Small Great Things (27 page)

“I left my wallet at home…”

I spin around, because I know that voice. Standing in front of the counter is Edison's friend Bryce, and beside him, hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket, is my son.

I can see the absolute horror in Edison's eyes as he scans my hairnet, my uniform, my new life. So instead of smiling at him, or saying hello, I turn my back again before Bryce can recognize me, too. Before I have to hear Edison make yet another excuse for the situation I've put him in.

E
DISON IS NOT
home when I arrive, strip off my uniform, and shower away the smell of grease. I text him, but he doesn't answer. So instead, I cook dinner, pretending that nothing is wrong. By the time he finally comes home, I have just put a casserole on the table. “It's hot,” I tell him, but he goes straight to his bedroom. I think he is still upset about my new job, but a moment later he appears, holding a giant Mason jar full of coins, as well as a checkbook. He tosses these on the table. “Two thousand three hundred and eighty-six,” Edison announces. “And there's got to be a couple hundred more in the jar.”

“That's money for college,” I say.

“We need it now. I've got the whole spring and summer to work; I can make more.”

I know how scrupulously Edison has saved his earnings from the grocery store where he's worked since he was sixteen. It was always understood that he'd chip in for his education, and between scholarships and FAFSA and the 529 plan we started for him as a baby, I would swing the rest of the tuition. The thought of taking money that is earmarked for college makes me feel sick. “Edison, no.”

His face crumples. “Mama, I can't. I can't let you work at McDonald's when I have money we could use. You got any idea how that makes me feel?”

“First, that isn't money, that's your future. Second, there's no shame in a good honest day's work. Even if it's making French fries.” I squeeze his hand. “And it's only for a little while, till this is all cleared up and I can work at the hospital again.”

“If I drop track I can get more shifts at the Stop and Shop.”

“You're not dropping track.”

“I don't care about a dumb sport.”

“And I don't care about anything but
you,
” I tell him. I sit down across from him. “Baby, let me do this. Please.” I feel my eyes fill with tears. “If you asked me who Ruth Jefferson was a month ago, I would have said she's a good nurse, and she's a good mother. But now I have people telling me I wasn't a good nurse. And if I can't put a casserole on the table and clothes on your back—then I have to second-guess myself as a mother, too. If you don't let me do this…if you don't let me take care of you…then I don't know who I'm supposed to be anymore.”

He folds his arms tight across his chest, looks away from me. “Everyone knows. I hear them whispering and then they stop when I get close.”

“The students?”

“Teachers, too,” he admits.

I bristle. “That's inexcusable.”

“No, it's not like that. They're going out of their way, you know? Like giving me extra time for papers and saying that they know things are rough at home right now…and every time one of them is like that—so
nice,
and
understanding—
I feel like I want to hit something, because it's even worse than when people pretend they don't know you missed school because your mother was in jail.” He grimaces. “That test I failed? It wasn't because I didn't know the stuff. It was because I cut class, after Mr. Herman cornered me and asked if there was anything he could do to help.”

“Oh, Edison—”

“I don't want their help,” he explodes. “I don't want to be someone who
needs
their help. I want to be just like everyone else, you know, not a special case. And then I get mad at myself because I'm whining like I'm the only one with problems when you might…when you…” He breaks off, rubbing his palms against his knees.

“Don't say it,” I say, folding him into my arms. “Don't even think it.” I pull away and frame his beautiful face. “We
don't
need their help. We'll get through this. You believe me, right?”

He looks at me, really looks at me, like a pilgrim searches the night sky for meaning. “I don't know.”

“Well, I do,” I say firmly. “Now, eat what's on your plate. Because I am sure as hell not going to McDonald's if it gets cold.”

Edison picks up his fork, grateful for the distraction. And I try not to think about the fact that for the first time in my life, I've lied to my son.

A
WEEK LATER
I am rushing around, trying to find my uniform visor, when the doorbell rings. Standing on my porch, to my shock, is Wallace Mercy—wiry white shock of hair, three-piece suit, pocket watch, and all. “Oh, my,” I say. The words are puffs of breath, dry in the desert of my disbelief.

“My sister,” he booms. “My name is Wallace Mercy.”

I giggle. I actually
giggle
. Because, really, who
doesn't
know that?

I glance around to see if he is being followed by an entourage, by cameras. But the only sign of his renown is a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb with its flashers on, and a driver in the front seat. “I wonder if I might take a moment of your time?”

The closest brush with fame I've had is when a late-night-TV-show host's pregnant wife got into a car accident near the hospital and was put on the ward for twenty-four hours of monitoring. Although she turned out to be perfectly fine, my role segued from healthcare provider to publicist, holding back the crowd of reporters who threatened to overrun the ward. It figures that now, the only other time in my life I've met a celebrity, I am wearing a polyester uniform. “Of course.” I usher him through the door, silently thanking God that I already made my pullout bed back into a couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee would be a blessing,” he says.

As I turn on the Keurig, I'm thinking that Adisa would die if she were here. I wonder if it would be rude to take a selfie with Wallace Mercy and send it to her. “You have a lovely home,” he tells me, and he looks at the photos on my mantel. “This your boy? I've heard he's something else.”

From whom?
I think. “Do you take milk? Sugar?”

“Both,” Wallace Mercy says. He takes the mug and gestures to the couch. “May I?” I nod, and he motions so that I will sit down on the chair beside him. “Miz Jefferson, do you know why I'm here?”

“Honestly, I can't even quite believe you
are
here, much less figure out why.”

He smiles. He has the most even white teeth I have ever seen, stark against the darkness of his skin. I realize that up close, he is younger than I expected. “I have come to tell you that you are not alone.”

Confused, I tilt my head. “That's very kind, but I already have a pastor—”

“But your community is much bigger than just your church. My sister, this is not the first time our people have been targeted. We may not have the power yet, but what we have is each other.”

My mouth rounds as I start to put the pieces together. It's like Adisa said: my case is just another apple box for him to stand on, to get noticed. “It's very kind of you to come here, but I don't think my story is one that would be particularly interesting to you.”

“On the contrary. May I be so bold as to ask you a question? When you were singled out and asked to not interfere with the care of a white baby, did any of your colleagues come to your defense?”

I think about Corinne, squirming when I complained about Marie's unjust directive, and then defending Carla Luongo. “My friend knew I was upset.”

“Did she go to bat for you? Would she risk her job for you?”

“I would hardly have asked her to do that,” I say, getting annoyed.

“What color skin does your colleague have?” Wallace asks bluntly.

“The fact that I'm Black was never an issue in my relationship with my colleagues.”

“Not until they needed a scapegoat. What I am trying to say, Ruth—may I call you that?—is that
we
stand with you. Your Black brothers and sisters
will
go to bat for you. They
will
risk their jobs for you. They will march on your behalf and they will create a roar that cannot be ignored.”

I stand up. “Thank you for your…interest in my case. But this is something that I'd have to discuss with my lawyer, and no matter what—”

“What color skin does your lawyer have?” Wallace interrupts.

“What difference does it make?” I challenge. “How can you ever expect to be treated well by white people if you're constantly picking them over for flaws?”

He smiles, as if he's heard this before. “You've heard of Trayvon Martin, I assume?”

Of course I have. The boy's death had hit me hard. Not just because he was about Edison's age but because, like my son, he was an honor student who had been doing nothing wrong, except being Black.

“Do you know that during that trial, the judge—the white judge—banned the term
racial profiling
from being used in the courtroom?” Wallace says. “She wanted to make sure that the jury knew the case was not about race, but about murder.”

His words punch through me, arrows. They are almost verbatim what Kennedy told me about my own case.

“Trayvon was a good kid, a smart boy. You are a respected nurse. The reason that judge didn't want to bring up race—the same reason your lawyer is skirting it like it's the plague—is because Black people like you and Trayvon are supposed to be the exceptions. You are the very definition of when bad things happen to good people. Because that is the only way white gatekeepers can make excuses for their behavior.” He leans forward, his mug clasped in his hands. “But what if that's not the truth? What if you and Trayvon aren't the exceptions…but the rule? What if injustice is the
standard
?”

“All I want is to do my job, live my life, raise my boy. I don't need your help.”

“You may not need it,” he says, “but apparently there are a lot of people out there who want to help you, just the same. I mentioned your case last week, briefly, on my show.” He shifts, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his suit and pulling out a small manila envelope. Then he stands and passes it to me. “Good luck, sister. I'll be praying for you.”

As soon as the door closes behind him, I open the seal and dump out the contents. Inside are bills: tens, twenties, fifties. There are also dozens of checks, written out to me, from strangers. I read the addresses on them: Tulsa, Oklahoma. Chicago. South Bend. Olympia, Washington. At the bottom of the pile is Wallace Mercy's business card.

I gather everything into the envelope, tuck it into an empty vase on a shelf in the living room, and then see it: my missing visor, resting on the cable box.

It feels like a crossroads.

I settle the visor on my head, grab my wallet and my coat, and head out the door to my shift.

I
KEEP MY
favorite picture of Wesley and me on the mantel of my house. We were at our wedding, and his cousin snapped it when we weren't looking. In the photo, we are standing in the lobby of the elegant hotel where we had our reception—the rental of which was Sam Hallowell's wedding gift to me. My arms are looped around Wesley's neck and my head is turned. He is leaning in, his eyes closed, whispering something to me.

I have tried so, so hard to remember what my handsome husband, breathtaking in his tuxedo, was saying. I'd like to believe it was
You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
or
I can't wait to start our life together
. But that is the stuff of novels and movies, and in reality, I am pretty sure we were planning our escape from a roomful of well-wishers so that I could pee.

The reason I know this is because although I cannot remember the conversation that Wesley and I had when that photograph was taken, I do remember the one we had afterward. There was a line at the ladies' room off the main lobby, and Wesley gallantly volunteered to stand guard at the men's room so that no one would enter while I was inside. It took me a significant amount of time to maneuver my wedding gown and do my business, and when I finally made it out of the bathroom, a good ten minutes had passed. Wesley was still outside the door, my sentry, but now he was holding a valet claim ticket.

“What's that?” I asked. We didn't have a car then; we'd taken public transport to our own wedding.

Wesley shook his head, chuckling. “Some dude just walked up to me and asked me to bring his Mercedes around.”

We laughed and gave the ticket to the bellhop desk. We laughed, because we were in love. Because when life is full of good things, it does not seem important if an old white guy sees a Black man in a fancy hotel and naturally assumes he must work there.

A
FTER A MONTH
of working at McDonald's, I begin to see the paradox between service and sanitary food preparation. Although all orders are supposed to be prepared in less than fifty seconds, most items on the menu take longer than that to cook. McNuggets and Filet-O-Fish fry for almost four minutes. Chicken Selects take six minutes, and weighing in longest in the fry vat are crispy chicken breasts. Ten-to-one meat takes thirty-nine seconds to cook; four-to-one meat takes seventy-nine seconds. The grilled chicken is actually steamed while it cooks. Apple pies bake for twelve minutes, cookies for two. And yet in spite of all this, we employees are supposed to have the customer walking out the door in ninety seconds—fifty for food prep, forty for a meaningful interaction.

The managers love me, because unlike most of the staff, I do not have to juggle class schedules with my shifts. After decades of working nights, I don't mind coming in at 3:45
A.M.
to open grill, which takes a while to heat up before we unlock the doors at 5:00. Because of my flexibility, I am usually given my favorite job—cashier. I like talking to the customers. I consider it a personal challenge to make them smile before they walk away from the counter. And after literally having women throw things at my head in the thick of labor, being berated for mayo instead of mustard really doesn't faze me.