House Rules: A Novel Read online

  “Objection!” Oliver says. “That’s prejudicial.”

  “Sustained,” the judge replies.

  The prosecutor shrugs. “Withdrawn. Dr. Murano, how did you formalize your diagnosis of Jacob’s Asperger’s?”

  “I had an IQ test administered, and an assessment of adaptive skills, to see how Jacob would handle certain social situations. I did interviews with Emma Hunt and with his teachers, to get a sense of Jacob’s history of behavior. Asperger’s doesn’t show up overnight. I saw videotapes of him prior to age two, when he was still meeting developmental milestones for neurotypical children, and then the subsequent decline in behavior and interpersonal connections. And I observed him during a number of sessions, both in my office and at his school in social settings.”

  “There’s no blood test, or any other scientific test, that can be administered to see if a child has Asperger’s, is there?”

  “No. It’s based primarily on observation of repetitive behavior and interests, and a lack of social interaction that impairs everyday functioning, without a significant delay in language.”

  “So … it’s a judgment call?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Murano says. “An educated one.”

  “If Jacob had seen another psychiatrist, isn’t it possible he or she might have determined that Jacob doesn’t have Asperger’s?”

  “I highly doubt it. The diagnosis most often confused with Asperger’s is attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and when they put Aspie kids on ADHD medicine and they don’t respond, it’s often clear that the diagnosis needs to be revisited.”

  “So the criteria you used to diagnose Jacob were his inability to communicate with other people, his trouble reading social cues, his desire for routine and structure, and his fixation on certain topics?”

  “Yes, that’s about right,” the psychiatrist says.

  “Say I have a seven-year-old who is completely obsessed with Power Rangers and who has to have his cookie and milk every night before bedtime, who isn’t very good about telling me what happens in school every day or sharing his toys with his younger brother. Does my seven-year-old have Asperger’s?”

  “Not necessarily. Let’s say you have two three-year-olds in the sandbox. One says, ‘Look at my truck.’ The other responds, ‘I have a doll.’ That’s parallel play, and it’s normal at that age. But if you study those same two children at age eight, and one says, ‘Look at my truck,’ the appropriate response is something like ‘That’s a cool truck’ or ‘Can I touch it?’ or some other sentence that continues the interaction with the child who made the conversational overture. However, a kid with Asperger’s might still say, in response, ‘I have a doll.’ When the playmate walks away, the kid with Asperger’s won’t understand why. In his mind, he’s responded to the sentence and kept the conversation going. He doesn’t comprehend that what he said wasn’t a valid rejoinder.”

  “Or,” Helen Sharp says, “the kid with the doll might just be really self-centered, right?”

  “With Asperger’s that’s often the case.”

  “But without Asperger’s, it’s occasionally the case, too. My point, Doctor, is that the diagnosis you make and the assumptions you have about Jacob are not based on anything other than your own opinion. You’re not looking at a tox screen or brain waves—”

  “There are a variety of psychiatric disorders where clinical observation is the only method of diagnosis, Ms. Sharp. This happens to be one of them. And any psychiatrist in this country will tell you that Asperger’s syndrome is a valid disorder. It may be difficult to describe to someone else in concrete terms, but when you see it, you know what it is.”

  “And just to be clear. You feel that having Asperger’s syndrome affected Jacob’s behavior the day Jess Ogilvy was murdered.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because Jacob couldn’t handle social situations well. And he wasn’t empathetic. And his frustration sometimes led to anger management problems.”

  “That’s right,” Dr. Murano says.

  “Which are traits you find in someone with Asperger’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “What a coincidence,” the prosecutor says, folding her arms. “They’re also traits you find in cold-blooded killers.”

  Once Jacob told me that he could hear plants dying. They scream, he said. I thought for certain this was ridiculous until I talked to Dr. Murano about it. Kids with Asperger’s, she said, have senses we can’t even imagine. We filter out sounds and sights that are constantly barraging their brains, which is why sometimes it seems like they’re off in their own little world. They’re not, she said. They’re in our world, but they’re more engaged in it than we’ll ever be.

  I went home that day and I looked up plant death on the Internet. As it turned out, plants under stress emit ethylene gas, and scientists in Germany have created a device that measures the energy of those molecules as vibrations—or sound.

  Now I wonder if it gets tiring, bearing witness to the last gasp of nature. If it’s not only plants my son hears but the gnash of an angry ocean. A shy sunrise. A breaking heart.

  Oliver

  My high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, once had me take an aptitude test to figure out my future. The number one job recommendation for my set of skills was an air traffic accident investigator, of which there are fewer than fifty in the world. The number two job was a museum curator for Chinese-American studies. The number three job was a circus clown.

  I’m pretty sure lawyer wasn’t even on the list.

  Sometime after I graduated from college I heard through the grapevine that this same guidance counselor had taken an early retirement and moved to a Utopian community in Idaho, where she renamed herself Blessing and now raises alpacas.

  Frances Grenville doesn’t look like she’s in any danger of starting a llama farm anytime soon. She is wearing a blouse buttoned to the throat, and her hands are clasped so tightly in her lap that I imagine her nails are leaving marks on the skin. “Mrs. Grenville,” I say, “where are you employed?”

  “At Townsend Regional High School.”

  “And how long have you been a guidance counselor there?”

  “This is my tenth year.”

  “What are your responsibilities?” I ask.

  “I help students with college search and selection. I write recommendations for students applying to college. And I work with students who face behavioral issues during their school career.”

  “Do you know Jacob?”

  “I do. Because he has an IEP, I’ve been intimately involved in the organization of his school day, to accommodate his special needs.”

  “Can you explain what an IEP is?”

  “An individualized education program,” she says. “It’s an educational plan mandated by federal law to improve educational results for children with disabilities. Each IEP is different, based on the child. For Jacob, for example, we created a list of rules to be adhered to in a school setting—because he functions well with strictures and routines.”

  “Have you met with Jacob for reasons other than his learning needs?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Grenville says. “There have been instances where he’s gotten into trouble with teachers for acting out in class.”

  “How so?”

  “In one case, he kept telling his biology teacher that he was wrong when the teacher made certain factual statements in class.” She hesitates. “Mr. Hubbard was teaching the structure of DNA. He paired adenine with adenine instead of pairing it with thymine. When Jacob told him this was incorrect, Mr. Hubbard got angry. Jacob didn’t realize the teacher was angry and kept pointing out the inaccuracy. Mr. Hubbard sent him to the principal’s office for being disruptive in class.”

  “Did he explain to you why he didn’t know his teacher was angry?”

  “Yes. He said that Mr. Hubbard’s angry face looks a lot like other people’s when they’re happy.”

  “Does it?”

  Mrs. Grenvill