A short elevator ride later found Lindsey and Adam on the roof of the building. Adam was resigned to the-discussion-he-didn't-want and asked, "Ok, now what?"
Direct as ever Lindsey took the bull by the horns and said, "Adam, Danny and I never meant to hurt you. And we don't want to hurt Emi."
Adam responded, "You haven't hurt Emi. I'm not letting her know about this."
Lindsey shook her head, concerned at how Adam was handling the situation. "I realize you are trying to protect Emi, but that's not really protecting her, that's suffocating her. And how is she supposed to understand other people's concerns about her behavior and address them if she doesn't know about the concerns?"
Letting her see a little of how angry he was, Adam asked her bluntly, "Why is it Emi's responsibility to address people's concerns? That's a pretty arrogant assumption. That implies that Emi is automatically in the wrong and needs to explain herself. Maybe it is everyone else that doesn't understand and needs to explain how they feel and act." Adam crossed his arms unconsciously trying to keep the anger he felt inside. "Lindsey, you don't know everything that has gone on and you apparently don't know Emi well enough to know how she'd react to that kind of thinking from people she considers friends."
Lindsey started to say something then stopped, took a breath trying to be fair, and said, "Then explain it to me."
Adam crossed his arms and looked out across the NY skyline debating with himself. Finally he said, "I can't explain everything but … but I'll try and explain the part of Emi to you that might help you understand other parts of her better." He backed away from the ledge of the building and leaned his hip against one of the electrical sheds that housed the stairwell ventilation fans. "Emi was born different. She is literally hardwired different from other people; they've done neurological tests and things that should make one part of her brain light up make a different part of her brain light up. What would make most people react is a complete nonevent to Emi and what most people consider barely noticeable will drive Emi absolutely into the stratosphere. Her brain sometimes spends all day in Opposite Land. A lot of people would use that as an excuse to act out but not Emi."
"I guess I noticed some of that, Emi tried to explain it as well one time, but I've never seen anything to the extreme you are implying."
"That's because she has learned to … to … mute … how she acts on some of how she feels so she can survive. Sometimes it gets away from her but I could say the same thing about most people. Nowadays most people that bother really trying to understand her see that she's just a version of normal … maybe on the outer edges of what people consider normal, but still normal. When she was a kid, not so much. Most of that is because she was so damn smart she would freak people out. It was made worse because Emi simply refused to participate when someone wanted to take her square peg and try and force it through a round hole. She would usually choose to conform eventually, but it was on her terms."
"What about her being labeled the way she was after her parents died?"
"C'mon Lindsey. She was hysterical that night; she'd just watched her family murdered … right in front of her eyes. I don't know too many people, even adults, that would be able to handle that all calm, cool, and collected. Then she reacted badly to the tranquilizer the paramedics gave her which created the opposite effect from what they were going for. She had a meltdown … grade A, Hiroshima-style, Godzilla vs. Ghidorah meltdown … that lasted for days, until she was literally too exhausted to do anything but fall down and be nearly catatonic. After that she struggled because she was learning how to filter the world around her without anyone's help. People that didn't know her, didn't know her medical history, people that weren't even willing to take into consideration what she'd just been through, took one look at her and just decided she was too broken to fix, assumed she needed fixing to begin with. Another part of it was that … look her parents protected her from everything … maybe that wasn't the perfect solution but they were her parents and that's what they did. They made it so that Emi could live her version of normal without much blowback. When Emi is low or when she's in a mood and making nasty jokes about herself she'll actually say that her family was protecting the world from her but I've talked to the Morissey family and some of the other old families in the neighborhood. How they remember it is that Emi was the one that needed protecting because she was so different, that people were always picking on her and pushing her around … mostly it was kids but not always." He shook his head and Lindsey wondered just how much Adam identified with some of Emi's past. "A lot of the doctors she was sent to wanted to medicate her … kill off what made her different … so she'd be closer to what the average person considers normal. Her parents never allowed it. Instead her father was all about teaching her how to cope in a world that she struggled to understand, in a world that really didn't want to try and understand her."
It was a lot for Lindsey to take in but she was trying. She asked, "How did he do that?"
"Different ways, mostly using real life. She didn't go to regular school because in real life you don't spend most of your day sitting with forty other people your same age just being a cog in a wheel or being hammered on because you are the nail that sticks up. Instead he did things like expose her to people in controlled circumstances and then work with her as she practiced how to respond appropriately. He allowed her to explore her interests so that she could find avenues to spend all of the energy she had that would have otherwise gotten her into trouble. He gave her guidelines and morals to live by. He was her safety net. All the things that real fathers are supposed to do for their kids." Again Lindsey heard something in his voice that was very telling. "Her father gave her boundaries and consequences that made sense to her. She still falls back on that stuff today. She's still learning to understand what her parents tried to teach her and why. Sometimes she just … she sometimes … look, she sometimes just doesn't know when to ease up on the boundaries."
The last statement confused Lindsey. "That doesn't make any sense Adam."
"It does if you know Emi. She has lines in the sand her father put there and she just won't cross them. For example, personal responsibility was a really big deal in their house but like just about everything else Emi tends to go overboard with it. She winds up taking responsibility for things that aren't hers to worry about … or maybe she takes all of the responsibility rather than letting other people shoulder their share." Taking a deep breath Adam said, "My father … he blamed everyone else for stuff rather than accepting any responsibility at all, or he'd make stuff up to try and explain how he was feeling, why he was angry. Emi is the opposite of that but it's … it's not any better. She gets stuck in a thought cycle feeling guilty for things she shouldn't feel guilty about."
Really trying to understand what Adam was telling her Lindsey asked, "How do you mean?"
"This stuff going on … between me and Danny. Emi would see it and say it is her fault, that somehow, some way, that if she'd just been different, done something different, if she wasn't around at all, that Danny running his mouth about her childhood would not happen, that it wouldn't mean anything to begin with. Or worse, she'd say that she was getting what she deserves because of what a rotten kid she was. And yeah, I know how over the top that sounds but that would be how she felt … that if she wasn't around things wouldn't be like they are but that's not the whole story. She is here, and she is the person she is, she is the person I need, and the things that happened to her as a kid aren't her fault any more than the fact that she was born different is her fault. She's dealing with things a heck of a lot better than people with better advantages and fewer differences deal with them. Besides, this isn't just about Emi and what she means to me. There's more to it Lindsey. I can't, not if I'm going to have any self-respect, just stand there and let Danny rag on her because she is different, or rag on her for a past she barely survived through no fault of her own. That's wrong."
"Oh Adam."
"Don't Lindsey. If you hadn't gotten to know Emi, if you hadn't spent time with her and seen how she was with Lucy and Luke I could maybe see how you were misreading her. If I didn't know Danny and see how you normally were with people I wouldn't feel so … so disappointed in how rough you're being on her. But, you did and I thought you even became her friend. I thought you would understand that she'd rather die than see anything happen to your kids. She was the one that had that extra deadbolt put on her workroom and the basement door. She's the one that asked me to install those baby gates on both ends of the stairs. She's the one that insisted that I put those childproof locks on the outside gates."
Lindsey looked troubled. "I thought you did that stuff."
"No. I mean I did do it but it was Emi that brought it up first. She was a mother … still is in her heart. She's already been through all of that stuff with Reni. It is second nature for her to think in those terms." More quietly he said, "And she loves to make Lucy laugh. My God, I'm supposed to just stand there and let someone tell her she isn't good enough to be around the little girl whose laughter eases the pain she feels because she misses her poor little dead daughter? Tell me Lindsey, how do I do that? How would you do it? Could you do it?"
Lindsey was close to tears. Subconsciously she'd known that Emi had at least in part equated Lucy with Reni but to have Adam come right out and say it shook her. She tried to put herself in Emi's place and couldn't. On the other hand … "Adam, I don't believe that Emi would mean to hurt my children but she's so … unpredictable. And now to have evidence of the consequences of her unpredictability?"
Adam shook his head. "Actually in a lot of areas it is pretty easy to predict how she is going to react. That's how I know that if she finds out about this she won't blame you or Danny the way most people would in her shoes … she'd blame herself."
"Why?"
"Because she knows she's different. She understands that way better than people judging her do. She's spent her whole life being told how different she is. Having to come to grips with it. She doesn't see herself as unique or eccentric though, she sees herself as abnormal and too many people have been more than willing to reinforce that."
"Adam …"
"You keep saying my name like it's going to change things or make me see your side. I already see that side of things … you think Emi is the only one that has had to deal with being different? Why I'm disappointed is that I didn't expect that side of things to be the way you and Danny saw them. So I laid down the terms. I am not going to make things difficult at work. I'm not dragging Mac into this or anyone else. I'll do my job and no one has to worry about that. But I'm withdrawing from the field as far as anything else goes. You people made your choice, now I'm making mine. Emi doesn't know how to protect herself from this kind of crap. I do. I've spent my whole life doing it. So now I'm going to protect her. There's nothing more I can say than that."