma,

he says, and I have to look away, because that makes me think of my argument with Jacob.

Then Henry speaks again. Did he do it?

I turn to him slowly. Does it matter?

I can only remember one concrete instance when I blew up at Jacob before. It was when he was twelve and had not acknowledged the fact that it was my birthday with a card or a gift or even a hug, although I had dropped enough hints in the weeks prior. So one evening when I made dinner, I slapped it on the table in front of him with more force than usual and waited in vain like always for Jacob to thank me. How about a little gratitude? I exploded. How about some recognition that I‘ve done something for you?

Confused, Jacob glanced at his plate, and then at me.

I make your dinner. I fold your laundry. I drive you to school and back. Did you ever wonder
why
I do that?

Because it‘s your job?

No, it‘s because I love you, and when you love someone, you do things for them without complaining about it.

But you
are
complaining, he said.

That was when I realized Jacob would never understand love. He would have bought me a birthday gift if I‘d told him explicitly to do so, but that wouldn‘t really have been a gift from the heart. You can‘t make someone love you; it has to come from inside him, and Jacob wasn‘t wired that way.

I remember storming out of the kitchen and sitting on the porch for a while, under the light of the moon, which isn‘t really light at all, just a pale reflection of the sun.

Oliver

Jacob, I say, as soon as I see him the next morning, we need to talk.

I fall into step beside him as we move across the parking lot, putting enough space between us and his family to ensure privacy. Did you know there‘s not really a term for a man-whore? Jacob asks. I mean, there‘s gigolo, but that suggests money was exchanged

All right, look, I sigh. I‘m sorry you walked in on us. But I‘m not going to apologize for liking her.

I could fire you, Jacob says.

You could try. But it‘s up to the judge, since we‘re in the middle of the trial.

What if he found out about your misconduct with clients?

She‘s not my client, I say. You are. And if anything, my feelings for your mother only make me more determined to win this case.

He hesitates. I‘m not talking to you anymore, Jacob mutters, and he increases his speed until he is nearly sprinting up the steps of the courthouse.

Ava Newcomb, the forensic shrink hired by the defense, is the linchpin of my case. If she cannot make the jury understand that some of the traits associated with Asperger‘s might have caused Jacob to kill Jess Ogilvy without really understanding why that was wrong, then Jacob will be convicted.

Dr. Newcomb, what‘s the legal definition of insanity?

She is tall, poised, and professional right out of central casting.
So far,
I think,
so
good.
It states that, at the time an act was committed, the defendant was not able to know right from wrong due to a severe mental defect or illness.

Can you give us an example of a mental defect or illness that qualifies?

Something that suggests psychotic breaks from reality, like schizophrenia, she says.

Is that the only kind of mental defect that constitutes legal insanity?

No.

Does Asperger‘s syndrome cause someone to have psychotic breaks?

No, but there are other symptoms of Asperger‘s that might prevent someone from distinguishing right from wrong at a particular moment in time.

Such as?

The intense fixation on a subject that someone with Asperger‘s has can be overwhelming and obsessive to the point where it impedes function in daily activities or even crosses the boundary of the law. I once had a patient who was so focused on horses that he continually was arrested for breaking into a local stable. Jacob‘s current special interest is forensic analysis and crime scene investigation. It was evident in my interview with him, as well as in his obsession with the television show
CrimeBusters
and the detailed journals he kept about each episode‘s plot.

How might a fixation like that contribute to some of the evidence we‘ve heard in this courtroom? I ask.

We have heard that Jacob was increasingly popping up at crime scenes, thanks to his police scanner, the psychiatrist says. And Jess Ogilvy‘s death was part of an elaborate crime scene. The evidence was arranged to look at first glance like a kidnapping, then eventually revealed the victim. It is possible that the opportunity to create a crime scene, instead of just observing fictional ones, led Jacob to act in a way that went against rules, laws, and morality. At the time, he would only have been thinking about the fact that he was creating a real crime scene that would be solved by law enforcement officials. In this way, an Aspergian fixation on forensic analysis led Jacob to the delusional belief that, at that moment, Jess‘s death was a necessary part of his study of forensic science. As chilling as it seems to us, the victim becomes collateral damage during the pursuit of a greater goal.

But didn‘t Jacob know that murder is illegal?

Absolutely. He is the poster child for following rules, for seeing things as either right or wrong with no mitigating circumstances. However, Jacob‘s actions wouldn‘t have been voluntary at that moment. He had no understanding of the nature and consequences of his actions, and he couldn‘t have stopped if he wanted to.

I frown slightly. But we‘ve also heard that Jess Ogilvy and Jacob were extremely close. Surely that would have affected him?

Actually, that‘s another reason we can conclude that Asperger‘s played a role in what happened to Jess. People with Asperger‘s have a greatly impaired theory of mind they can‘t put themselves into someone else‘s position to imagine what the other person might be thinking or feeling. To the layperson, it‘s a lack of empathy. So for example, if Jess were crying, Jacob wouldn‘t try to comfort her. He might know that people with tears in their eyes are usually sad, but he‘d be making a cognitive judgment, not an emotional one. For someone with Asperger‘s, this lack of empathy is a neurobiological deficit, and it affects behavior. In Jacob‘s case, it would have lessened his ability to perceive the impact of his own actions on Jess.

But still, Doctor, I say, playing devil‘s advocate, there‘s a big difference between not handing someone a hankie when she‘s crying and killing her so that she can be a pawn in a crime scene setup.

Of course there is. The psychiatrist turns to the jury. And this is probably the hardest thing for the layperson to understand. We‘re always looking for motive in a crime that‘s as horrific as this one is. I‘ve considered this from my discussions with Jacob and with Dr. Murano, and I think that the answer lies in the argument Jess and Jacob had the Sunday before her death.

The calling card for Asperger‘s is impaired social interaction. To that end, someone with Asperger‘s has a very naϊve and limited understanding of relationships, which might lead him to seek contact in an inappropriate way. This leads to disappointment, and even anger, if a relationship doesn‘t work out the way he‘s anticipated. She looks at Jacob. I don‘t know what was said between Jacob and Jess the afternoon of her death, but I believe Jacob had a crush on his tutor. Ironically, his rigid sense of right and wrong which you‘d think would
deter
criminal behavior might actually have backfired here. If Jess rebuffed Jacob‘s advances, he would have felt that she‘d done something wrong to him, that
he
was the victim.