Jodi Picoult - House Rules

“It’s just a cold,” Theo says, ducking away. “But Jacob’s not home yet and it’s past four-thirty.”

He doesn’t really need to say any more: Jacob would rather saw off his arm with a butter knife than miss an episode of CrimeBusters. But Jacob’s only fifteen minutes later than normal. “Well, he was meeting Jess somewhere new today. Maybe it’s a little farther away than her dorm was.”

“But what if he never got there?” Theo says, visibly upset. “I should have just stayed in school and walked him there like usual-”

“Honey, you were sick. Besides, Mrs. Grenville thought this might be a good opportunity for Jacob to be independent. And I think I’ve got Jess’s new phone number on my email; I can call if it makes you feel better.” I wrap my arms around Theo. It’s been too long since I hugged him; at fifteen, he ducks away from physical affection. But it’s sweet to see him worried about Jacob. There might be friction between them, but at heart, Theo loves his brother. “I’m sure Jacob’s fine, but I’m glad he’s got you looking out for him,” I say, and in that instant, I make a snap decision to capitalize on the goodwill Theo’s feeling for Jacob. “Let’s go out for Chinese tonight,” I suggest, even though eating out is a luxury we can’t afford; plus, it’s harder to find food Jacob can eat if I don’t make it myself.

An unreadable expression crosses Theo’s face, but then he nods. “That would be cool,” he says gruffly, and he slides away from my grasp.

The door to the mudroom opens. “Jacob?” I call, and I go to meet him.

For a moment, I can’t speak. His eyes are wild and his nose is running. His hands flap at his sides as he shoves me into the wall and runs up to his room. “Jacob!”

He has no lock on his bedroom door; I removed it years ago. Now, I push the door open and find Jacob inside his closet, underneath the tendrils of shirt cuffs and sweatpants, rocking back and forth and emitting a high, reedy note from his throat.

“What’s the matter, baby?” I say, getting down on my hands and knees and crawling into the closet, too. I wrap my arms tight around him and start singing:

“I shot the sheriff… but I didn’t shoot the deputy.”

Jacob’s hands are flapping so hard that he is bruising me. “Talk to me,” I say. “Did something happen with Jess?”

At the sound of her name, he arches backward, as if he’s been pierced by a bullet. He starts smacking his head against the wall so hard that it dents the plaster.

“Don’t,” I beg, using every bit of strength I have to drag him forward, so that he cannot hurt himself.

Dealing with an autistic meltdown is like dealing with a tornado. Once you are close enough to see it coming, there’s nothing to do but weather the storm. Unlike a child having a temper tantrum, Jacob doesn’t care if his behavior is making me react. He doesn’t make sure he’s not hurting himself. He isn’t doing it in order to get something. In fact, he’s not in control of himself at all. And unlike when he was four or five, I am not big enough to control him anymore.

I get up and turn off all the lights in the room and pull down the blackout shades so that it is dark. I put on his Marley CD. Then I start pulling clothes off the hangers in his closet and pile them on his body-which at first makes him scream harder and then, as the weight builds, calms him down. By the time he falls asleep in my arms, I have ripped my blouse and my stockings. The CD has repeated four times in its entirety. The LED display on his alarm clock reads 8:35 P.M.

“What set you off?” I whisper. It could have been anything-an argument with Jess, or the fact that he didn’t like the layout of the kitchen in her new accommodations, or the realization too late that he was missing his favorite TV show. I kiss Jacob on the forehead. Then, gently, I disengage myself from the knot of his arms and leave him curled on the floor with a pillow under his head. I cover him with the rainbow postage-stamp summertime quilt that’s been folded up for the season in his closet.

Muscles stiff, I walk downstairs again. The lights have all been turned off, except for one in the kitchen.

Let’s go out for Chinese tonight.

But that was before I knew that I would be sucked into the black hole that Jacob can become at any given moment.

There is a cereal bowl on the counter, with a puddle of soy milk still in the bottom. The Rice Chex box stands beside it like an accusation.

Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I’m wearing will never really fit.

I carry the bowl to the sink and swallow the tears that spring to the back of my throat. Oh, Theo. I’m so sorry.

Again.

Dennis Rader was a married man with two grown children, a former Cub Scout leader, and president of his Lutheran church. He also-after a thirty-one-year investigation-was revealed to be the serial killer known as BTK, short for Bind, Torture, and Kill-his method for murdering ten people in the Wichita, Kansas, area between 1974 and 1991. After the killings, letters were sent to the police bragging of the killings and offering grisly details. Following a twenty-five-year silence, those letters and packages resumed in 2004, claiming responsibility for a murder for which he had not been suspected. DNA was taken from beneath the fingernails of a victim, and authorities gathered eleven hundred DNA samples, attempting to find the serial killer.

In one of BTK’s communications-a computer disk mailed to KSAS-TV-metadata from the Microsoft Word document revealed that the author was someone named Dennis, as well as a link to the Lutheran Church. Searching on the Internet, police were able to find a suspect: Dennis Rader. By obtaining his daughter’s DNA and comparing it with DNA samples found on the victims, the police were able to make a familial match-giving them enough probable cause for arrest. He has been sentenced to 175 years to life.

So to all of you who surf for Internet porn or spend your free time writing anarchist manifestos: Beware. You can’t ever really get rid of something on your computer.

I’ve faced down a lot of harrowing situations in my twenty years on the job: suicides in progress, felons on the run after an armed robbery, rape victims too traumatized to tell me their story. None of these, however, compare to having to work an audience made up of seven-year-olds.

“Can you show us your gun again?” one kid asks.

“Not a great idea,” I say, glancing at the teacher, who already asked me to remove my holster and weapon before coming into the class for Job Day-a request I had to refuse, since technically, I was still on the clock.

“Do you get to shoot it?”

I look over the ammo-obsessed boy’s head at the rest of the class. “Any other questions?”

A little girl raises her hand. I recognize her; she might have come to one of Sasha’s birthday parties. “Do you always get the bad guys?” she asks.

There’s no way to explain to a child that the line between good and evil isn’t nearly as black and white as a fairy tale would lead you to believe. That an ordinary person can turn into a villain, under the right circumstances. That sometimes we dragon slayers do things we aren’t proud of.

I look her in the eye. “We sure try,” I say.

On my hip, my cell phone starts to vibrate. I flip it open, see the number of the station, and stand up. “I’m going to have to cut this short… So one more time-what’s the number one rule of crime scenes?”