The Jodi Picoult Collection #4

by Jodi Picoult

  “I assume so.”

  “Do you think any of them have trouble relating to others socially?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you think any of them might have experienced a moment where they were picked on, or felt marginalized?”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Sharp.”

  “Really? Have you seen Peter Tork’s old haircut? I’ll go out on a limb and say yes, they have been teased. And yet none of these men with Asperger’s is on trial for murder, are they?”

  “No. Like I said, there isn’t a causal link between Asperger’s and violence.”

  “If Asperger’s doesn’t make someone violent, how can it be an excuse for someone like Jacob committing a horrific act of violence?”

  “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 “Withdrawn.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. Grenville purses her lips. “I have noticed that Mr. Hubbard has a tendency to smirk when he gets frustrated.”

  “Do you happen to know if it is incorrect to pair adenine with adenine?”

  “As it turns out, Jacob was right.”

  I glance back at the defense table. Jacob is smiling from ear to ear.

  “Were there any other incidents when you had to help Jacob?”

  “Last year, he got into trouble with a young woman. She was very upset over a poor grade and somehow communicated to Jacob that if he really wanted to be her friend, he’d tell the math teacher to go . . .” She looks down at her lap. “Fornicate with himself. Jacob was given detention for that, and later confronted the young woman and grabbed her by the throat.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “A teacher saw him and pulled him away from the girl. Jacob was suspended for two weeks. He would have been expelled if not for his IEP and the understanding that he was provoked.”

  “What have you done to modify Jacob’s social behavior in school?”

  “He attended social skills class, but then Emma Hunt and I discussed getting a private tutor for Jacob instead. We thought he might be able to better work on specific situations that tended to upset him, so that he could deal with them more constructively.”

  “Did you find a tutor?”

  “Yes. I contacted the university, and they put feelers out in their education department.” She looks at the jury. “Jess Ogilvy was the first student to respond to the request.”

  “Had Jacob been meeting with her?”

  “Yes, since last fall.”

  “Mrs. Grenville, since Jacob began his tutoring with Jess Ogilvy, have there been any incidents of him losing his temper?”

  She shakes her head. “Not one,” she says.

  “Your witness,” I say to Helen.

  The prosecutor stands up. “Mr. Hubbard—the biology teacher—he was angry and Jacob didn’t realize it?”

  “No.”

  “Would you say that’s a problem for Jacob? Knowing when someone’s angry at him?”

  “From what I know about Asperger’s, yes.”

  “The other incident you raised involved Jacob cursing out a teacher on a dare and then attacking the girl who dared him, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had Jacob been told before to not use physical violence to solve problems?”

  “Certainly,” the counselor says. “He knew that was a school rule.”

  “But he broke that rule?” Helen asks.

  “He did.”

  “Even though, according to your own testimony, following rules is very important to Jacob?”

  “Even though,” Mrs. Grenville says.

  “Did he have any explanation for you as to why he broke that rule?”

  Mrs. Grenville shakes her head slowly. “He said that he just snapped.”

  Helen considers this. “You also said, Mrs. Grenville, that since starting his tutoring sessions, Jacob hasn’t lost his temper in school.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Apparently he was saving that for after school,” Helen says. “Nothing further.”

  * * *

  Court adjourns early that day because Judge Cuttings has a doctor’s appointment. As the room empties, I gather up my files and stuff them into my briefcase. “So,” I say to Emma, “I’d like to come over and talk to you about your testimony.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Theo and Henry making their way toward us.

  “I thought we discussed this,” Emma says pointedly.

  We did. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to go back to my office while I know Henry is under her roof.

  “You can never be too ready,” I tell her. “We have two cars. No sense in all of you being crammed into one. Would anyone like to ride with me?”

  I am staring straight at Emma. “That’s a good idea,” she says. “Jacob, why don’t you go?”

  Which is how I wind up trailing Henry’s rental car with Jacob sitting beside me in the passenger seat of the truck—and only after a small fit, because he prefers to ride in the backseat and there isn’t one. He fiddles with the radio, which is AM stations only because my truck is old enough to have been built by Moses. “You know why you can pick up AM stations better at night?” Jacob says. “Because the ionosphere reflects radio signals better when the sun isn’t radiating the heck out of the upper atmosphere.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I couldn’t have gone to sleep tonight without knowing that.”

  Jacob looks at me. “Really?”

  “No, I’m kidding.”

  He folds his arms. “Haven’t you been listening to yourself in court? I don’t ‘get’ sarcasm. I’m totally self-centered. Oh, and at any moment I might just go totally crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy,” I tell him. “I’m just trying to get the jury to see you as legally insane.”

  Jacob slumps in his seat. “I’m not a big fan of labels.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I first got my diagnosis, my mother was relieved, because she saw it as something that would be helpful. I mean, teachers don’t look at kids who are reading eight grade levels above where they should be and doing complex mathematical proofs in third grade and think they need special help, even if they are being teased all the time. The diagnosis helped me get an IEP, which was great, but it also changed things in a bad way.” Jacob shrugs. “I guess I expected it to be like this other girl in my grade who has a port-wine stain on half her face. People go right up to her and ask about it, and she says it’s a birthmark and that it doesn’t hurt. End of story. No one ever asks if they can catch it like a virus, or doesn’t want to play with her because of it. But you tell someone you’re autistic, and half the time they talk louder to you, like you might be deaf. And the few things that I used to get credit for—like being smart, or having a really excellent memory—were all of a sudden just things that made me even more weird.” He is quiet for a moment, and then he turns to me. “I’m not autistic; I have autism. I also have brown hair and flat feet. So I don’t understand why I’m always ‘the kid with Asperger’s,’ ” Jacob says.

  I keep my eyes on the road. “Because it’s better than being the kid who killed Jess Ogilvy,” I reply, and after that, we don’t talk at all.

  * * *

  It figures; Henry’s showed up on a day when the food is not noticeably Aspergian. Emma’s made steak and baked potatoes and gravy and gluten-free brownies. If Henry notices the lack of a green vegetable—or anything on the plate that isn’t brown, for that matter—he doesn’t mention it.

  “So, Henry,” I say. “You do programming?”

  He nods. “Right now I’m parsing XML for a point-and-click web app for the iPhone that’ll spice up four hundred contemporary American ethnic dishes with Chinese herbs and sauces.” He launches into a fifteen-minute discussion of esoteric computer programming that none of us can follow.

  “Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I say.

  “Actually, I work for Adobe,” Henry says.

  Theo and I are the only ones who find that funny. I wonder if Henry’s ever been diagnosed. “And you’re remarried, right?” I look at Emma
when I say this.

  “Yes. I’ve got two girls,” he says, and then hurries to add, “in addition to the two boys, of course.”

  “Of course,” I answer, and I break a brownie in half. “So when are you leaving?”

  “Oliver!” Emma says.

  Henry laughs. “Well, I guess that depends on how long the trial goes on.” He leans back in his chair. “Emma, that was a great dinner.”

  Just wait till Blue Friday, I muse.

  “I’d better go find myself a hotel, since I’ve been up for about thirty-six straight hours and I’m bound to crash and burn soon,” Henry says.

  “You’ll stay here,” Emma announces, and both Henry and I look at her, surprised. “Well, it’s silly to have you stay a half hour away when we’re all going to the same place tomorrow morning, isn’t it? Theo, your father can sleep in your room and you can have the couch.”

  “What?” Theo yelps. “Why do I have to give up my room? What about Jacob?”

  “Let me put it to you this way,” Emma answers. “Do you want to sleep on the couch or do you want to help me when Jacob has a meltdown?”

  He shoves away from the table, angry. “Where are the extra freaking pillows?”

  “I don’t want to put anyone out—” Henry says.

  “Emma,” I interrupt, “can I have a few minutes?”

  “Oh, right. You wanted to go over testimony?” She turns to Jacob. “Honey, can you clear the table and load the dishwasher?”

  He stands up and starts clearing as I drag Emma upstairs. “We need to go somewhere quiet,” I say, and I lead her into her own bedroom.

  I’ve never been in here. It’s peaceful—all cool greens and sea blues. There’s a Zen garden on the dresser with a rake and three black stones. In the sand, someone has written H-E-L-P.

  “The only part I’m still nervous about is the cross-exam,” Emma says, all she can manage to get out before I grab her and kiss her. It’s not gentle, either. It’s the physical equivalent of pouring into her all the feelings I can’t put into words.

  When she breaks away from me, her mouth is rosy and swollen, and that makes me take a step toward her again, but she puts her hand on my chest to hold me off. “Oh my God,” she says, with a slow smile. “You’re jealous.”