House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

  --Jesus H. Christ,|| he says.

  I've always wondered why people say that. Why the H? I mean, what if his middle name was Stanley?

  --I'm stuck on the last one,|| the grandma says.

  I pull my iPod earphone free. --Sorry?||

  --No, that doesn't fit.|| She is hunched over a crossword puzzle in the back of the US

  Airways magazine. It had been filled out halfway. I hate that; doesn't the jerk who is sitting in the seat on the previous flight think someone else might want to try it on his own? --The clue is Regretted. And it's four letters.||

  Theo, I think.

  Suddenly the businessman comes out of his seat and twists around. --Madam,|| he says to the kid's mom, --is there any chance you could keep your brat from being so incredibly rude?||

  --That's it,|| the grandma says. --Rude!||

  I watch her write it in pencil. --I, uh, think it's spelled differently,|| I suggest.

  --R-U-E-D.||

  --Right,|| she says, erasing it to make the correction. --I admit to being a horrendous speller.|| She smiles at me. --Now, what's bringing you out to sunny California?||

  --I'm visiting someone.||

  --Me, too. Someone I've never met--my first grandbaby.||

  --Wow,|| I say. --You must be pretty stoked.||

  --If that's a good thing, then yes, I guess I am. My name's Edith.||

  --I'm Paul.||

  Okay, I don't know where the lie came from. I shouldn't have been surprised--after all, I'd hidden my involvement in this whole nightmare for over a month now, and I was getting really good at pretending I wasn't the same person I was back then. But once I made up the name, the rest kept coming. I was on school break. I was an only child. My parents were divorced (Ha! Not a lie!), and I was going to see my dad. We were planning on taking a college tour of Stanford.

  At home, we don't talk about my father. In world studies class we learned about indigenous cultures who no longer speak the names of the dead--well, we no longer say the name of the person who quit when the going got tough. I don't really know the details of my parents' split, except that I was still a baby when it happened, and so of course there's a piece of me that thinks I must have been the straw that broke the camel's back. But I do know that he tries to pay off his guilt by sending my mom a child support check every month. And I also know that he has replaced Jacob and me with two little girls who look like china dolls and who probably have never broken into a house or stimmed a day in their short lives. I know this because he sends us a Christmas card every year, which I throw out if I get to the mail before my mother does.

  --Do you have brothers or sisters?|| Edith asks.

  I take a sip of the 7-Up I bought for three bucks. --Nope,|| I say. --Only child.||

  --Stop it,|| the businessman says, and for one awful moment I think he's going to tell this woman who I really am. Then he turns around in his seat. --For the love of God,|| he says to the little kid's mom.

  --So, Paul,|| Edith says, --what do you want to study at Stanford?||

  I am fifteen, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Except fix the mess I've made of it.

  Instead of answering, I point down at her crossword puzzle. --Quito,|| I say. --That's the answer to forty-two across.||

  She gets all excited and reads aloud the next clue. I think about how happy she'll be if we finish this crossword puzzle. She'll get off the plane and tell her son-in-law, or whoever is picking her up, about the nice young man she met. About how helpful I was.

  How proud my parents must be of me.

  Jacob

  My brother is not as smart as I am.

  I am not saying this to be mean; I'm just stating a fact. For example, he has to study all his vocabulary words if he wants to do well on a test; I can look at the page and it's stuck in my head for easy retrieval after that first glance. He would leave the room if two adults started discussing adult things, like current events; I would just pull up a chair and join the conversation. He doesn't care about storing information away like a squirrel would save nuts for the winter; it's only interesting to Theo if it has current real-life applications.

  However, I am not nearly as intuitive as my brother. This is why when I begin to let some of that stored information bleed free--like for example how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak released the Apple I computer on April Fool's Day 1976--and the person I am speaking with begins to go glassy-eyed and make excuses, I will keep talking, although Theo would easily read the clues and shut up.

  Being a detective is all about intuition. Being a good crime scene investigator, however, requires great thoroughness and intelligence. Which is why, while my mother is rendered immobile by her panic over Theo's disappearance and Oliver is doing stupid things like patting her shoulder, I go to Theo's bedroom and get on his computer.

  I am very good with computers. I once took my guidance counselor's laptop apart and put it back together, motherboard and all. I could probably configure your wireless network in my sleep. Here is the other reason I like computers: when you are talking to someone online, you don't have to read expressions on faces or interpret tones of voice.

  What you see is what you get, and that means I don't have to try so hard when I interact.

  There are chat rooms and message boards for Aspies like me, but I don't frequent them.

  One of the house rules in the family is to not go to websites my mother has not vetted.

  When I asked her why, she made me sit down with her and watch a television show about sexual predators. I tried to explain that the website I wanted to chat on wasn't quite the same thing--that it was only a bunch of people like me trying to connect without all the bullshit that's part of face-to-face meetings--but she wouldn't take no for an answer. You don't know what these people are like, Jacob, she said to me. In fact, I did. It was the people in the real world I didn't understand.

  It takes only a few clicks to delve into his cache--even though he thinks he's emptied it, nothing is ever really gone on a computer--and to see where he was last surfing the Net. Orbitz.com, flights to San Jose.

  When I bring downstairs the printout of the webpage that has his ticket information on it, Oliver is trying to convince my mother to call the police. --I can't,|| she says. --They won't want to help me.||

  --They don't get to pick and choose their cases--||

  --Mom,|| I interrupt.

  --Jacob, not now,|| Oliver says.

  --But--||

  My mother looks at me and starts crying. I watch one tear make an S-curve down her cheek. --I want to talk to you,|| I say.

  --I'm getting the phone,|| Oliver says. --I'm dialing 911.||

  --I know where Theo is,|| I tell them.

  My mother blinks. --You what?||

  --It was on his computer.|| I hand her the printed page.

  --Oh my God,|| my mother says, holding her hand up to her mouth. --He's going to Henry's.||

  --Who's Henry?|| Oliver asks.

  --My father,|| I answer. --He walked out on us.||

  Oliver takes a step backward and rubs his chin.

  --He's connecting in Chicago,|| I add. --His plane leaves in fifteen minutes.||

  --You can't catch him before he takes off,|| Oliver says. --Does Henry know? About Jacob?||

  --Of course he knows about me. He sends checks every year for my birthday and Christmas.||

  --I meant does Henry know about the murder charge?||

  My mother looks down at the fault line between the cushions of the couch. --I don't know. He might have read about it in the papers, but I didn't talk to him about it,|| she admits. --I didn't know how to tell him.||

  Oliver holds out the phone. --Now's the time to figure that out,|| he says.

  I don't like to think of Theo on a plane; I don't like planes. I understand Bernoulli's principle, but for the love of God, no matter how physical forces are being exerted on the wings for lift, the hardware weighs a million pounds. For all intents and purposes, it should fall ou
t of the sky.

  My mother takes the phone and starts to dial a long-distance number. It sounds like the notes of a game show theme song, but I can't remember which one.

  --Christ,|| Oliver says. He looks at me.

  I don't know how I'm supposed to respond. --We'll always have Paris,|| I say.

  When Theo was eight, he became convinced that there was a monster living underneath the house. He knew this because he could hear its breath every night when the radiators in his room hissed awake. I was eleven and very into dinosaurs at the time, and as thrilling as it was for me to assume that there might be a sauropod rooting around under the foundations of our house, I knew this was not likely:

  1. Our house was built in 1973.

  2. To build it, there would have been an excavation.

  3. The probability of the world's sole long-lost dinosaur surviving the excavation and residing beneath my basement floor would be pretty slim.

  4. Even if it had survived, what the hell would it be eating?

  --Grass clippings,|| Theo said, when I told him all this. --Duh.||

  One of the reasons I like having Asperger's is that I don't have an active imagination. To many--teachers and guidance counselors and shrinks included--this is a great detriment. To me, it's a blessing. Logical thinking keeps you from wasting time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.

  Like running into a hadrosaur on your way to the bathroom at 3:00 A.M.

  Theo spent two weeks freaking out in the middle of the night when he heard the hiss from heating registers in his room. My mother tried everything--from warm milk before bedtime to an illustrated diagram of the heating system of the house to an unnecessary dose of children's Benadryl at night to knock Theo out--but like clockwork, he'd start screaming in the middle of the night and would run out of his room and wake both of us.

  It was getting old, frankly, which is why I did what I did.

  After my mother tucked me in, I stayed up with a flashlight hidden under my pillow and read until I knew she had gone to bed, too. Then I took my pillow and blankets and sleeping bag and camped outside Theo's bedroom door. That night, when he woke up screaming and tried to run to my mother's room to wake her up, too, he tripped over me.

  He blinked for a second, trying to figure out if he was dreaming. --Go back to bed,|| I said. --There's no stupid dinosaur.||

  I could tell he didn't believe me, so I added, --And if there is, he'll kill me first before he gets to you.||

  This actually worked. Theo crawled back into bed, and we both fell asleep again.

  My mother was the one who found me sprawled on the floor the next morning.

  She panicked. Assuming I'd had some kind of seizure, she started shaking me.

  --Stop, Mom,|| I finally said. --I'm fine!||

  --What are you doing out here?||

  --I was sleeping ...||

  --In the hallway?||

  --Not the hallway,|| I corrected. --In front of Theo's room.||

  --Oh, Jacob. You were trying to make him feel safe, weren't you?|| She threw her arms around me and held me so tight I thought I just might have a seizure after all. --I knew it,|| she babbled. --I knew it! All those books; all those idiot doctors who said kids with Asperger's have no theory of mind and can't empathize ... You do love your brother. You wanted to protect him.||

  I let her embrace me, because it seemed to be what she wanted to do. Behind Theo's door, I could hear him starting to stir.

  What my mother had said was not technically inaccurate. What those doctors and books all say about how Aspies like me cannot feel anything on behalf of others--that's total bullshit. We understand when someone else is in pain; it just affects us differently than it affects other humans. I see it as the next step of evolution: I cannot take away your sadness, so why should I acknowledge it?

  In addition, I hadn't slept in front of Theo's door because I wanted to protect him.

  I'd slept in front of his door because I was exhausted after a week of midnight crying, and I only wanted to get a good night's rest. I was looking out for my own best interests.

  You could say, actually, that this was the impetus behind what happened with Jess, too.

  Oliver

  Emma wants to call US Airways and make them stop the plane from departing, but the entire system is automated. When we finally do reach a human employee, he's in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has no way of contacting the Burlington gate. --Here's the thing,|| I tell her. --You can beat him there by flying direct to San Francisco. It's almost the same distance to Palo Alto from the San Jose airport.|| She looks over my shoulder at the computer screen, which has the flight I've found. --With the layover in Chicago that Theo's going to make, you'll still get in an hour before he does.||

  She leans forward, and I can smell the shampoo in her hair. Her eyes flicker over the flight information, hopeful--and then land on the bottom, and the price. --$1,080? That's ridiculous!||

  --Same-day fares aren't cheap.||

  --Well, that's not in my budget,|| Emma says.

  I click on the button to purchase the ticket. --It's in mine,|| I lie.

  --What are you doing! You can't pay for that--||

  --Too late.|| I shrug. The truth is, financially, I'm a little shaky now. I have one client, and she can't afford to pay me, and worse, I'm okay with that. Surely I missed the Bloodsucking Your Client class in law school, since all evidence points to me being the poster boy for Financially Ruined Defense Attorneys. But at the same time, I'm thinking that I can sell my saddle--I have a beautiful English one that's in storage below the pizza place. No use having it when I don't have a horse anyway.

  --I'll add it to the bill,|| I say, but we both know I probably won't.

  Emma closes her eyes for a moment. --I don't know what to say.||

  --Then just be quiet.||

  --You shouldn't have to get involved in this mess.||

  --Lucky for you the only other thing I had to do today was organize my sock drawer,|| I joke, but she's not laughing.

  --I'm sorry,|| Emma replies. --It's just ... I don't have anyone else.||

  Very slowly, very deliberately, so that she will not startle or pull away, I thread my fingers through hers and squeeze her hand. --You have me,|| I say.

  If I were a better man, I wouldn't have eavesdropped on Emma's conversation with her ex-husband. Henry, she said. It's Emma.

  No, actually, I can't really call back later. It's about Theo.

  He's fine. I mean, I think he's fine. He's run away from home.

  Well, of course I know that. He's on his way to your place.

  Yes, California. Unless you've moved lately.

  No, I'm sorry. That wasn't an insult ...

  I don't know why. He just took off.

  He used my credit card. Look, can we just talk about this when I get there?

  Oh. Did I forget to mention that?

  If all goes well, I'll land before Theo.

  Meeting us at the airport would be great. We're both on US Airways.

  Then there is a hesitation.

  Jacob? she replies. No, he won't be joining me.

  It is decided that I will camp out for the night to be the over-twenty-five-year-old adult watching Jacob while Emma hauls Theo's ass back across the country. At first, after she leaves, it seems like a piece of cake--we can play the Wii. We can watch TV. And, thank God, it's Brown Thursday, which is relatively easy: I can cook Jacob a burger for dinner. It isn't until an hour after she leaves that I remember my hearing tomorrow--the one I had not yet told Emma about, the one I will have to take Jacob to by myself.

  --Jacob,|| I say, while he is engrossed in a television show about how Milky Way bars are made. --I have to talk to you for a second.||

  He doesn't respond. His eyes don't even flicker from the screen, so I step in front of it and turn it off.

  --I just want to have a littl
e chat.|| When Jacob doesn't answer, I keep speaking.

  --Your trial starts in a month, you know.||

  --A month and six days.||

  --Right. Well, I've been thinking about how ... hard it might be for you to be in court all day long, and I figured we need to do something about it.||

  --Oh,|| Jacob says, shaking his head. --I can't be in court all day. I have schoolwork to do. And I have to be home by four-thirty so that I can watch CrimeBusters. ||

  --I don't think you get it. It's not your call. You go to court when the judge says you go to court, and you get to come home when he's ready to let you go.||

  Jacob chews on this information. --That's not going to work for me.||

  --Which is why you and I are going back to court tomorrow.||

  --But my mother's not here.||

  --I know that, Jacob. I didn't plan for her to be away. But the fact of the matter is, the whole reason we're going is something you said to me.||

  --Me?||

  --Yes. Do you remember what you told me when you decided I could run an insanity defense?||

  Jacob nods. --That the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by the state or local governments, including the courts,|| he says, --and that some people consider autism to be a disability, even if I don't happen to be one of them.||

  --Right. But if you do consider Asperger's syndrome to be a developmental disability, then under the ADA you're also entitled to provisions in court that will make the experience easier for you.|| I let a slow smile loose, like a card that's been played close to the chest. --Tomorrow, we're going to make sure you get them.||

  Emma

  From Auntie Em's column archives:

  Dear Auntie Em,

  Recently I have been dreaming about my ex. Should I consider this a sign from a higher power and call him to say hi?

  Sleepless in Strafford

  Dear Sleepless,

  Yes, but I wouldn't tell him you are calling because he's starring in your dreams. Unless he happens to say, --Gosh, it's so strange that you called today, because I dreamed about you last night.||

  Auntie Em

  I asked Henry out on our first date, because he didn't seem to be picking up on hints that I was his for the taking. We saw the movie Ghost and went out to dinner afterward, where Henry told me that, scientifically, ghosts could simply not exist. --It's basic physics and math,|| he said. --Patrick Swayze couldn't walk through walls and tag along behind Demi Moore. If ghosts can follow someone, that means their feet apply force to the floor. If they go through walls, though, they don't have any substance. They could either be material or be unmaterial, but they can't be both at the same time. It violates Newton's rule.||