I did not immediately delete the photo. I wanted to confront Jacob with it. I carried the laptop upstairs with me, the machine humming in my hand.

He was in his room, still asleep. One of his young-adult novels lay open, pages down, on the night table. These were invariably futuristic science fiction or military fantasies about ultrasecret Army units with names like “Alpha Force.” (No broody teen vampires for Jacob: not escapist enough.)

It was around seven. The shades were down, the light in the room was muted.

As I tromped barefoot to the side of his bed, Jacob woke up and twisted to look at me. No doubt I was scowling. I turned the computer around to show the screen to him, the evidence of his crime.

“What is this?”

He groaned, not quite awake.

“What is this?”

“What?”

“This!”

“I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

“This picture on Facebook. From last night? Did you put this up?”

“It’s a joke.”

“A joke?”

“It’s just a joke, Dad.”

“A joke? What’s wrong with you?”

“Do we have to make a big deal-”

“Jacob, do you know what they’re going to do with this picture? They’re going to wave it around in front of the jury and do you know what they’re going to say? They’re going to say it shows consciousness of guilt. That’s just the phrase they’ll use, consciousness of guilt. They’ll say, ‘This is how Jacob Barber sees himself. Psycho. When he looks in the mirror, this is the reflection he sees: Norman Bates.’ They’ll use the word psycho over and over, and they’ll hold this picture up and the jury will stare at it. They’ll stare at it and guess what? They’ll never be able to forget it, they’ll never be able to quite get it out of their minds. It’ll stick in their heads. It’ll affect them. It’ll twist them, it’ll stain them. Maybe not all of them, maybe not much. But it will move the needle just a little further against you. That’s how it works. That’s what you did with this: you gave them a gift. A gift. For no good reason. If Logiudice finds this, it will never go away. Don’t you get that? Don’t you know what’s at stake, Jacob?”

“Yes!”

“Do you know what they want to do to you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why? Tell me. Because it doesn’t make any sense. Why would you do this?”

“I already told you, it was a joke. It means the opposite of what you’re saying. It’s how other people see me. It’s not how I see myself. It’s not even about me.”

“Oh. Well, that’s perfectly reasonable. You were just being clever and ironic. And of course the DA and the jury, they’ll all understand that too. Jesus. Are you stupid?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Then what’s wrong with you?”

Laurie’s voice, behind me: “Andy! Enough.” Her arms were crossed, eyes still sleepy.

Jacob said mournfully, “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Then what possessed you to-”

“Andy, stop.”

“Why, Jacob? Just tell me why?” My anger had peaked. Still, I was feeling wild enough to spray a few bullets Laurie’s way too. “Can I ask him that? Can I ask him why? Or is that too much?”

“It was just a joke, Dad. Can we just delete it?”

“No! We can’t just delete it. That’s the whole point! It doesn’t go away, Jacob. We can delete it but it doesn’t go away. When your buddy Derek goes to the DA and tells him you have a Facebook account named Melvin Glasscock or whatever and you put this picture up, all the DA has to do is send them a subpoena and he gets it. Facebook will just give it to him, all of it. This stuff sticks to you. It’s like napalm. You can’t do this. You can’t do it.”

“Okay.”

“You can’t do stuff like this. Not now.”

“O- kay, I said. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Sorry won’t fix the problem.”

“Andy, stop already. You’re scaring me. What do you want him to do? It’s done. He said he’s sorry. What do you keep haranguing him for?”

“I keep haranguing him because it’s important!”

“It’s done. He made a mistake. He’s a kid. Please calm down, Andy. Please.”

She came across the room, took the laptop from my hands-I was barely aware I was still holding it-and she examined the photo closely. She held the laptop with one hand on each edge, like a cafeteria tray.

“All right.” She shrugged. “So let’s just delete it and be done with it. How do I delete it? I don’t see a button.”

I took the laptop and searched the screen. “I don’t see it either. Jacob, how do you delete this thing?”

He took the laptop and, now seated on the edge of his bed, he clicked it a few times. “There. Gone.” He closed the lid, handed it to me, then lay down and rolled over, turning his back to me.

Laurie gave me a look, like I was the crazy one. “I’m going back to bed, Andy.” She padded out of the room, then I heard our bed rustle as she climbed back into it. Laurie had always been an early riser, even on Sundays, until this happened to us.

I stood there a moment, the laptop by my side now, held at my hip like a closed book.

“I’m sorry I yelled.”

Jacob sniffed. I could not tell what that sniff signaled, whether he was near tears or angry with me. But it struck something in me and made me sentimental. I remembered Baby Jake, our little precious beautiful blond wide-eyed baby. That this boy, this child-man, was one and the same person as that baby-it came to me like a new idea, something I had never known. The baby did not become the boy; the baby was the boy, the same creature, unchanged at the core. This was the very baby I had held in my arms.

I sat down on the bed beside him and laid my hand on his bare shoulder. “I’m sorry I yelled. I shouldn’t lose my temper. I’m just trying to look out for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m going back to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, so go away.”

I nodded, rubbed his shoulder a few times as if I could press the thought into him through his skin, I love you, but he lay there like a stone and I stood up to leave.

The shape in the bed said, “There’s nothing wrong with me. And I know exactly what they’re going to do to me. I don’t need you to tell me.”

“I know, Jake. I know.”

And then, with the bravado and heedlessness of a child, he fell asleep.

One Tuesday morning near summer’s end, Laurie and I sat in Dr. Vogel’s office for our weekly meeting under the eyes of those howling African masks. The session had not begun-we were still settling ourselves in our familiar chairs, making ritualistic comments about the warm weather outside, Laurie shivering a little in the air-conditioning-when the doctor announced, “Andy, I have to tell you, I think this is going to be a difficult hour for you.”

“Yeah? Why is that?”

“We need to talk about some of the biological issues involved in this case, the genetics.” She hesitated. Dr. Vogel studiously maintained an impassive expression during our sessions, presumably to keep her own emotions from influencing ours. But this time her mouth and jaw clenched visibly. “And I need to take a DNA sample from you. It’s just a quick swab of your mouth. No needles, nothing intrusive. I just use a sterile Q-tip to wipe your gums and take a sample of your saliva.”

“A DNA sample? You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought we were going to exclude all that.”

“Andy, look, I’m a doctor, not a lawyer; I can’t tell you what’s going to be allowed into evidence or what will be excluded. That’s between you and Jonathan. What I can tell you is that behavioral genetics-and by that I mean the science of how behavior is influenced by our genes-cuts two ways. The prosecution may want to introduce this sort of evidence to show that Jacob is violent by nature, a born killer, because obviously it makes it more likely that Jacob committed this murder. But we may want to introduce it too. If it gets to the point where the DA has likely proven Jacob actually killed this boy-I’m saying if; I’m not predicting, I’m not saying this is what I believe, just if — then we may want to bring in the genetic evidence as mitigation.”