Small Great Things

  I can feel all the air rush out of Ruth's lungs.

  "Your Honor," I say, and then I stop.

  I have nothing to work with. I don't know what Ruth Jefferson does for a living. I don't know if she owns a house or if she moved to Connecticut yesterday. I don't know if she held a pillow over that baby's face until it stopped breathing or if she is rightfully angry about a trumped-up charge.

  "Your Honor," I repeat, "the State has offered no proof for their specious claims. This is a very serious charge with virtually no evidence. In light of this I'd ask the court to set reasonable bail in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars surety."

  It's the best I can do, given the lack of information she's provided. My job is to get Ruth Jefferson through her arraignment, as efficiently and as fairly as possible. I glance up at the clock. There are probably about ten more clients after her.

  Suddenly there is a tug on my sleeve. "You see that boy?" Ruth murmurs, and she looks at the gallery. Her gaze locks on a young man in the rear of the courtroom, who gets to his feet as if he is being drawn upright by a magnet. "That's my son," Ruth says, and then she turns to me. "Do you have kids?"

  I think of Violet. I think of what it would be like if the biggest problem in your life was not watching your child getting frustrated but watching your child getting handcuffed.

  "Your Honor," I say, "I'd like to retract what I just said."

  "I beg your pardon, Counselor?"

  "Before we discuss bail, I would like an opportunity to speak with my client."

  The judge frowns. "You just had one."

  "I would like an opportunity to speak with my client for more than ten seconds," I amend.

  He rubs his hand over his face. "Fine," he concedes. "You can speak to your client at the recess and we'll revisit this matter at second call."

  The bailiffs grab Ruth's arms. I can tell she has no idea what's going on. "I'm coming," I manage to tell her, and then she's dragged out of the courtroom, and before I know it, I'm speaking on behalf of a twenty-year-old who calls himself the symbol # ("Like Prince, but not," he tells me), who has spray-painted graffiti of a giant penis on a highway bridge and cannot understand why it's criminal mischief, and not art.

  --

  I HAVE TEN more arraignments, and during all of them, I'm thinking about Ruth Jefferson. Thank God for the stenographers' union contract, which mandates a fifteen-minute pee break, during which I find my way into the dank, dirty guts of the courthouse to the holding cell where they've taken my client.

  She looks up from the metal bunk where she's sitting, rubbing her wrists. She's no longer wearing the chains that she had in the courtroom, like any other defendant accused of murder would have, but it's almost as if she doesn't notice they're gone. "Where have you been?" she asks, her voice sharp.

  "Doing my job," I reply.

  Ruth meets my eye. "That's all I was doing, too," she says. "I'm a nurse."

  I start to piece together the puzzle: something must have gone south during Ruth's care of the infant, something that the prosecution believes was not an accident. "I need to get some information from you. If you don't want to be locked up pending trial, you and I need to work together."

  For a long moment Ruth is silent, and it surprises me. Most people in her situation would grab on to the lifeline offered by a public defender. This woman, however, feels like she's trying to determine if I'm going to measure up.

  It's a pretty disturbing feeling, I must admit. My clients don't tend to be judgmental; they're people who are used to being judged...and found lacking.

  Finally she nods.

  "Okay," I say, letting out a breath I did not realize I'd been holding. "How old are you?"

  "Forty-four."

  "Are you married?"

  "No," Ruth says. "My husband died in Afghanistan, during his second deployment. An IED went off. It was ten years ago."

  "Your son--is he your only child?" I ask.

  "Yes. Edison's in high school," she says. "He's applying to college right now. Those animals came into my house and handcuffed a straight-A student."

  "We'll get to that in a second," I promise. "You have a nursing degree?"

  "I went to SUNY Plattsburgh and then to Yale Nursing School."

  "Are you employed?"

  "I worked at Mercy-West Haven Hospital for twenty years, on the birthing pavilion. But yesterday, they took my job away from me."

  I make a note on a legal pad. "What source of income do you have now?"

  She shakes her head. "My husband's military death benefits, I suppose."

  "Do you own your own home?"

  "A townhouse in East End."

  That's the area where Micah and I live. It's an affluent white neighborhood. The black faces I see there are usually passing through in their cars. Violence is rare, and when a mugging or a carjacking does happen, the online comments section of the New Haven Independent is full of East End folks lamenting how the "elements" from poor neighborhoods like Dixwell and Newhallville are finding their way into our perfect hamlet.

  By "elements," of course, they mean black people.

  "You look surprised," Ruth remarks.

  "No," I reply quickly. "It just happens to be where I live, too, and I've never seen you around."

  "I keep a pretty low profile," she says dryly.

  I clear my throat. "Do you have relatives in Connecticut?"

  "My sister, Adisa. She's the one who's sitting with Edison. She lives in Church Street South."

  It's a low-income apartment complex in the Hill neighborhood, between Union Station and the Yale medical district. Something like 97 percent of the kids live in poverty, and I've had my share of clients from there. It's only a handful of miles away from East End, and yet it's another world: kids selling drugs for their older brothers, older brothers selling drugs because there aren't any jobs, girls turning tricks, gang shootings every night. I wonder how Ruth wound up living so differently from her sister.

  "Are your parents still alive?"

  "My mother works on the Upper West Side of Manhattan." Ruth's eyes slide away from mine. "You remember Sam Hallowell?"

  "The TV network guy? Didn't he die?"

  "Yes. But she's still the family maid."

  I open the folder with Ruth's name on it, which has the indictment that was handed down by the grand jury and that precipitated her arrest. I hadn't had time to scan anything more than the charges before this moment, but now I skim with that superpower that PDs have, where certain words leap off the page and lodge into our consciousness. "Who's Davis Bauer?"

  Ruth's voice gets softer. "A baby," she says, "who died."

  "Tell me what happened."

  Ruth begins to weave a story. For every thick black fact she spins, there's a silver flicker of shame. She tells me about the parents and the supervisor's sticky note and the circumcision and the emergency C-section and the newborn's seizure. She says that the man with the swastika tattoo who spit at her in the courtroom was the baby's father. Threads knot around us, like the silk from a cocoon.

  "...and the next thing I knew," Ruth says, "the baby was dead."

  I glance down at the police statement. "You never touched him?" I clarify.

  She stares at me for a long moment, as if she is trying to figure out if I can be trusted. Then she shakes her head. "Not until the charge nurse told me to start compressions."

  I lean forward. "If I can get you out of here, so you can go home to your son, you'll have to post a percentage of the bail amount. Do you have any money saved up?"

  Her shoulders square. "Edison's college fund, but I won't touch that."

  "Would you be willing to put your home up?"

  "What does that even mean?"

  "You let the State put a lien on it," I explain.

  "And then what? If I lose the trial does that mean Edison won't have anywhere to live?"

  "No. This is only a measure to make sure you're not going to skip town if they let you leave."
/>
  Ruth takes a deep breath. "Okay. But you have to do me a favor. You have to tell my son that I'm all right."

  I nod, and then she nods.

  In that moment, we're not black and white, or attorney and accused. We're not separated by what I know about the legal system and what she has yet to learn. We are just two mothers, sitting side by side.

  --

  THIS TIME, AS I walk through the gallery of the courtroom, I feel like I've put on corrective lenses. I notice onlookers I didn't pay attention to before. They may not be tattooed like the baby's father, but they are white. Only a few are wearing Doc Martens; the rest are in sneakers. Are they skinheads, too? Some hold signs with Davis's name on them, some wear powder-blue ribbons pinned to their shirts in solidarity. How did I miss this the first time I came into the courtroom? Have they assembled to support the Bauer family?

  I think about Ruth walking down the street in East End and wonder how many other residents questioned what she was doing there, even if they never said it to her face. How incredibly easy it is to hide behind white skin, I think, looking at these probable supremacists. The benefit of the doubt is in your favor. You're not suspicious.

  The few black faces in the room stand out in harsh counterpoint. I walk up to the boy Ruth acknowledged earlier, who immediately stands. "Edison?" I say. "My name is Kennedy."

  He is taller than I am by nearly a foot, but he still has the face of a baby. "Is my mama all right?"

  "She's fine, and she sent me out here to tell you so."

  "Well, you took your sweet time," says the woman beside him. She has long braids shot through with red, and her skin is much darker than Ruth's. She is drinking a Coke, although there's no food or drink allowed in the courtroom, and when she sees me looking at the can she raises an eyebrow as if she is daring me to say something.

  "You must be Ruth's sister."

  "Why? Because I'm the only nigga in this room other than her son?"

  I reel backward at the word she uses, which I am sure is exactly the reaction she's going for. If Ruth seemed judgmental or prickly, then her sister is a porcupine with an anger management problem. "No," I say, in the same tone I use with Violet when I try to reason with her. "First of all, you're not the only...person of color...here. And second, your sister told me you were with Edison."

  "Can you get her out?" Edison asks.

  I focus my attention on him. "I'm going to try my hardest."

  "Can I see her?"

  "Not right now."

  The door leading to chambers opens and the clerk enters, telling us to rise as he announces the judge's return.

  "I have to go," I tell him.

  Ruth's sister fixes her gaze on me. "Do your job, white girl," she says.

  The judge takes the bench and re-calls Ruth's case. Ruth is brought up from the bowels of the building again, and takes a spot beside me. She gives me a questioning look, and I nod: He's all right.

  "Ms. McQuarrie," the judge sighs. "Have you had ample time to speak with your client?"

  "Yes, Your Honor. Just days ago Ruth Jefferson was a nurse at Mercy-West Haven Hospital, caring for women in labor and their newborns as she has for the past twenty years. When a medical emergency occurred involving a baby, Ruth worked with the rest of the hospital personnel trying to save the child's life. Tragically, it was not meant to be. In the pending investigation surrounding what happened, Ruth was suspended from her job. She is a college graduate; her son is an honor student. Her husband is a military hero who gave his life for our country in Afghanistan. She has family in the community, and equity in the house she lives in. I ask the court to set reasonable bail. My client is not a flight risk; she has no prior record; she's willing to abide by any particular conditions the court wants to set on her bail. This is a very defendable case."

  I've painted Ruth as an upstanding American citizen who has been misunderstood. Just about the only thing I don't do is take out an American flag and start waving it around.

  The judge turns to Ruth. "How much equity are we talking about?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "What's the value of the mortgage on your house?" I ask.

  "A hundred thousand dollars," Ruth replies.

  The judge nods. "I'm going to set bail at one hundred thousand dollars. As a condition of the bail, I'll accept the house being posted. Next case?"

  The white supremacist supporters in the gallery start booing. I am not sure they'd be happy with any verdict short of a public lynching. The judge calls for order and bangs his gavel. "Clear them out," he finally says, and bailiffs begin to move through the aisles.

  "What happens now?" Ruth asks.

  "You're getting out."

  "Thank God. How long will it take?"

  I glance up. "A couple of days."

  A bailiff takes Ruth's arm to bring her back to the holding cell. As she is being led away, that curtain behind her eyes slips, and for the first time I see panic.

  It's not like it is on TV and in the movies; you don't just walk out of the courthouse free. There are papers to be procured and bondsmen to be dealt with. I know that because I'm a public defender. Most of my clients know that because they tend to be repeat offenders.

  But Ruth, she's not like most of my clients.

  She's not even one of my clients, when you get down to it.

  I've been with the public defender's office now for almost four years, and I've moved out of misdemeanors. I've done so many burglary cases and criminal mischief and identity theft and bad checks that at this point, I could probably argue them in my sleep. But this is a murder case, a high-profile trial that will be plucked out of my hands as soon as the court date is set. It will go to someone in my office who has more experience than I do, or who plays golf with my boss, or who has a penis.

  In the long run, I won't be Ruth's lawyer. But right now, I still am, and I can help her.

  I wing a silent thank-you to the white supremacists who've created this uproar. Then I run down the central aisle of the gallery to Edison and his aunt. "Listen. You need to get a certified copy of Ruth's house deed," I tell her sister. "And a certified copy of the tax assessment, and a copy of your sister's most recent mortgage payment, which shows what the current payoff is, and you need to bring that to the clerk's office--"

  I realize that Ruth's sister is staring at me like I've suddenly started to speak Hungarian. But then again, she lives in Church Street South; she does not own her own place. This might as well be a foreign language to her.

  Then I realize that Edison is writing down everything I've said on the back of a receipt from his wallet. "I'll figure it out," he promises.

  I give him my card. "This is my cell number. If you have any questions, you can call me. But I won't be the one trying your mother's case. Someone else from my office will be in touch with you after she gets out."

  This admission snaps Ruth's sister back into action. "So that's it? You put up her house to get her out of jail, so your good deed is done now? I guess since my sister's black, she obviously did the crime and you'd rather not get your hands dirty, right?"

  This is ridiculous on so many levels, not the least of which is that the majority of my clients are African American. But before I can explain the hierarchy of politics in the public defender's office, Edison intercedes. "Auntie, chill out." Then he turns to me. "I'm sorry."

  "No," I tell him. "I am."

  --

  WHEN I FINALLY get home that night, my mother is sitting with her stocking feet tucked beneath her, watching Disney Junior on television, a glass of white wine in her hand. She has had a glass of white wine every night for as long as I can remember. When I was little, she called it her medicine. Beside her on the couch is Violet, curled on her side, fast asleep. "I didn't have the heart to move her," my mother says.

  I sit down gingerly beside my daughter, take the bottle of wine that's on the coffee table, and drink from its neck. My mother's eyebrows arch. "That bad?" she asks.

 
"You have no idea." I stroke Violet's hair. "You must have tired her out today."

  "Well." My mother hesitates. "We had a little bit of a blowup at dinner."

  "Was it the fish sticks? She won't eat them since going on her Little Mermaid kick."

  "No, she ate them, and you'll be delighted to know that Ariel has left the building. In fact, that was what got her all hot and bothered. We started watching Princess and the Frog, and Violet informed me that she wants to be Tiana for Halloween."

  "Thank God," I say. "She was dead set on wearing a shell bikini top a week ago, and the only way that was going to happen was if it was over her long underwear."

  My mother raises her brows. "Kennedy," she says. "Don't you think Violet would be happier as Cinderella? Or Rapunzel? Or even that new one with the white hair who makes everything ice over?"

  "Elsa?" I fill in. "Why?"

  "Don't make me say it out loud, sugar," my mother replies.

  "You mean because Tiana's black?" I say. Immediately, I think of Ruth Jefferson, of the white supremacists booing in the gallery.

  "I don't think Violet is making a statement about equality as much as she is about frogs. She told me she's going to ask for one as a pet for Christmas and kiss it and see what happens."

  "She's not getting a frog for Christmas. But if she wants to be Tiana for Halloween I'll buy her the costume."

  "I will sew her the costume," my mother corrects. "No grandbaby of mine is going trick-or-treating in a store-bought piece of trash that would probably go up in flames if she walked past a jack-o'-lantern." I don't fight her on this. I can't even sew a seam. I have a pair of work trousers in my closet that are hemmed with superglue.

  "Terrific. I'm glad you can overcome your resistance in order to make Violet's dream come true."

  My mother lifts her chin a notch. "I did not tell you this so you could scold me, Kennedy. Just because I grew up in the South doesn't make me prejudiced."

  "Mom," I point out. "You had a black nanny."

  "And I adored Beattie like she was family," my mother says.

  "Except...she wasn't."

  My mother pours more wine into her glass. "Kennedy," she sighs. "It's just a silly costume. Not a cause."

  Suddenly I'm so incredibly tired. It's not just the pace of my job or the overwhelming number of cases I have that wears me down. It's wondering if anything I do actually makes a difference.