House Rules Read online

  Anyway, this is also why, even though my parents might have assumed my attention was otherwise occupied, I can remember the fights they had verbatim: Do you remember me, Emma? I live here, too ...

  For God's sake, Henry. Are you really jealous of the time I spend with your own son?

  And

  I don't care how we're going to pay for it. I'm not going to pass up a treatment for Jacob just because--

  Because what? Say it ... You don't think I make enough money.

  Your words, not mine.

  And

  I want to come home from my fucking job to my fucking house and not have ten fucking strangers on my living room floor. Is that so much to ask?

  Those strangers are the ones who are going to bring Jacob back to us--

  Wake up, Emma. He is what he is. There's not some miracle locked inside him waiting to come out.

  And

  You've worked late every night this week.

  Well, what have I got to come home to?

  And

  What do you mean, you're pregnant? We said no more. We already have too much on our plate--

  I didn't exactly get pregnant by myself, you know.

  You'd know. You're the one who takes the pills.

  You think I tricked you? Jesus, Henry, I'm glad to know you think so highly of me.

  Just get out. Get out of here.

  And one day he did.

  Suddenly, my father knocks on Theo's door and pokes his head into the room.

  --Boys,|| he says. --How, um, how are you doing?||

  Neither of us says a word.

  --Jacob,|| he asks. --Can we talk?||

  We sit down in my room, with me on the bed and my father on my desk chair. --Are you ...

  okay with me being here?||

  I look around. He isn't messing anything up on my desk, so I nod.

  This makes him feel better, I think, because his shoulders relax. --I owe you an apology,|| he says. --I don't really know how to put this into words.||

  --That happens to me,|| I tell him.

  He smiles a little and shakes his head. Theo looks so much like him. I've heard this all my life from my mother, but now I can also see that there's a lot of my father that reminds me of me. Like the way he ducks his head before he starts a sentence. And how he drums his fingers on his thighs.

  --I wanted to apologize to you, Jacob,|| he says. --There are some people--like your mother--who just won't give up. I'm not one of those people. I'm not saying it's an excuse, only a fact. I knew enough about myself, even back then, to understand that this wasn't a situation I could handle.||

  --By this, || I say, --you mean me. ||

  He hesitates, and then he nods. --I don't know as much about Asperger's as your mother does,|| he says. --But I think maybe we've all got something in us that keeps us from connecting to people, even when we want to.||

  I like the concept: that Asperger's is like a flavoring added to a person, and although my concentration is higher than those of others, if tested, everyone else would have traces of this condition, too.

  I make myself look my father in the eye. --Did you know apples can rust?|| I say.

  --No,|| he says, his voice softer. --No, I did not.||

  In addition to the list of apple facts, I have kept another list for my father, of questions I might ask if the chance arose:

  1. If it hadn't been for me, would you have stayed?

  2. Were you ever sorry you left?

  3. Do you think one day we could be friends?

  4. If I promised to try harder, would you consider coming back?

  It is worthwhile to note that while we were sitting in my room we discussed apples, the medical examiner's testimony of yesterday, and the article in Wired magazine about whether Asperger's was on the rise in Silicon Valley due to the preponderance of math-and-science genes in the geographical area. Yet I did not ask him a single one of these questions, which are still on a list in the back of my bottommost left desk drawer.

  We all ride to the courthouse together in my father's rental car. It is silver and smells like pine trees. I am sitting in my usual seat in the back behind my father, who is driving. My mother sits next to him, and Theo's beside me. As we drive I look at the spaces between the power lines on the telephone poles, which narrow at the ends and then widen in the middle, like giant canoes.

  We are five minutes from the courthouse when my mother's cell phone rings. She nearly drops it before she manages to answer the call. --I'm fine,|| she says, but her face gets red.

  --We'll meet you in the parking lot.||

  I suppose I should be nervous, but I'm actually excited. Today is the day that Oliver gets to tell everyone the truth about what I did.

  --Now, Jacob,|| my mother says. --You remember the rules?||

  --Let Oliver do the talking,|| I mutter. --Pass him a note if I need a break. I'm not a moron, Mom.||

  --That's a matter of opinion,|| Theo says.

  She twists around in her seat. Her pupils are large and dark, and a pulse beats in the hollow of her throat. --It's going to be harder for you today,|| she says quietly. --You're going to hear things said about you that might not make sense. Things that maybe you even think aren't true. But just remember, Oliver knows what he's doing.||

  --Is Jacob testifying?|| my father asks.

  My mother turns to him. --What do you think?||

  --I was just asking, for God's sake.||

  --Well, you can't come in at the third act and expect me to tell you what you've missed,|| she snaps, and silence fills the car like sarin gas. I start to whisper the Fibonacci sequence under my breath, to make myself feel better, and Theo must feel the same way, because he says, --So ... are we there yet?|| and then laughs hysterically, as if he's told a really funny joke.

  As we drive in, Oliver is leaning against his truck. It is an old pickup that, he says, is more suited to a farrier than an attorney, but it still gets him from point A to point B. We are parked in the back of the courthouse, away from the cameras and the television news vans. He glances up as we drive by, but this isn't my mother's car, so he doesn't realize it's us. It isn't until we park and step out of the rental car that Oliver sees my mother and comes forward with a big smile on his face.

  And then he notices my dad.

  --Oliver,|| my mother says, --this is my ex-husband, Henry.||

  --Are you kidding?|| Oliver looks at my mother.

  My father sticks out his hand to shake Oliver's. --Nice to meet you.||

  --Um. Right. Pleasure.|| Then he turns to me. --Oh, for the love of God ... Emma, I can't let him go into the courtroom like this.||

  I look down. I'm wearing brown corduroy pants and a brown shirt, with a brown tweed blazer and the stretchy brown tie that Theo tied for me.

  --It's Thursday, and he's dressed in a jacket and tie,|| my mother says tightly. --You might imagine that this morning I had a lot on my plate.||

  Oliver turns to my father. --What does he look like to you?||

  --A UPS driver?|| my father says.

  --I was thinking Nazi. || Oliver shakes his head. --We don't have time for you to go home and change, and you're too big to fit into my--|| Suddenly he breaks off and sizes up my father with one glance. --Go trade shirts with him in the bathroom.||

  --But it's white, || I say.

  --Exactly. The look we're going for is not modern-day serial killer, Jake.||

  My father glances at my mother. --See,|| he says. --Aren't you glad I came?||

  The first day I met Jess for social skills training I happened to be fearing for my very life. I had been in Mrs. Wicklow's English class that year. It wasn't a particularly interesting class, and Mrs. Wicklow had the bad fortune to have a face that looked a little like a sweet potato--long and narrow, with a few sprouting hairs at the chin and an orange spray-on tan.

  But she always let me read aloud when we were doing plays, even if I sometimes had trouble remembering my place, and the time I forgot my notebo