“The evidence we present will clearly show that Jacob Hunt murdered Jess Ogilvy with premeditation. And at the end of this trial, when the judge instructs you to decide who’s responsible, we are confident that you will find that Jacob Hunt killed Jess Ogilvy-a vibrant young woman who considered herself his teacher, mentor, and friend-and then…” She walks to the prosecutor’s table and rips the top piece of paper off her legal pad.

Suddenly, I realize what she’s about to do.

Helen Sharp crumples the paper in one fist and lets it drop to the floor. “He threw her away like trash,” she says, but by that time, Jacob’s started to scream.

The minute the prosecutor reaches for the legal pad, I can finish the end of her sentence. I start to rise from my seat, but it’s too late; Jacob’s out of control, and the judge-who has no gavel-is pounding his fist. “Your Honor, can we have a brief recess?” Oliver yells, struggling to be heard over Jacob’s shrieks. “No… wire hangers… ever!” Jacob screams.

“We’ll take ten minutes,” the judge says, and suddenly one bailiff is moving toward the jury to escort them out of the courtroom and another one is coming toward us to take us to the sensory break room. “Counsel, I want to see you at the bench.”

The bailiff is taller than Jacob and is shaped like a bell, heavy in his hips. He wraps one beefy hand around Jacob’s arm. “Let’s go, buddy,” he says, and Jacob tries to jerk away from him, and then starts thrashing. He clips the bailiff hard enough to cause him to grunt, and then suddenly Jacob goes boneless, all 185 pounds of him, and falls heavily to the floor.

The bailiff reaches down for him, but I throw myself on top of Jacob instead. “Don’t touch him,” I say, well aware that the jury is straining to see what’s going on even as they’re being shooed away, certain that every one of those cameramen has his lens trained on me.

Jacob’s crying into my shoulder, making small snuffling sounds as he tries to catch his breath. “Okay, baby,” I murmur into his ear. “You and I, we’re going to do this together.” I tug until he starts to sit up, and then I wrap my arms around him, struggling to bear the brunt of his weight as we get to our feet. The bailiff opens the gate of the bar for us and leads us down the gallery aisle to the sensory break room. As we pass, the entire courtroom falls dead silent until we are ensconced within the black curtains and all I can hear outside is the tidal swell of a murmur of sound: What was that? … Never seen anything like it… The judge won’t stand for stunts… A ploy to get sympathy, I’ll bet…

Jacob buries himself beneath a weighted blanket. “Mom,” he says from beneath it. “She crumpled paper.”

“I know.”

“We have to fix the paper.”

“It’s not our paper. It’s the prosecutor’s paper. You have to let it go.”

“She crumpled the paper,” Jacob repeats. “We have to fix it.”

I think of the woman on the jury who looked at me with abject pity on her face the moment before she was hustled out of the courtroom. That’s a good thing, Oliver would say, but he is not me. I have never wanted to be pitied for having a child like Jacob. I’ve pitied other mothers, who could slip by on loving their children maybe only 80 percent of the time, or less, instead of giving it their all every minute of every day.

But I have a son who is on trial for murder. A son who behaved the same way the afternoon of Jess Ogilvy’s death as he did minutes ago when a piece of paper was torn apart.

If Jacob is a murderer, I will still love him. But I will hate the woman he’s turned me into-one whom others talk about when her back is turned, one whom people feel sorry for. Because although I’d never feel that way about a mother whose child has Asperger’s, I would feel that way about a mother whose child took the life of another mother’s child.

Jacob’s voice is a hammer at the back of my head. “We have to fix it,” he says.

“Yes,” I whisper. “We do.”

“That must be a record, Mr. Bond,” Judge Cuttings drawls. “We made it a whole three minutes and twenty seconds without an outburst.”

“Judge,” I say, thinking on the fly, “I can’t predict everything that’s going to set this kid off. That’s part of why you’re allowing his mother to be here. But you know, with all due respect, Jacob doesn’t just get ten hours of justice. He gets as much justice as he needs. That’s the whole purpose of the constitutional system.”

“Gee, Oliver, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Helen says, “but aren’t you forgetting the all-American marching band and the flag that’s supposed to drop from the rafters right now?”

I ignore her. “Look. I’m sorry, Your Honor. I’m sorry in advance if Jacob makes you look silly or makes me look silly or-” I glance at Helen. “Well. As I was saying, I certainly don’t want my client having fits in front of the jury; it doesn’t do my case any good, either.”

The judge peers over his glasses. “You’ve got ten minutes to pull your client together,” he warns. “Then we’re coming back in and the prosecution will have a chance to refinish her closing.”

“Well, she can’t crumple the paper again,” I say.

“I believe you lost that motion,” Helen replies.

“She’s right, Counselor. If Ms. Sharp is inclined to crumple a boatload of paper, and your client goes ballistic every time, it’s to your own detriment.”

“That’s okay, Judge,” Helen says. “I won’t be doing that again. From now on, only folded paper.” She bends down, picks up the little ball that sent Jacob sky-high, and tosses it in the trash can beside the stenographer’s table.

I glance down at my watch-by my calculations I have four minutes and fifteen seconds to get Jacob’s perfectly Zen butt into the chair beside me at the defense table. I stalk up the aisle and slip between the black curtains of the sensory break room. Jacob is hidden under a blanket, and Emma sits doubled over a vibrating pillow. “What else aren’t you telling me?” I demand. “What else sets him off? Paper clips? When the clock reads a quarter to twelve? For Christ’s sake, Emma, I’ve only got one trial to convince the jury Jacob didn’t snap in a fit of rage and kill Jess Ogilvy. How am I supposed to do that when he can’t even make it ten minutes without losing control?”

I’m yelling so loudly that even those stupid curtains probably can’t drown me out, and I wonder if the television cameras are picking everything up with their microphones. But then Emma lifts her face, and I see how red her eyes are. “I’ll try to keep him calmer.”

“Aw, shit,” I say, all the bluster fizzing out of me. “You’re crying?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m fine.”

“Right, and I’m Clarence Thomas.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin, press it into her hand. “You don’t have to lie to me. We’re on the same side.”

She turns away and blows her nose, then folds-folds, not crumples-the napkin and tucks it into the pocket of her yellow dress.

I pull the blanket off Jacob’s head. “Time to go,” I say.

For a minute I think he’s coming, but then he rolls away from me. “Mom,” he mutters. “Fix it.”

I turn to Emma, who clears her throat. “He wants Helen Sharp to smooth out the paper first,” she says.

“It’s already in the trash can.”

“You promised,” Jacob says to Emma, his voice rising.

“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. “Fine.”

I stalk down the aisle of the courtroom and fish through the trash at the stenographer’s feet. She stares as if I’ve lost my mind, which isn’t entirely impossible. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t ask.” The paper is underneath a candy wrapper and a copy of the Boston Globe. I tuck it into my jacket pocket and walk back to the sensory break room, where I remove it and smooth it out as best as I can in front of Jacob. “That’s the best I can do,” I tell him. “So… what’s the best you can do?”