Small Great Things (50 page)

Oh God,
I think.
Oh God, oh God, shut up, Ruth. Don't go here.
“Nothing further,” I say, trying to cut our losses.

Because Ruth is no longer a witness. She's a time bomb.

W
HEN
I
SIT
back down at the defense table, Howard is gaping. He pushes me a piece of paper:
WHAT IS GOING ON???

I write back on the bottom:
That was an example of what you NEVER want a witness to do.

Odette strides toward the witness stand. “You were instructed not to touch that baby?”

“Yes,” Ruth says.

“And until today you said that you had not touched that baby until you were expressly told to by your charge nurse?”

“Yes.”

“Yet now you testified on your direct examination that you in fact
did
touch that baby while he was in distress?”

Ruth nods. “That's true.”

“So which is it?” Odette presses. “Did you or didn't you touch Davis Bauer when he initially stopped breathing?”

“I did.”

“So let me get this straight. You lied to your supervisor?”

“Yes.”

“And you lied to your colleague Corinne?”

“Yes.”

“You lied to the risk management team at Mercy–West Haven, didn't you?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“You lied to the police?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Even though you realize they have a duty and a moral obligation to try to find out what happened to that dead infant?”

“I know but—”

“You were thinking of saving your job,” Odette corrects, “because deep down you knew you were doing something shady. Isn't that right?”

“Well—”

“If you lied to
all
these people,” Odette says, “why on earth should this jury believe anything you say right now?”

Ruth turns to the men and women crammed into the jury box. “Because I'm telling them the truth.”

“Right,” Odette says. “But that's not your only secret confession, is it?”

Where is she going with this?

“At the moment that the baby died—when the pediatrician called the time of death—deep down, you didn't really give a damn, right, Ruth?”

“Of course I did!” She sits up in her chair. “We were working so hard, just like we would for any patient—”

“Ah, but this wasn't just any patient. This was the baby of a white supremacist. The baby of a man who had dismissed your years of experience and nursing expertise—”

“You're wrong.”

“—a man who called into question your ability to do your job simply because of the color of your skin. You resented Turk Bauer, and you resented his baby, didn't you?”

Odette is a foot away from Ruth now, yelling into her face. Ruth closes her eyes with every blast, as if she's facing a hurricane. “No,” she whispers. “I never thought that.”

“Yet you heard your colleague Corinne say you were angry after you were told you could no longer care for Davis Bauer, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You worked twenty years at Mercy–West Haven?”

“Yes.”

“You testified that you were an experienced, competent nurse and that you loved your job, is that fair to say?”

“It is,” Ruth admits.

“Yet the hospital had no problem taking the wishes of the patient into consideration over respect for their own employee, and dismissing you from the professional role you'd maintained all those years?”

“Apparently.”

“That must have made you furious, right?”

“I was upset,” she concedes.

Hold it together, Ruth,
I think.

“Upset? You said, and I quote,
That baby means nothing to me.”

“It was something that came out in the heat of the moment—”

Odette's eyes gleam. “The heat of the moment! Is that also what happened when you told Dr. Atkins to sterilize the baby during his circumcision?”

“It was a joke,” Ruth says. “I shouldn't have said it. That was a mistake.”

“What
else
was a mistake?” Odette asks. “The fact that you stopped ministering to that baby while he fought to breathe, simply because you were afraid of how it might affect
you
?”

“I had been told to do nothing.”

“So you made the conscious choice to stand over that poor tiny infant who was turning blue, while you thought,
What if I lose my job?
”

“No—”

“Or maybe you were thinking:
This baby doesn't deserve my help. His parents don't want me touching him because I'm black, and they're gonna get their wish.
”

“That's not true—”

“I see. You were thinking:
I hate his racist parents
?”

“No!” Ruth holds her hands to her head, trying to drown out Odette's voice.

“Oh, so maybe it was:
I hate this
baby
because I hate his racist parents
?”

“No,” Ruth explodes, so loud that it feels like the walls of the courtroom are shaking. “I was thinking that baby was better off dead than raised by
him.
”

She points directly at Turk Bauer, as a curtain of silence falls over the jury and the gallery and, yes, me. Ruth holds her hand over her mouth.
Too fucking late,
I think.

“O-objection!” Howard sputters. “Move to strike!”

At the same exact moment, Edison runs out of the courtroom.

I
GRAB
R
UTH'S
wrist as soon as we are dismissed and drag her to the conference room. Howard is smart enough to know to stay away. Once the door is closed, I turn on her. “Congratulations. You did
exactly
what you weren't supposed to do, Ruth.”

She walks to the window, her back to me.

“Have you made your point? Are you happy you got up on the stand to testify? All the jury is going to see now is an angry black woman. One who was so pissed off and vengeful that I wouldn't be surprised if the judge regrets dismissing the count of murder. You just gave those fourteen jurors every reason to believe you were mad enough to let that baby die before your eyes.”

Slowly, Ruth turns around. She is haloed by the afternoon sunlight, otherworldly. “I didn't
get
angry. I
am
angry. I have been angry for years. I just didn't let it show. What you don't understand is that three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I have to think about not looking or sounding
too black,
so I play a role. I put on a game face, like a layer of plaster. It's exhausting. It's so goddamned exhausting. But I do it, because I don't have bail money. I do it because I have a son. I do it because if I don't, I could lose my job. My house. Myself. So instead, I work and smile and nod and pay my bills and stay silent and pretend to be satisfied, because that is what you people want—no—
need
me to be. And the great, sad shame is that for too many years of my sorry life, I have bought into that farce. I thought if I did all those things, I could be one of you.”

She walks toward me. “Look at you,” Ruth sneers. “You're so proud of being a public defender and working with people of color who need help. But did you ever think our misfortune is directly related to your good fortune? Maybe the house your parents bought was on the market because the sellers didn't want
my
mama in the neighborhood. Maybe the good grades that eventually led you to law school were possible because your mama didn't have to work eighteen hours a day, and was there to read to you at night, or make sure you did your homework. How often do you remind yourself how lucky you are that you own your house, because you were able to build up equity through generations in a way families of color can't? How often do you open your mouth at work and think how awesome it is that no one's thinking you're speaking for everyone with the same skin color you have? How hard is it for you to find a greeting card for your baby's birthday with a picture of a child that has the same color skin as her? How many times have you seen a painting of Jesus that looks like you?” She stops, breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed. “Prejudice goes both ways, you know. There are people who suffer from it, and there are people who profit from it. Who died and made you Robin Hood? Who said I ever needed saving? Here you are on your high horse, telling me I screwed up this case that you worked so hard on; patting yourself on the back for being an advocate for a poor, struggling black woman like me…but you're part of the reason I was down on the ground to begin with.”

We are inches apart. I can feel the heat of her skin; I can see myself reflected in her pupils as she starts to speak again. “You told me you could represent me, Kennedy. You can't represent me. You don't
know
me. You never even tried.” Her eyes lock on mine. “You're fired,” Ruth says, and she walks out of the room.

F
OR A FEW
minutes, I stand alone in the conference room, fighting an army of emotions. So this is why it's called a
trial.
I have never felt so furious, ashamed, humiliated. In all the years I've practiced law, I have had clients who hated me, but no one ever sacked me.

This is how Ruth feels
.

Okay, I get it: she has been wronged by a lot of white people. But that doesn't mean she can so effortlessly lump me with them, judge one individual by the rest.

This is how Ruth feels.

How dare she accuse me of not being able to represent her, just because I'm not black? How dare she say I didn't try to get to know her? How dare she put words in my mouth? How dare she tell me what I'm thinking?

This is how Ruth feels.

Groaning, I throw myself toward the door. The judge is expecting us in chambers.

Howard is framed in the doorway as soon as it opens. Jesus Christ, I'd forgotten about him. “She fired you?” he says and then sheepishly adds, “I was kind of eavesdropping.”

I start striding down the hall. “She can't fire me. The judge will never let her do that this late in the trial.” The legal claim Ruth will make is ineffective assistance of counsel, but if anyone was ineffective here, it was the client. She tanked her own acquittal.

“So what happens now?”

I stop walking and turn to him. “Your guess is as good as mine,” I say.

T
OWARD THE END
of a case, a defense attorney will raise a motion for judgment of acquittal. But this time, when I step before Judge Thunder with Odette, he looks at me like I have some nerve to even be raising this issue. “There's no proof that Davis Bauer's death resulted from Ruth's actions. Or inactions,” I add feebly, because at this point, even
I'm
not sure what to believe.

“Your Honor,” Odette says. “It's clear that this is a last-ditch effort of desperation for the defense, given what we all just heard during that testimony. In fact I would humbly ask the court to reverse the decision on your previous motion to throw out the charge of murder. Clearly, Ruth Jefferson just gave proof of malice.”

My blood freezes. I knew Odette would come out swinging, but I hadn't anticipated
this.
“Your Honor, the ruling has to stand. You already dismissed the murder charge. Double jeopardy applies; Ruth can't be charged twice with the same crime.”

“In this one instance,” Judge Thunder says grudgingly, “Ms. McQuarrie is correct. You've already had your bite at the apple, Ms. Lawton, and I already rejected the murder charge. I will, however, reserve my right to rule on the defense's renewed motion for judgment of acquittal.” He looks at us each in turn. “Closing arguments start Monday morning, Counselors. Let's try not to make this any more of a shit show than it's already been, all right?”

I tell Howard to take the rest of the day off, and I drive home. My head feels cluttered, my mind too tight in my skull, as if I'm fighting a cold. When I get to my house, it smells of vanilla. I step into the kitchen to find my mother wearing a Wonder Woman apron while Violet kneels on one of the kitchen stools, her hand in a bowl of cookie dough. “Mommy!” she cries, raising sticky fists. “We're making you a surprise so pretend you can't see.”

There's something about her phrase that sticks in my throat.
Pretend you can't see.

Out of the mouths of babes.

My mother takes one look at me and frowns over Violet's head. “You okay?” she mouths silently.

In response, I sit down next to Violet and take a scoop of the cookie dough with my fingers and start eating.

My daughter is a lefty, in spite of the fact that Micah and I are not. We even have an ultrasound picture of her sucking her left thumb in utero. “What if it's that simple?” I murmur.

“What if
what's
that simple?”

I look at my mom. “Do you think the world is biased toward righties?”

“Um, I can't say I've ever thought about it.”

“That's because,” I point out, “
you're
a righty. But think about it. Can openers, scissors, even desks at college that fold out from the side—they're all meant for right-handed people.”

Violet lifts up the hand that is holding her spoon, frowning at it. “Baby girl,” my mother says, “why don't you go wash up so you can taste the first batch that comes out of the oven?”

She slithers off the stool, her hands held up like Micah's before he enters an operating room.

“Do you want to give the child nightmares?” my mother scolds. “Honestly, Kennedy! Where is this even coming from? Does this have to do with your case?”

“I've read that lefties die young because they're more accident prone. When you were growing up, didn't nuns slap the kids who wrote with their left hands?”