Small Great Things

  --

  MY DAY ONLY gets worse when I leave work and see six missed phone calls from Kennedy. I immediately ring her back. "I thought you agreed that working with Wallace Mercy was a bad idea," she hammers, without even saying hello.

  "What? I did. I do."

  "So you had no idea that he was leading a march in your honor today in front of the courthouse?"

  I stop walking, letting the foot traffic funnel around me. "You gotta be kidding. Kennedy, I did not talk to Wallace."

  "Your sister was shoulder to shoulder with him."

  Well, mystery solved. "Adisa tends to do whatever she wants."

  "Can't you control her?"

  "I've been trying for forty-four years but it hasn't worked yet."

  "Try harder," Kennedy tells me.

  Which is how I wind up taking the bus to my sister's apartment, instead of going right home. When Donte lets me in, Adisa is sitting on the couch playing Candy Crush on her phone, even though it is nearly dinnertime. "Well, look what the cat drug in," she says. "Where you been?"

  "It's been crazy since New Year's. Between work, and going over things for trial, I haven't had a free minute."

  "I came by the other day, did Edison tell you?"

  I kick her feet off the couch so there's room for me to sit. "Did you come over to tell me your new best friend is Wallace Mercy?"

  Adisa's eyes light up. "You see me on the news today? It was just my elbow and up to here on my neck, but you can tell it's me by the coat. I wore the one with the leopard collar--"

  "I want you to stop," I say. "I don't need Wallace Mercy."

  "Your white lawyer tell you that?"

  "Adisa," I sigh. "I never wanted to be someone's poster child."

  "You didn't even give Reverend Mercy a chance. You know how many of our people have had experiences like yours? How many times they been told no because of their skin color? This is bigger than just your story, and if some good can come out of what happened to you, why not let it?" Adisa sits up. "All he wants is a chance to sit down with us, Ruth. On national television."

  Alarm bells ring in my head. "Us," I repeat.

  Adisa's gaze slides away. "Well," she admits, "I indicated that I might be able to change your mind."

  "So this isn't even about helping me move forward. It's about you getting recognition. Jesus, Adisa. This is a new low, even for you."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" She gets to her feet and stares down at me, her hands balanced on her hips. "You really think I'd use my baby sister like that?"

  I challenge her. "You really gonna stand here drenched to the bone and tell me it's not raining?"

  Before she can answer there is a loud crash as a door falls back on its hinges and slams into the wall. Tabari swaggers out from one of the bedrooms with a friend. "You rob a trucker fuh that hat, yo?" He laughs. They are amped up, loud, their pants riding so low I don't know why they even bother to wear them. All I can think is that I'd never let Edison out of the house like that, like he was looking to intimidate.

  Then Tabari's friend turns around and I realize it's my son.

  "Edison?"

  "Ain't it nice," Adisa says, smiling. "The cousins hanging?"

  "What are you doing here?" Edison says, in a tone that lets me know this is not a pleasant surprise.

  "Don't you have homework to do?"

  "Did it."

  "College applications?"

  He looks at me, his eyes hooded. "They ain't due for another week."

  Ain't?

  "What's the problem?" he asks. "You're always telling me how important family is." He says that word as if it is a swear.

  "Where exactly are you and Tabari going?"

  Tabari looks up. "The movies, Auntie," he says.

  "The movies." Like hell, I think. "What film are you seeing?"

  He and Edison exchange a look and start laughing. "We gonna pick when we get there," Tabari says.

  Adisa steps forward, arms crossed. "You got a problem with that, Ruth?"

  "Yes. Yes I do," I explode. "Because I think it's a lot more likely that your son is going to take Edison down by the basketball court to smoke weed than to see the next Oscar nominee."

  My sister's jaw drops. "You judging my family," she hisses, "when you on trial for murder?"

  I grab Edison's arm. "You're coming with me," I announce, and then I turn to Adisa. "Have fun doing your interview with Wallace Mercy. Just make sure you tell him, and the adoring public, that you and your sister are no longer on speaking terms."

  With that, I drag my son out of her home. I rip the hat off his head when we get downstairs and tell him to pull up his pants. We are halfway to the bus station before he says a word. "I'm sorry," Edison begins.

  "You better be," I answer, rounding on him. "You lost your damn mind? I didn't raise you to be like this."

  "Tabari's not as bad as his friends."

  I start walking, and I don't look back. "Tabari is not my son," I say.

  --

  WHEN I WAS pregnant with Edison, all I knew was that I didn't want the experience of giving birth to be anything like Adisa's--who claimed to not even realize she was pregnant for six months when she had her first baby, and who practically had her second on the subway. Me, I wanted the best care I could get, the finest doctors. Since Wesley was on a tour of duty, I enlisted Mama as my birthing coach. When it was time, we took a taxi to Mercy-West Haven because Mama couldn't drive and I was in no state to. I had planned for a natural birth, because as a labor and delivery nurse I'd written this moment in my head a thousand times, but just like any well-laid plan, that wasn't in the cards for me. As I was being wheeled into the OR for a C-section, Mama was singing Baptist hymns, and when I came to after the procedure, she was holding my son.

  "Ruth," she said to me, her eyes so full of pride they were a color I'd never seen before. "Ruth, look at what God made for you."

  She held the baby out to me, and I suddenly realized that although I'd planned my first birth down to the minute, I hadn't organized a single second of what might come afterward. I had no idea how to be a mother. My son was stiff in my arms, and then he opened his mouth and started wailing, like this world was an affront to him.

  Panicked, I looked up at my mama. I was a straight-A student; I was an overachiever. I had never imagined that this--the most natural of all relationships--would make me feel so incompetent. I jiggled the baby in my arms, but that only made him cry louder. His feet kicked like he was traveling on an imaginary bicycle; his arms flailed, each tiny finger flexed and rigid. His screams grew tighter and tighter, an uneven seam of anger punctuated by the tiny knots of his hiccups. His cheeks were red with effort, as he tried to tell me something I was not equipped to understand.

  "Mama?" I begged. "What do I do?"

  I held out my arms to her, hoping she would take him and calm him down. But she just shook her head. "You tell him who you are to him," she instructed, and she took a step back, as if to remind me I was in this by myself.

  So I bent my face close to his. I pressed his spine up under my heart, where it had been for so many months. "Your name is Edison Wesley Jefferson," I whispered. "I am your mama, and I'm going to give you the best life I can."

  Edison blinked. He stared up at me through his dark eyes, as if I were a shadow he had to distinguish from the rest of this new, strange world. His cries hitched twice, a train headed off its track, and then crashed into silence.

  I could tell you the exact minute my son relaxed into his new surroundings. I know this detail because it was the moment I did the same.

  "See," Mama said, from somewhere behind me, somewhere outside the circle of just us two. "I told you so."

  --

  KENNEDY AND I meet every two weeks, even when there's no new information. Sometimes she'll text me, or stop by McDonald's to say hello. At one of these visits she invites me and Edison over for dinner.

  Before going to Kennedy's home, I change three times. Finally E
dison knocks on the bathroom door. "We going to your lawyer's," he asks, "or to meet the queen?"

  He's right. I don't know why I'm nervous. Except that this feels like crossing a line. It's one thing to have her here to review information about my case, but this invitation didn't have any work attached to it. This invitation was more like...a social call.

  Edison is dressed in a button-down shirt and khaki pants and has been told on penalty of death that he will behave like the gentleman I know him to be, or I will whup him when he gets home. When we ring the doorbell, the husband--Micah, that's his name--answers, with a girl tucked under his arm like a rag doll. "You must be Ruth," he says, taking the bouquet I offer and shaking my hand warmly, then shaking Edison's. He pivots, then turns the other way. "My daughter, Violet, is around here somewhere...I just saw her...I'm sure she'll want to say hello." As he twists, the little girl whips around, her hair flying, her giggles falling over my feet like bubbles.

  She slips out of her dad's arm, and I kneel down. Violet McQuarrie looks like a tiny version of her mama, albeit dressed in a Princess Tiana costume. I hold out a Mason jar that is filled with miniature white lights, and flip the switch so that it illuminates. "This is for you," I tell her. "It's a fairy jar."

  Her eyes widen. "Wow," Violet breathes, and she takes it and runs off.

  I get to my feet. "It also doubles as an excellent night-light," I tell Micah, as Kennedy comes out of the kitchen, wearing jeans and a sweater and an apron.

  "You made it!" she says, smiling. She has spaghetti sauce on her chin.

  "Yes," I answer. "I must have driven past your place a hundred times. I just didn't know, you know, that you lived here."

  And still wouldn't, had I not been indicted for murder. I know she's thinking it, too, but Micah saves the moment. "Drink? Can I get you something, Ruth? We have wine, beer, gin and tonic..."

  "Wine would be nice."

  We sit down in the living room. There is already a cheese plate on the coffee table. "Look at that," Edison murmurs to me. "A basketful of crackers."

  I shoot him a look that could make a bird fall from the sky.

  "It's so nice of you to invite us into your home," I say politely.

  "Well, don't thank me yet," Kennedy replies. "Dinner with a four-year-old is not exactly a gourmet dining experience." She smiles at Violet, who is coloring on the other side of the coffee table. "Needless to say we don't entertain much these days."

  "I remember when Edison was that age. I am pretty sure we ate a variation of macaroni and cheese every night for a full year."

  Micah crosses his legs. "Edison, my wife tells me you're quite the student."

  Yes. Because I neglected to mention to Kennedy that of late, he's been suspended.

  "Thank you, sir," Edison replies. "I've been applying to colleges."

  "Oh yeah? That's great. What do you want to study?"

  "History, maybe. Or politics."

  Micah nods, interested. "Are you a big fan of Obama?"

  Why do white people always assume that?

  "I was kind of young when he was running," Edison says. "But I went around with my mom campaigning for Hillary, when she was running against him. I guess because of my dad I'm sensitive to military issues, and her position on the Iraq War made more sense at the time; she was vocally in favor of invasion and Obama was opposed from the start."

  I puff up with pride. "Well," Micah says, impressed. "I look forward to seeing your name on a ticket one day."

  Violet, clearly bored by this conversation, steps over my legs to hold out a crayon to Edison. "Wanna color?" she asks.

  "Um, yeah, okay," Edison replies. He sinks down to his knees, shoulder to shoulder with Kennedy's girl, so that he can reach the coloring book. He starts making Cinderella's dress green.

  "No," Violet interrupts, a tiny despot. "That's supposed to be blue." She points to Cinderella's dress in the coloring book, half hidden beneath Edison's broad palm.

  "Violet," Kennedy says, "we let our guests make their own choices, remember?"

  "That's okay, Mrs. McQuarrie. I wouldn't want to mess with Cinderella," Edison answers.

  The little girl proudly hands him the right color crayon, a blue one. Edison bends his head and starts to scribble again.

  "Next week you start jury selection?" I ask. "Should I be worried about that?"

  "No, of course not. It's just--"

  "Edison?" Violet asks. "Is that a chain?"

  He touches the necklace he's been wearing lately, ever since he started hanging with his cousin. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "So that means you're a slave," she states matter-of-factly.

  "Violet!" Both Micah and Kennedy shout her name simultaneously.

  "Oh my God, Edison. Ruth. I'm so sorry," Kennedy blusters. "I don't know where she would have heard that--"

  "In school," Violet announces. "Josiah told Taisha that people who look like her used to wear chains and their history was that they were slaves."

  "We'll discuss this later," Micah says. "Okay, Vi? It's not something to talk about now."

  "It's okay," I say, even though I can feel the unease in the room, as if someone has taken away all the oxygen. "Do you know what a slave is?"

  Violet shakes her head.

  "It's when someone owns someone else."

  I watch the little girl turn this over in her head. "Like a pet?"

  Kennedy puts her hand on my arm. "You don't have to do this," she says quietly.

  "Don't you think I already had to, once?" I glance at her daughter again. "Kind of like a pet, but also different. A long time ago, people who looked like you and your mama and daddy found a place in the world where people looked like me, and like Edison, and like Taisha. And we were doing things so fine there--building homes, and cooking food, making something out of nothing--that they wanted it in their country too. So they brought over the people who looked like me, without asking our permission. We didn't have a choice. So a slave--that's just someone who doesn't have a choice in what they do, or what's done to them."

  Violet sets down her crayon. Her face is twisted in thought.

  "We weren't the first slaves," I tell her. "There are stories in a book I like, called the Bible. The Egyptians made Jewish people slaves who would build temples for them that looked like huge triangles, and were made out of bricks. They were able to make the Jewish people slaves because the Egyptians were the ones with the power."

  Then, like any other four-year-old, Violet bounces back to her spot beside my son. "Let's color Rapunzel instead," she announces--but then she hesitates. "I mean," she corrects, "do you want to color Rapunzel?"

  "Okay," Edison says.

  I may be the only person who notices, but while I've been explaining, he has taken off that chain from his neck and slipped it into his pocket.

  "Thank you," Micah says, sincere. "That was a really perfect Black history lesson."

  "Slavery isn't Black history," I point out. "It's everyone's history."

  A timer goes off, and Kennedy stands up. When she goes into the kitchen, I murmur something about wanting to help her and follow her. Immediately, she turns, her cheeks burning. "I am so, so sorry for that, Ruth."

  "Don't be. She's a baby. She doesn't know any better yet."

  "Well, you did a much better job explaining than I ever would have."

  I watch her reach into the oven for a lasagne. "When Edison came home from school and asked if we were slaves, he was about the same age as Violet. And the last thing I wanted was to have that talk and leave him feeling like a victim."

  "Violet told me last week she wished she could be just like Taisha, because she gets to wear beads in her hair."

  "What did you say?"

  Kennedy hesitates. "I don't know. I probably bungled it. I said something about how everyone's different and that's what makes the world great. I swear, when she asks me things about race I turn into a freaking Coke commercial."

  I laugh. "In your defense, you probably don
't talk about it quite as much as I do. Practice makes perfect."

  "But you know what? When I was her age, I had a Taisha in my class too--except her name was Lesley. And God, I wanted to be her. I used to dream that I'd wake up Black. No joke."

  I raise my brows in mock horror. "And give up your winning lottery ticket? No way."

  She looks at me, and we both laugh, and in that instant we are merely two women, standing over a lasagne, telling the truth. In that instant, with our flaws and confessions trailing like a slip from a dress, we have more in common than we have differences.

  I smile, and Kennedy smiles, and for that moment, at least, we really, really see each other. It's a start.

  Suddenly Edison comes into the kitchen holding out my cellphone. "What's the matter?" I tease. "Don't tell me you were fired because you made Ariel a brunette?"

  "Mama, it's Ms. Mina," he says. "I think you better take it."

  --

  ONE CHRISTMAS, WHEN I was ten, I got a Black Barbie. Her name was Christie, and she was just like the dolls Christina had, except for the skin color, and except for the fact that Christina had a whole shoe box full of Barbie clothes and my mama couldn't afford those. Instead, she made Christie a wardrobe out of old socks and dish towels. She glued me a dream house out of shoe boxes. I was over the moon. This was even better than Christina's collection, I told Mama, because I was the only person in the world who had it. My sister, Rachel, who was twelve, made fun of me. "Call them what you want," she told me. "But they're just knockoffs."

  Rachel's friends were mostly the same age as her, but they acted like they were sixteen. I didn't hang out with them very often, because they went to school in Harlem and I commuted to Dalton. But on weekends, if they came over, they made fun of me because I had wavy hair, instead of kinks like theirs, and because my skin was light. "You think you all that," they'd say, and then they'd giggle into each other's shoulders as if this were the punch line to a secret joke. When my mother made Rachel babysit me on weekends, and we would take the bus to a shopping center, I sat in the front while they all sat in the back. They called me Afrosaxon, instead of by my name. They sang along to music I didn't know. When I told Rachel that I didn't like her friends making fun of me, she told me to stop being so sensitive. "They just crackin' on you," she said. "Maybe if you let it slide a little, they'd like you more."