Defending Jacob(42)

He gawped at me, unsatisfied.

“I didn’t mean for it to come to all this. I wanted—I wanted to move past it.”

“But Dad, it’s who I am.”

“That’s not how I looked at it.”

“I had a right to know.”

“That’s not how I looked at it, Jake.”

“I didn’t have a right to know? About my own family?”

“You had a right to not know. You had a right to start with a blank slate, to be whatever you wanted to be, same as every other kid.”

“But I wasn’t the same as every other kid.”

“Of course you were.”

Laurie looked away.

Jacob tossed himself backward in his chair. He seemed more shocked than aggrieved. The questions, the complaints, were just a way to channel his emotion. He sat there awhile, deep in thought. “I don’t believe it,” he said, bewildered. “I just don’t believe it. I don’t believe you did that.”

“Look, Jacob, if you want to be mad at me for lying, okay. But my intentions were good. I did this for you. Even before you were born, I did it for you.”

“Oh, come on. You did it for yourself.”

“I did it for myself, yes, and for my son, for the son I hoped I was going to have someday, to make things a little easier for him. For you.”

“It didn’t work out so great, did it?”

“I think it did. I think your life has been easier than it would have been. I certainly hope so. It’s been easier than mine was, that’s for sure.”

“Dad, look where we are.”

“So?”

He said nothing.

Laurie offered, in a honeyed voice, “Jacob, we need to be careful how we talk to each other, okay? Try to understand your father’s position even if you disagree with it. Put yourself in his shoes.”

“Mom, you’re the one who said it: I have the murder gene.”

“I did not say that, Jacob.”

“You implied it. Of course you did!”

“Jacob, you know I didn’t say that. I don’t even think there is such a thing. I was talking about other trials I read about.”

“Mom, it’s okay. It’s just a fact. If you weren’t concerned about it, you wouldn’t have Googled it.”

“A fact? How do you know it’s a fact, all of a sudden?”

“Mom, let me ask you something: why do people only want to talk about inheriting good things? When an athlete has a kid who’s good at sports, nobody has any problem saying the kid inherited his talent. When a musician has a musical kid, when a professor has a smart kid, whatever. What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know, Jacob. It’s just different.”

Jonathan—who had not spoken in so long I had almost forgotten he was present—said calmly, “The difference is it’s not a crime to be athletic or musical or smart. We need to be very careful about locking people up for what they are rather than what they do. There is a very long ugly history of that sort of thing.”

“So what do I do if this is what I am?”

Me: “Jacob, what are you saying, exactly?”

“What if I have this thing inside me and I can’t help it?”

“There’s nothing inside you.”

He shook his head.

There was a very long silence, ten seconds or so that seemed to last much longer.

“Jacob,” I said, “the ‘murder gene’ is just a phrase. It’s a metaphor. You understand that, right?”

Shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Jake, you’ve just got it wrong, okay? Even if a murderer had a child who was also a murderer, you wouldn’t need genetics to explain that.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it, Jacob, believe me, I’ve thought about it. But it just can’t be. I think of it this way: if Yo-Yo Ma had a son, the kid wouldn’t be born knowing how to play the cello. He’d have to learn to play the cello just like everyone else. The most you can inherit is talent, potential. What you do with it, what you become, all that is up to you.”

“Did you inherit your father’s talent?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at me. Look at my life, like Jonathan said. You know me. You’ve lived with me fourteen years now. Have I ever been violent, ever?”

He shrugged again, unimpressed. “Maybe you just never learned to play your cello. Doesn’t mean you don’t have the talent.”

“Jacob, what do you want me to say? It’s impossible to prove a thing like that.”

“I know. That’s my problem too. How do I know what’s in me?”

“Nothing is in you.”

“I’ll tell you what, Dad: I think you know exactly how I’m feeling right now. I know exactly why you didn’t tell anyone about this for so long. It wasn’t because of what they might think you were.”

Jacob leaned back and folded his hands on his belly, closing off the subject. He had clasped onto the idea of a murder gene and after that I don’t think he ever let it go. I let the subject drop too. No sense preaching to him about the boundlessness of human potential. He had his generation’s instinctive preference for scientific explanations over the old verities. He knew what happens when science comes up against magical thinking.