5. The evidence points to Mark as a suspect. He claims he’s innocent. What does Emma see on the news that changes everything? How would you react? Would you call the police?
I've given this a lot of thought and even discussed it with "Book Buddy Donna," my best friend. I have decided that I would have to talk it over with my child first. At the very least, I think I would have talked to a lawyer before putting my child into the hands of the system or, as Emma presumed, a policeman. On the other hand, I remember talking with my children about drugs one day, probably when they were in their early teens. One of them turned to me, with the eyes of all three looking at me, and said, "If you caught us with drugs, you'd turn us in, wouldn't you?" I immediately said, "Yes." But decades later I am still thinking about it. What would I have done, really?
My reasoning then -- and every time I have explained it to others (and myself) since then -- was that "Yes" was the only possible answer. If I had hemmed and hawed and said, "Well, I don't know," then I might as well have said, "You go right ahead and experiment with all the drugs you please." As long as my children thought I was absolutely, positively against it, I hoped they would think twice before trying it. As far as I know, they left the stuff alone. Or if any of them tried anything at all, they kept it well hidden.
Emma, of course, was faced with the dilemma of whether her son could have committed murder. In her (fictional) case, it wasn't a matter of stating what she WOULD do, but of deciding what she MUST do. She knew without a doubt that Jacob had been there, that he had wrapped the victim in his own multi-colored quilt. Was she afraid that he HAD killed her? Whether she thought it could have been by accident or not, she had to have wondered.
On the other hand, she obviously came to regret doing it the way she did. Emma was more trusting of Rich than she should have been, and even she could see that later. What do you think would have been the best way to handle this situation? Yes, we can use hindsight here, so what do you think?
HR ~ third set of DQs
2 comments:
To turn your child in -- or not -- THAT is the question. Did Emma do the right thing?
I couldn't tell whether Emma thought Jacob had murdered Jess or not. Her concern seemed to be for Matt being held unjustly. I think she thought Jacob had been involved somehow, but I can't tell if she thought he had actually murdered Jess.
Throughout the book it is bizarre that no one asked Jacob what had happened. It is true that he answered things literally, but Emma would have been in the best position to have posed questions to find out from him what actually happened.
Perhaps Emma too much believed in Rich (possibly a somewhat romantic interest in him or at least having another adult to relate to)and felt that he would have been sensitive to Jacob's needs.
I hope if this had been my child that at a minimum I would have found out from him what had happened. I would have then tried to find a lawyer before contacting authorities.
Bonnie's drug talk with her children was interesting. I can't remember ever having that discussion with mine. In our area, the thing that I read about too frequently were young kids who tried to escape police stops with car chases that wound up killing either the driver or others. This was probably discussed more than drugs (i.e., stopping rather than fleeing). Unfortunately, with our country's obsession with the drug war (I think we lost and should give up concentrating on the related crimes rather than throwing more money into this), the police too frequently overstep their bounds. In a case in Topeka, police officers stormed a house in the middle of the night (no evidence indicated that the accused could not have been arrested either at home or at work without violence)and the accused fearing for his life (evidence that the police identified themselves was never clear)shot and killed one of the invading police officers. The policeman was declared a hero and the accused was then charged with murder (I think he served time and may now be out). This type of behavior on the part of police makes me more inclined to think that contacting a lawyer before talking to the police would be the wisest course of action.
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