Wilde Lake(40)

Both Drysdales meet her at the door, grim and unhappy wraiths, American Gothic without the pitchfork. They are one of those couples who look like brother and sister—small, with fine bones and surprisingly dark hair, only a dusting of white at the temples. Well into their seventies, they look even older. Their faces are deeply lined and yellow, with a rubbery sheen. Smokers. Lu knows that before she comes across the threshold. The smell is thick on them, hangs in the house like a haze.

“Mr. Hollister says we don’t have to talk to you,” Mr. Drysdale says, even as he opens the door wider to let her in.

“You don’t,” she says. “But I’ll remind you, you’re not his clients. Rudy is. You’re just footing the bill. Fred will do what’s best for Rudy. That’s his job. Eventually, you will have to talk to me—and a grand jury. I thought it a kindness to meet in private—without Rudy’s attorney charging you an hourly rate.”

There is a formal living room to the right of the front door, but they lead her to the family room at the back of the house, nothing more than an alcove off the kitchen. This throwback to the ’70s could never be described as a “great room.” The kitchen appears to have been untouched since the house was built. The appliances are what was once called Harvest Gold, and the adjacent sitting area is tiny by the standards of today’s McMansions. A sliding glass door leads to a small square of deck; Lu knows there will be another glass door below, leading to the walk-out basement, a feature in almost all Columbia homes of the ’70s. But the home’s dominant feature are piles. Piles of books, piles of magazines, piles of newspapers. A pile of shirts on hangers, draped across an easy chair. When Lu perches on the plaid sofa, it emits dust and a smell she can’t identify, although it seems vaguely animal. Not animal waste, but—something musky, furry, as if a dog once slept here.

“You’ve lived here how long?” she asked.

“Since 1977. We moved here from the city. Rudy wasn’t happy at Southern High School. We thought Wilde Lake High School, being different, might be good for him.”

“That wasn’t so unusual then. My brother’s best friend came here for similar reasons. He had been asked to leave Sidwell Friends in D.C.”

She is trying to be polite and friendly, offering this anecdote in the spirit of commiseration, but they seem mystified by her comment, unsure of what to say. They are socially awkward people. Given their own limitations, perhaps they never recognized their son’s problems. Oddness used to be more acceptable. Some people were just weird. Now anyone who seems the least bit off has to have a label, a diagnosis, be “on the spectrum.”

“How old was Rudy when he was diagnosed?” She intentionally doesn’t name a diagnosis and is curious to see if they provide one.

“Nineteen.” Mr. Drysdale is the spokesman. Mrs. Drysdale keeps her eyes on his face. Their connection is wordless, almost telepathic. “He was a really good student, but college was hard for him.”

“Where did he go?”

“Bennington.” Almost thirty-five years after the fact, this still seems to give the parents a little lift. It was probably the highlight of their lives, seeing their son admitted to Bennington. How had they afforded that? “He wasn’t prepared for the darkness.”

“Depression?”

“No, how dark the days were, by the end of that first semester. The sun goes down early in New England. He cared about light. He was a photographer, a good one. He couldn’t deal with the dark. Even when he was a teenager, he needed to be outside a lot. He walked everywhere. There was one doctor—this was recent—who thinks he had a vitamin D deficiency. Or maybe SAD, that seasonal thing. Anyway, the doctor says Rudy is self-medicating when he walks. That’s why we’re worried about him not getting bail.”

Cause and effect. Everyone wants there to be a reason, any reason, for the inexplicable things that happen in our world, especially the things our children do. He’s tired. She’s hungry. We haven’t adhered to the schedule. And sometimes those reasons apply. But sometimes—how often?—the wheel spins and you get a damaged kid.

“Was he ever violent?”

Mrs. Drysdale runs her tongue around her lips, says nothing. “No,” Mr. Drysdale says with as much firmness as he can muster. Then: “We’ve already decided not to have a competency hearing. Mr. Hollister says it’s a waste of our resources. A waste of his time. And money.”

“I know. He wants to go very swiftly—he’s even invoking Hicks, the rule that says I have to take the case to court within one hundred eighty days. But you know I can challenge that, right? Ask for an exemption if I think it’s warranted?”

Their eyes are round, innocent, troubled. “He didn’t think you would, though,” Mr. Drysdale says.

Fred does know her pretty well. Give him that. He knew she would rise to the challenge of fast-tracking this. Has she fallen into a trap?

“Even if we do have the trial before the hundred-and-eighty-day deadline—you have no idea how much this is going to cost. Your son’s defense. And you’re not obligated to pay it. I’m sure when Fred came to you—”

“We called him.”

Their instant chorus at this convinces Lu that they didn’t, but they’ve been coached to say as much.

“Who suggested Fred?”