Jodi Picoult - House Rules

“Considering that I’m the one who cut the check for the lawyer,” Henry says, “I have a right to make sure he’s doing his job.”

That, of course, makes me think of Oliver. And the things we did that were not job-related.

“Look,” Henry says, the bluster falling from him like snow from a tree limb. “I didn’t come here to make things more difficult for you, Emma. I came to help.”

“You don’t just get to be their father, now, because your conscience reared its ugly head. You’re either a father twenty-four/seven or not at all.”

“Why don’t we ask the kids if they want me to stick around or leave?”

“Oh, right. That’s like dangling a brand-new video game in front of them. You’re a novelty, Henry.”

He smiles a little. “Can’t remember the last time I’ve been accused of that. ”

There is a commotion as Theo clatters down the stairs. “Wow, you are here,” he says. “Weird.”

“It’s because of you,” Henry replies. “After you came all the way to see me, I realized I couldn’t sit at home and pretend this wasn’t happening.”

Theo snorts a laugh. “Why not? I do it all the time.”

“I’m not listening to this,” I say, moving around the kitchen. “We have to be in court by nine-thirty.”

“I’ll come,” Henry said. “For moral support.”

“Thank you so much,” I say drily. “I don’t know how I’d get through the day if you weren’t here. Oh, wait. I’ve gotten through five thousand days without you here.”

Theo skirts between us and opens the refrigerator. He pulls out a carton of grapefruit juice and drinks directly from it. “Gosh. What a happy little family unit we are.” He glances overhead as the water in the pipes stops running. “I call the shower next,” he says, and he heads back upstairs.

I sink down into a chair. “So how does this work? You sit in the courtroom and act concerned while your real family is waiting just outside the escape hatch?”

“That’s not fair, Emma.”

“ Nothing’s fair.”

“I’m here for as long as I need to be. Meg understands that I’ve got a responsibility to Jacob.”

“Right. A responsibility. But somehow she’s neglected to invite him to sunny California to meet his stepsisters-”

“Jacob won’t get on a plane, and you know it.”

“So your plan is to just come step into his life and then step out of it again after the trial?”

“I don’t have a plan-”

“What about afterward?”

“That’s why I came.” He takes a step closer. “If… if the worst happens, and Jacob doesn’t come home… well, I know you’ll be there for him to lean on,” Henry says. “But I thought you might need someone to lean on, too.”

There are a hundred comebacks running through my head-most of which ask why I would trust him now when he has a track record of abandoning me. But instead, I shake my head. “Jacob’s coming home,” I say.

“Emma, you have to-”

I hold up the flat of my hand, as if I can stop his words midstream. “Help yourself to breakfast. I need to get dressed.”

I leave him sitting in the kitchen, and I go upstairs to my bedroom. Through the wall I can hear Theo singing in the shower. I sit down on the bed, clasp my hands between my knees.

When the boys were little, we had house rules. I’d write them on the bathroom mirror when they were in the tub so that the next time the room steamed up, they would magically appear: commandments for a toddler and his painfully literal autistic brother, laws that were not to be broken.

1. Clean up your own messes.

2. Tell the truth.

3. Brush your teeth twice a day.

4. Don’t be late for school.

5. Take care of your brother; he’s the only one you’ve got.

One night Jacob had asked me if I had to follow the rules, too, and I said yes. But, he pointed out, you don’t have a brother.

Then I will take care of you, I said.

However, I didn’t.

Oliver will stand up in court today, and maybe the next day and the next, and try to accomplish what I have unsuccessfully tried to do for eighteen years now: make strangers understand what it is like to be my son. Make them feel sympathy for a child who cannot feel it himself.

When Theo’s done in the bathroom, I go in. The air is still thick with heat and steam; the mirror’s fogged. I can’t see the tears on my face, but it’s for the best. Because I may know my son, and I may believe viscerally that he is not a murderer. But the odds of a jury seeing this as clearly as I do are minimal. Because no matter what I tell Henry-or myself, for that matter-I know that Jacob isn’t coming home.

Theo is still getting dressed when I knock on his door. “What the fuck, dude?” he says, holding up a towel to his body. I close my eyes until he tells me it’s okay to look, and then I walk into his room.

“I need help with my tie,” I say.

I am very proud of the fact that I got dressed today without any issues. I was a little freaked out by the buttons on the shirt, which felt like hot coals on my chest, but I put on a T-shirt underneath, and now it isn’t quite as painful.

Theo stands in front of me in his jeans and a sweatshirt. I wish I could wear that to the courthouse. He straightens my collar and starts to loop the ends of the tie around and around so that it will be a tie, instead of the knot I’ve managed to make twice. The tie is like a long, skinny knit scarf; I like it a lot more than the striped thing Oliver made me wear yesterday.

“There you go,” Theo says. Then he hunches his shoulders. “So what do you think about Dad?”

“I don’t think about Dad,” I say.

“I mean about him being here.”

“Oh,” I say. “I guess it’s good.”

(In reality, I don’t think it’s either good or bad. It’s not as if it’s going to make much difference, after all, but it seems like normal people would have a more positive reaction to seeing a close family member, and he did travel 3,000 miles on a plane, so I have to give him credit for that.)

“I thought Mom was going to blow her stack.”

I don’t know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You’d be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.

“Do you remember him?” Theo asks.

“He called on my birthday, and that was only three and a half months ago-”

“No,” Theo interrupts. “I mean, do you remember him from back then? When he lived with us?”

I do, actually. I remember being in bed between him and my mother, and holding my hand up to his cheek while he slept. It was scratchy with incoming beard, and the texture used to intrigue me, plus I liked the sound it made when he scraped it. I remember his briefcase. He had floppy disks inside in different colors that I liked to sort by spectrum, and paper clips in a small container that I would line up on the floor of his office while he worked. Sometimes, though, when he was doing programming and got stuck or excited, he yelled, and that usually made me yell, and he would call for my mother to take me so that he could get some work done.

“He took me apple picking once,” I say. “He let me ride on his shoulders and showed me how the apple pickers get the apples out of their baskets without bruising them.”

For a while, I kept a list of apple facts as I learned them, because what I remembered about my father was that he at least had a passing interest in pomology, enough of one to take me out to an orchard for the day. I know, for example, that:

1. The world’s top apple producers are China, the United States, Turkey, Poland, and Italy.