Defending Jacob (18 page)

“Every year or so. Jacob’s day care teachers told us all the time that they could not take their eyes off him, he was too rough. I was scared to death he would get kicked out of day care. Then what would we do? I was still working at the time, teaching; we needed day care. There were long waiting lists at all the other day care centers. If Jacob got thrown out, I’d have to stop working. We actually put our name on the list at another day care, just in case.”

“Oh my God, Laurie, he was four years old! This is
years
ago! What are you talking about?”

“Andy, really, you have to let her speak or this just won’t work.”

“But the time she’s talking about, Jacob was four—years—old.”

“Andy, I understand where you’re coming from. Just let her finish, then you’ll have a turn, all right? All right. Laurie, I’m curious: what did the other kids at day care think of him?”

“Oh, the kids, I don’t know. Jacob had very few playdates, so I imagine the other kids didn’t like him especially.”

“And the parents?”

“I’m sure they didn’t want their kids to be alone with him. But none of the moms ever said anything to me about it. We were all too nice for that. We didn’t criticize each other’s kids. Nice people don’t do that, except behind each other’s backs.”

“What about you, Laurie? What did you think about Jacob’s behavior?”

“I knew I had a difficult child. I did. I knew he had some behavior problems. He was rambunctious, he was a little too rough, a little too aggressive.”

“Was he a bully?”

“No. Not exactly. He just didn’t think about other kids, how they would feel.”

“Was he short-tempered?”

“No.”

“Mean?”

“Mean. No,
mean
isn’t the word for it either. It was more like—I don’t know what to call it, exactly. He just couldn’t seem to imagine how other kids would feel if he pushed them down, so he was … hard to control. I guess that’s it: he was hard to control. But a lot of boys are like that. That’s how we talked about it at the time: ‘A lot of boys go through this. It’s a phase. Jacob will outgrow it.’ That was how we looked at it. I was horrified when other kids got hurt, of course, but what could I do? What could
we
do?”

“What
did
you do, Laurie? Did you ever try to get help?”

“Oh, we talked about it endlessly, Andy and I. Andy always told me not to worry. I asked the pediatrician about it, and he told me the same thing: ‘Don’t worry, Jake is still very little, it will pass.’ They made me feel a little crazy, like I was one of those crazy, jumpy moms always hovering over their kids, freaking out about Band-Aids and … and peanut allergies. And here was Andy and the pediatrician saying, ‘It will pass, it will pass.’ ”

“But it
did
pass, Laurie. You
were
overreacting. The pediatrician was right.”

“Was he? Honey, look where we are. You never want to face this.”

“Face what?”

“That maybe Jacob needed help. Maybe it’s our fault. We should have done something.”

“Done what? Or else what?”

Her head drooped, hopeless. The memory of these early childhood incidents haunted her, as if she had seen a shark’s fin that disappeared under water. It was lunacy.

“Laurie, what are you suggesting? This is our son we’re talking about.”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Andy. Don’t make this a loyalty contest or a—a fight. I’m just wondering about what we did back then. I mean, I don’t know what the answer was, I have no idea what we should have done. Maybe Jake needed medication. Or counseling. I don’t know. I just can’t help thinking we must have made mistakes. We must have. We tried so hard and we meant so well. We don’t deserve all this. We were good, responsible people. You know? We did everything right. We weren’t too young. We waited. In fact, we almost waited too long; I was thirty-six when I had Jacob. We weren’t rich, but we both worked hard and we had enough money to give the baby everything he needed. We did everything right, and yet here we are. It isn’t fair.” She shook her head and murmured, “It isn’t fair.”

Beside me, Laurie’s hand rested on the arm of her chair. I thought I might lay my hand on hers to soothe her, but in the moment it took to consider it, she withdrew her hand and knotted her arms down tight over her belly.

She said, “I look back on us then and I see we weren’t ready at all. I mean, no one ever is, right? We were kids. I don’t care how old we were; we were kids. And we were clueless and we were scared shitless, like all new parents. And I don’t know, maybe we made mistakes.”

“What mistakes, Laurie? Really. You’re being dramatic. It just wasn’t that bad. Jacob was a little boisterous and rough. Is that really such a big deal? He was a little boy! Some kids got hurt because four-year-olds get hurt. They totter around, and three-quarters of their body weight is in their enormous heads, so they fall down and crash into things. They fall off play structures, they fall off bicycles. It happens. They’re like drunks. Anyway, the pediatrician was right: Jacob did outgrow it. This stuff all stopped when he got older. You’re beating yourself up, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about, Laurie. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s just what you always used to say. You never wanted to admit anything was out of place. Or maybe you just never saw it. I mean, I’m not blaming you. It wasn’t your fault. I see that now. I understand what you were dealing with, what you must have been carrying around inside.”

“Oh, don’t put it on that.”

“Andy, it must have been a burden.”

“It wasn’t. Ever. I promise you.”

“All right, whatever you say. But you need to think about the possibility that you don’t see Jacob objectively. You’re not reliable. Dr. Vogel needs to know that.”

“
I’m
not reliable?”

“No, you’re not.”

Dr. Vogel was watching, saying nothing. She knew my backstory, of course. It was the reason we hired her, an expert on genetic wickedness. Still, the subject embarrassed me. I fell silent, ashamed.

The psychiatrist said, “Is that true, Laurie? Jacob’s behavior got better as he got older?”

“Yes, in some ways. I mean, it was
better
, certainly. Kids weren’t getting hurt around him anymore. But he still misbehaved.”

“How?”

“Well, he stole. He always stole, his whole childhood. From stores, from
CVS
, even from the library. He would steal from me. He’d go right into my purse. I caught him shoplifting a couple of times when he was little. I talked to him about it but it never made any difference. What was I supposed to do? Cut off his hands?”

I said, “This is totally unfair. You’re not being fair to Jacob.”

“Why? I’m being honest.”

“No, you’re being honest about how you
feel
, because Jacob’s in trouble and you feel responsible somehow, so you’re reading back into his life all these terrible things that just weren’t there. I mean, really: he stole from your purse? So what? You’re just not giving the doctor an accurate picture. We’re here to talk about Jacob’s court case.”

“So?”

“So what does shoplifting have to do with murder? What’s the difference if he took a candy bar or a pen or something from CVS? What on earth does that have to do with Ben Rifkin being brutally stabbed to death? You’re lumping these things together like shoplifting and bloody murder are the same thing. They’re not.”

Dr. Vogel said, “I think what Laurie is describing is a pattern of rule-breaking. She’s suggesting that Jacob, for whatever reason, can’t seem to stay within the bounds of accepted behavior.”

“No. That’s a sociopath.”

“No.”

“What you’re describing—”

“No.”

“—is a sociopath. Is that what you’re saying? Jacob is a sociopath?”

“No.” Dr. Vogel put up her hands. “I didn’t say that, Andy. I did not use that word. I’m just trying to get a complete picture of Jacob. I haven’t come to any conclusions about anything. My mind is wide open.”

Laurie said, earnest and grave, “I think Jacob may have problems. He may need help.”

I shook my head.

“He’s our son, Andy. It’s our responsibility to take care of him.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Laurie’s eyes glistened but no tears came. She had already done her crying. This was a thought she’d been holding inside awhile, working it through, arriving at this awful conclusion.
I think Jacob may have problems
.

Dr. Vogel said, with treacherous compassion, “Laurie, do you have doubts about Jacob’s innocence?”

Laurie swiped her eyes dry and sat up stiff-backed. “No.”

“It sounds like you might.”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. He’s not capable of this. A mother knows her child. Jacob’s not capable of this.”

The psychiatrist nodded, accepting the statement even if she did not quite believe it. Even, for that matter, if she did not believe that Laurie believed it.

“Doctor, do you mind if I ask you something? Do
you
think I made mistakes? Was there a pattern there that I missed? Was there something more I should have done, if I’d been a better mom?”

The doctor hesitated for just a moment. On the wall above her, two of the African masks howled. “No, Laurie. I don’t think you did anything wrong at all. Honestly, I think you need to stop beating yourself up. If there was a pattern there, if there was a way to predict Jacob was heading for trouble, I don’t see how any parent could have recognized it. Not based on what you’ve told me so far. A lot of kids have the sort of issues Jacob had and it means nothing at all.”

“I did the best I could.”

“You did fine, Laurie. Don’t do that to yourself. Andy’s not wrong: what you’ve described so far? You did what any mother would have done. You did the best you could for your child. That’s all anyone can ask.”

Laurie held her head up, but there was a brittleness about her. It was like watching tiny threadlike cracks begin to spread and craze over her. Dr. Vogel seemed to perceive this fragile quality too, but she could not have known how entirely new it was. How changed Laurie already was. You had to really know Laurie and cherish her to appreciate what was happening. Once, my wife read so constantly that she would hold a book in her left hand while she brushed her teeth with the right; now, she never picked up a book, she could not muster the concentration or even the interest. Before, she had this way of focusing on whomever she spoke to, so that you felt you were the most impossibly captivating person in the room; now, her eyes wandered and she seemed not to be in the room herself. Her clothes, her hair, her makeup all were a bit wrong, a bit mismatched and sloppy. The quality that had always made her shine—a youthful, eager optimism—had begun to fade. But of course you had to know her Before in order to see what Laurie had lost. I was the only one in the room who understood what was happening to her.

Still, she was nowhere near surrender. “I did the best I could,” she announced with a sudden, unconvincing resolve.

“Laurie, tell me about Jacob now. What is he like?”

“Hm.” She smiled at the thought of him. “He’s very smart. Very funny, very charming. Handsome.” She actually blushed a little at the word
handsome
. Mother-love is love, after all. “He’s into computers, he loves gadgets, video games, music. He reads a lot.”

“Any problems with temper or violence?”

“No.”

“You’ve been telling us Jacob had issues with violence when he was a preschooler.”

“It stopped as soon as he got to kindergarten.”

“I’m just wondering if you still have any concerns about it. Does he still behave in any way that disturbs or worries you?”

“She already said no, Doctor.”

“Well, I want to explore it a little further.”

“It’s okay, Andy. No, Jacob’s never violent anymore. I almost wish he would act out
more
. He can be very hard to communicate with. He’s hard to read. He doesn’t talk a lot. He broods. He’s very introverted. Not just shy; I mean he introverts his feelings, his energy is all directed inward. He’s very remote, very guarded. He smolders. But no, he’s not violent.”

“Does he have other ways to express himself? Music, friends, sports, clubs, whatever?”

“No. He’s not much of a joiner. And he only has a few friends. Derek, a couple of others.”

“Girlfriends?”

“No, he’s too young for that.”

“Is he?”

“Isn’t he?”

The doctor shrugged.

“Anyway, he’s not mean. He can be very critical, caustic, sarcastic. He’s cynical. Fourteen years old and he’s already cynical! He hasn’t experienced enough to be cynical, has he? He hasn’t earned it. Maybe it’s just a pose. It’s how kids are today. Arch, ironic.”

“Those sound like unpleasant qualities.”

“Do they? I don’t mean them to. Jacob’s just complicated, I think. He’s moody. You know, he likes to be the angry boy, the ‘nobody fucking understands me’ boy.”

This was too much.

I snapped, “Laurie, come on, that’s every teenager, the angry boy, the ‘nobody fucking understands me’ boy. Come on! What you’ve just described is every adolescent on earth. It’s not a kid; it’s a bar code.”

“Maybe.” Laurie bowed her head. “I don’t know. I always thought maybe Jacob should see a shrink.”

“You’ve
never
said he should see a shrink!”

“I didn’t say I said it. I said I wondered if it was the right thing to do, just so he would have someone to talk to.”

Dr. Vogel growled, “Andy.”

“Well, I can’t just sit here!”

“Try. We’re here to listen to each other, to support each other, not argue.”

“Look,” I said, exasperated, “enough is enough. The whole presumption of this conversation is that Jacob has something to answer for, to explain. It’s just not true. A horrible thing happened, all right? Horrible. But it’s not our fault. It’s certainly not Jake’s fault. You know, I’m sitting here and I’m listening, and I’m thinking, What the hell are we talking about? Jacob had nothing to do with Ben Rifkin getting killed, nothing, but we’re all sitting here talking about Jake as if he’s some kind of freak or monster or something. He’s not. He’s just an ordinary kid. He has his flaws like every other kid, but he had nothing to do with this. I’m sorry, but somebody has to stand up for Jacob here.”