House Rules by Jodi Picoult

my lids, grainy like a drawing on an Etch A Sketch. It‘s like some kind of cryptogram, and A really means Q and Z really means S and so on, so the twist of her mouth and the funny note that jumped in her voice are what she really wanted to say, instead of the words she used.
    I lie down and imagine showing up on the doorstep of Sarah and Inez.
    It is so good to see you, I‘d say. You look exactly like I thought you would.
    I pretend that Vicky and Marty are sitting on the deck of their ship. Marty is sipping a martini while Vicky writes out a postcard with a picture of Valletta, Malta, on the front.
    She scrawls, Wish you were here. And this time, she addresses it directly to me.
    Emma

Nobody dreams of being an agony aunt when they grow up.
    Secretly, we all read advice columns who hasn‘t scanned Dear Abby ? But sifting through the problems of other people for a living? No thanks.
    I thought that, by now, I‘d be a real writer. I‘d have books on the New York Times list and I‘d be feted by the literati for my ability to combine important issues with books that the masses could relate to. Like many other writer wannabes, I‘d gone the back route through editing textbooks, in my case. I liked editing. There was always a right and a wrong answer. And I had assumed that I‘d go back to work when Jacob was in school full-time but that was before I learned that being an advocate for your autistic child‘s education is a forty-hour-a-week profession in and of itself. All sorts of adaptations had to be argued for and vigilantly monitored: a cool-off pass that would allow Jacob to leave a classroom that got too overwhelming for him; a sensory break room; a paraprofessional who could help him, as an elementary school student, put his thoughts into writing; an individualized education plan; a school counselor who didn‘t roll her eyes every time Jacob had a meltdown.
    I did some freelance editing at night texts referred to me by a sympathetic former boss but it wasn‘t enough to support us. So when the Burlington Free Press ran a contest for a new column, I wrote one. I didn‘t know about photography or chess or gardening, so I picked something I knew: parenting. My first column asked why, no matter how hard we were trying as moms, we always felt like we weren‘t doing enough.
    The paper got over three hundred letters in response to that test column, and suddenly, I was the parenting advice expert. This blossomed into advice for those without kids, for those who wanted kids, for those who didn‘t. Subscriptions increased when my column bumped from once a week to twice a week. And here‘s the really remarkable thing: all these people who trust me to sort out their own sorry lives assume that I have a clue when it comes to sorting out my own.
    Today‘s question comes from Warren, Vermont.
    Help! My wonderful, polite, sweet twelve-year-old boy hasturned into a monster. I‘ve tried punishing him, but nothing works. Why is he acting up?
    I lean over my keyboard and start to type.
    Whenever a child misbehaves, there‘s some deeper issue driving the action. Sure, you can take away privileges, but that‘s putting a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. You need to be a detective and figure out what‘s really upsetting him.
    I reread what I‘ve written, then delete the whole paragraph. Who am I kidding?
    Well, the greater Burlington area, apparently.
    My son sneaks out at night to crime scenes, and do I heed my own advice? No.
    I am saved from my hypocrisy by the sound of the telephone ringing. It‘s Monday night, just after eight, so I assume it‘s for Theo. He picks up on an extension upstairs and a moment later appears in the kitchen. It‘s for you, Theo says. He waits till I pick up and disappears into the sanctuary of his bedroom again.
    This is Emma, I say into the receiver.
    Ms. Hunt? This is Jack Thornton … Jacob‘s math teacher?
    Inwardly, I cringe. There are some teachers who see the greater good in Jacob, in