Jodi Picoult - House Rules

“Jacob felt cornered,” my mother says.

“I’m not asking you how Jacob felt. The only person who knows how Jacob felt is Jacob. What I’m asking you is whether you would categorize slamming a young woman up against a locker and pinning her by her neck as violent behavior.”

“This victim, ” my mother says, her voice hot, “is the same charming girl who said that if Jacob told his math teacher to go fuck himself she’d be his friend.”

One of the ladies on the jury shakes her head. I wonder if it’s because of what Mimi did or because my mother said fuck.

Once during a ratings sweep episode of CrimeBusters that was aired live, like a Broadway show, an extra dropped a hammer on his foot and said the f-bomb and as a result the network was fined. The censors bleeped it, but for a while it was circulating on YouTube in its full blue glory.

CrimeBusters is airing in thirteen minutes.

Oliver nudges my shoulder. “What is the matter with you? Stop it. You look crazy.”

I look down. I’m slapping my hand hard against the side of my leg; I haven’t even realized I am doing it. But now I’m even more confused. I thought I was supposed to look crazy.

“So this girl was mean to Jacob. I think we can both agree on that, right?”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t negate the fact that he was violent toward her.”

“What he did was just,” my mother replies.

“So, Ms. Hunt, you’re saying that if a young woman says something to Jacob that isn’t very nice or that hurts his feelings, he’s justified in acting violent toward her?”

My mother’s eyes flash, like they always do before she gets really, really, really mad. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying that my son is kind and sensitive and that he wouldn’t intentionally hurt a fly.”

“You’ve heard the evidence in this case. Are you aware that Jacob argued with Jess two days before she was last seen alive?”

“That’s different-”

“Were you there, Ms. Hunt?”

“No.”

Right now is the last commercial for Law & Order: SVU, which is the show that is on the network before CrimeBusters. There will be four thirty-second spots and then the opening bars of music. I close my eyes and start to hum.

“You said that one of the behaviors that’s indicative of Jacob’s Asperger’s is that he gets uncomfortable around people or circumstances he doesn’t know, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And that he sometimes withdraws from you?”

“Yes,” my mother says.

“That he has a hard time expressing his feelings to you verbally?”

“Yes.”

It’s the one where a child falls into a well and when Rhianna is lowered in to save the little boy, she shines a flashlight and there is a complete human skeleton there are pearls there are diamonds but the bones belong to a man it’s an heiress who disappeared in the sixties and at the end you learn that she was actually a he-

“Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Hunt, that your other son, Theo, exhibits every single one of these behaviors from time to time? In fact, that every teenager on the planet exhibits them?”

“I wouldn’t exactly-”

“Does that make Theo insane, too?”

It’s 4:32 it’s 4:32 it’s 4:32.

“Can we please leave now?” I say, but the words are as loose as molasses and they don’t sound right; and everyone is moving slowly and slurring their words, too, when I stand up to get their attention.

“Mr. Bond, control your client,” I hear, and Oliver grabs my arm and yanks me off my feet.

The prosecutor’s lips pull back from her teeth like a smile, but it’s not a smile. “Ms. Hunt, you were the one who contacted the police when you saw Jacob’s quilt on the news broadcast, isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” my mother whispers.

“You did it because you believed your son had killed Jess Ogilvy, didn’t you?”

She shakes her head (4:34) and doesn’t answer.

“Ms. Hunt, you thought your own son had committed murder, isn’t that true?” the lawyer says with a voice that’s a hammer.

Ms. Hunt

(4:35)

Answer the

(no)

question.

Suddenly the room goes still, like the air between the beats of a bird’s wings, and I can hear everything rewinding in my head.

Control your client.

You look crazy.

The hardest thing to hear is the truth.

I stare at my mother, right into her eyes, and feel the fingernails on the chalkboard of my brain and belly. I can see the chambers of her heart, and the ruby cells of her blood, and the twisting winds of her thoughts.

Oh, Jacob, I hear, instant replay. What did you do?

I know what she is going to say a minute before she says it, and I can’t let her do that.

Then I remember the prosecutor’s words: The only person who knows how Jacob felt is Jacob.

“Stop,” I yell as loud as I can.

“Judge,” Oliver says, “I think we need to adjourn for the day-”

I get to my feet again. “Stop!”

My mother comes out of her seat on the witness stand. “Jacob, it’s okay-”

“Your Honor, the witness has not answered the question-”

I cover my ears with my hands because they are all so loud and the words are bouncing off the walls and the floor and I stand on my chair and then on the table and finally I jump right into the middle of the space in front of the judge, where my mother is already reaching for me.

But before I can touch her I am on the floor and the bailiff has his knee in my back and the judge and jury are scrambling and suddenly there is quiet and calm and no more weight and a voice I know.

“You’re okay, buddy,” Detective Matson says. He reaches out a hand, and he helps me to my feet.

Once at a fair, Theo and I went into a hall of mirrors. We got separated, or maybe Theo just left me behind, but I found myself walking into walls and looking around corners that didn’t really exist, and finally, I sat down on the floor and closed my eyes. That’s what I want to do now, with everyone staring at me. Just like then, there’s no way out that I can foresee.

“You’re okay,” Detective Matson repeats, and he leads the way.

Most of the time if a town cop comes into the sheriff’s domain, a pissing contest ensues: they don’t want me telling them how to run their outfit any more than I want them screwing up one of my crime scenes. But with Jacob on the loose in the courtroom, they probably would have welcomed the National Guard’s help if it had been available, and when I hop over the bar and grab Jacob, everyone else steps away and lets me, as if I actually know what I am doing.

His head is bobbing up and down as if he is having a conversation with himself, and one of his hands makes a weird stretching motion against his leg, but at least he isn’t yelling anymore.

I walk Jacob into a holding cell. He turns away from me, shoulders pressed to the bars.

“You okay?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.

I lean against the bars from the outside of the cell, so that we are practically back-to-back. “There was a guy once who killed himself in a holding cell in Swanton,” I say, as if this is ordinary conversation. “The officers booked him and left him there to sleep off a good drunk. He was standing like you, but with his arms crossed. Wearing a flannel shirt, button-down. Security camera on him the whole time. You probably can’t guess how he did it.”

At first, Jacob doesn’t answer. Then he turns his head slightly. “He made a noose by tying the arms of the shirt around his neck,” he answers. “So it looked like he was standing up against the bars on the security camera, but actually, he’d already hanged himself.”