Is that what happened to Jacob, too?

Oliver has called four times tonight, but I didn’t pick up the phone when I recognized the number on the caller ID. Maybe this is my penance; maybe I just don’t know what to say.

It is just after two in the morning when my bedroom door opens a crack. I sit up immediately, expecting Jacob. But instead Henry enters. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that reads THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1. “I saw your light on,” he says.

“Can’t sleep?”

Henry shakes his head. “You?”

“No.”

He gestures to the edge of the bed. “May I?”

I shift over. He sits down on my side of the bed, but I see him staring at the pillow beside me. “I know,” I say. “It must seem a little weird.”

“No… It’s just that now, I sleep on the left side of the bed, like you. And I’m wondering how that happened.”

I lean back against the headboard. “There are lots of things I don’t have the answers for.”

“I… don’t know exactly what all the yelling was about,” Henry says delicately. “But I did hear it.”

“Yeah. We’ve had better nights.”

“I owe you an apology, Emma,” he says. “First of all, for showing up like this. I should have asked, at least. You’ve got enough on your plate without having to deal with me. I guess I was really only thinking of myself.”

“Luckily, I have a lot of practice with that.”

“That’s the other thing I have to apologize for,” Henry says. “I should have been here all the other nights there was yelling, or… or tantrums, or anything else that was part of raising Jacob. I probably learned more about him today in that courtroom than I’ve known in the eighteen years he’s been alive. I should have been here to help during all the bad times.”

I smile a little. “I guess that’s the difference between us. I wish you’d been here for the good times.” I look over his shoulder, into the hallway. “Jacob is sweet, and funny, and so smart he leaves me reeling sometimes. And I’m sorry you never got to know that part of him.”

He reaches across the quilt and squeezes my hand. “You’re a good mom, Emma,” he says, and I have to look away, because that makes me think of my argument with Jacob.

Then Henry speaks again. “Did he do it?”

I turn to him slowly. “Does it matter?”

I can only remember one concrete instance when I blew up at Jacob before. It was when he was twelve and had not acknowledged the fact that it was my birthday with a card or a gift or even a hug, although I had dropped enough hints in the weeks prior. So one evening when I made dinner, I slapped it on the table in front of him with more force than usual and waited in vain-like always-for Jacob to thank me. “How about a little gratitude?” I exploded. “How about some recognition that I’ve done something for you?”

Confused, Jacob glanced at his plate, and then at me.

“I make your dinner. I fold your laundry. I drive you to school and back. Did you ever wonder why I do that?”

“Because it’s your job?”

“No, it’s because I love you, and when you love someone, you do things for them without complaining about it.”

“But you are complaining,” he said.

That was when I realized Jacob would never understand love. He would have bought me a birthday gift if I’d told him explicitly to do so, but that wouldn’t really have been a gift from the heart. You can’t make someone love you; it has to come from inside him, and Jacob wasn’t wired that way.

I remember storming out of the kitchen and sitting on the porch for a while, under the light of the moon, which isn’t really light at all, just a pale reflection of the sun.

“Jacob,” I say, as soon as I see him the next morning, “we need to talk.”

I fall into step beside him as we move across the parking lot, putting enough space between us and his family to ensure privacy. “Did you know there’s not really a term for a man-whore?” Jacob asks. “I mean, there’s gigolo, but that suggests money was exchanged-”

“All right, look,” I sigh. “I’m sorry you walked in on us. But I’m not going to apologize for liking her.”

“I could fire you,” Jacob says.

“You could try. But it’s up to the judge, since we’re in the middle of the trial.”

“What if he found out about your misconduct with clients?”

“She’s not my client,” I say. “You are. And if anything, my feelings for your mother only make me more determined to win this case.”

He hesitates. “I’m not talking to you anymore,” Jacob mutters, and he increases his speed until he is nearly sprinting up the steps of the courthouse.

Ava Newcomb, the forensic shrink hired by the defense, is the linchpin of my case. If she cannot make the jury understand that some of the traits associated with Asperger’s might have caused Jacob to kill Jess Ogilvy without really understanding why that was wrong, then Jacob will be convicted.

“Dr. Newcomb, what’s the legal definition of insanity?”

She is tall, poised, and professional-right out of central casting. So far, I think, so good. “It states that, at the time an act was committed, the defendant was not able to know right from wrong due to a severe mental defect or illness.”

“Can you give us an example of a mental defect or illness that qualifies?”

“Something that suggests psychotic breaks from reality, like schizophrenia,” she says.

“Is that the only kind of mental defect that constitutes legal insanity?”

“No.”

“Does Asperger’s syndrome cause someone to have psychotic breaks?”

“No, but there are other symptoms of Asperger’s that might prevent someone from distinguishing right from wrong at a particular moment in time.”

“Such as?”

“The intense fixation on a subject that someone with Asperger’s has can be overwhelming and obsessive-to the point where it impedes function in daily activities or even crosses the boundary of the law. I once had a patient who was so focused on horses that he continually was arrested for breaking into a local stable. Jacob’s current special interest is forensic analysis and crime scene investigation. It was evident in my interview with him, as well as in his obsession with the television show CrimeBusters and the detailed journals he kept about each episode’s plot.”

“How might a fixation like that contribute to some of the evidence we’ve heard in this courtroom?” I ask.

“We have heard that Jacob was increasingly popping up at crime scenes, thanks to his police scanner,” the psychiatrist says. “And Jess Ogilvy’s death was part of an elaborate crime scene. The evidence was arranged to look at first glance like a kidnapping, then eventually revealed the victim. It is possible that the opportunity to create a crime scene, instead of just observing fictional ones, led Jacob to act in a way that went against rules, laws, and morality. At the time, he would only have been thinking about the fact that he was creating a real crime scene that would be solved by law enforcement officials. In this way, an Aspergian fixation on forensic analysis led Jacob to the delusional belief that, at that moment, Jess’s death was a necessary part of his study of forensic science. As chilling as it seems to us, the victim becomes collateral damage during the pursuit of a greater goal.”

“But didn’t Jacob know that murder is illegal?”

“Absolutely. He is the poster child for following rules, for seeing things as either right or wrong with no mitigating circumstances. However, Jacob’s actions wouldn’t have been voluntary at that moment. He had no understanding of the nature and consequences of his actions, and he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to.”

I frown slightly. “But we’ve also heard that Jess Ogilvy and Jacob were extremely close. Surely that would have affected him?”