House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

‘You are absolutely not to do that again. Ever. What if it was a homicide, Jacob? What if the killer had come after you?’ I watch him consider this. ‘Well,’ he says, entirely literal, ‘I guess I would have run really fast.’

He thinks I am retarded, even though the diagnosis of mental retardation is reserved for people who score lower than 70 on an IQ test, and I myself have scored 162. In my opinion, the very fact that Mark doesn’t know this diagnostic criterion suggests that he’s a lot closer to actual retardation than I am.

Dealing with an autistic meltdown is like dealing with a tornado. Once you are close enough to see it coming, there’s nothing to do but weather the storm.

When that girl asked me to go to Jesus Camp, I asked her if Jesus was going to be there. She looked confused, and then said no. Well, I said, isn’t that a little like going to hockey camp and not playing hockey?

I realized that being a parent wasn’t all that different. We’re always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we’re just praying we won’t screw up too badly.

Real mothers don’t just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady’s cart, and say, ‘Great. Maybe you can do a better job.’

Sixteen. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, my anxiety level is a sixteen. Which is the worst number, because it’s (a) even, (b) has an even square root, and (c) its even square root has an even square root.

‘How do you think you would have felt, if you were the victim?’ For a moment, I consider this. ‘Dead,’ I say.