IF I COULD TURN CARTWHEELS into Judge Thunder’s office, I would.
I leave Howard sitting with Ruth in a conference room. There is an excellent chance I can get this entire case tossed out. I’ve filed my motion for judgment of acquittal, and I can tell, as soon as I get into the judge’s office, that Odette already knows she’s sunk. “Judge,” I begin, “we know this baby died, which is tragic, but there’s been absolutely no evidence of any willful, wanton, or reckless conduct by Ruth Jefferson. The allegation of murder made by the State isn’t supported, and as a matter of law, it must be dismissed.”
The judge turns to Odette. “Counselor? Where’s the evidence of premeditation? Of malice?”
Odette dances around a response. “I’d consider a public comment about sterilizing a baby a strong indicator.”
“Your Honor, that was the bitter response of a woman who’d been subject to discrimination,” I argue. “It became uncomfortably relevant in light of later events. But it still doesn’t point to a plan for murder.”
“I must agree with Ms. McQuarrie,” Judge Thunder says. “Spiteful, yes; murderous, not by the letter of the law. If attorneys were held accountable for the vindictive comments you make about judges after a case doesn’t go your way, you’d all be charged with murder. Count One is dismissed, and, Ms. McQuarrie, your motion on judgment of acquittal for murder is granted.”
As I walk down the hallway toward the conference room to tell my client the excellent news, I check behind me to make sure the coast is clear, and then skip a little in my heels. I mean, it’s not every day the tide of a murder trial turns in your direction; and it’s certainly not every day that happens with your first murder trial. I let myself imagine how Harry will call me into his office, and in his gruff way, tell me I surprised him. I picture him letting me have my own share of the big cases from now on, and promoting Howard to cover my current duties.
Beaming, I let myself into the conference room. Howard and Ruth turn to me, hopeful. “He threw out the murder charge,” I say, grinning.
“Yaaaas!” Howard pumps his fist in the air.
Ruth is more cautious. “I know this is good news…but how good?”
“Excellent,” I say. “Negligent homicide is a whole different animal, legally. The worst-case scenario—a conviction—carries almost no jail time, and honestly, our medical evidence was so strong that I’d be shocked if the jury doesn’t acquit—”
Ruth throws her arms around my neck. “Thank you.”
“Just think,” I say. “By this weekend, this could all be over. I’ll go into court tomorrow and say the defense rests and if the jury comes back with a verdict as quickly as I think they will—”
“Wait,” Ruth interrupts. “What?”
I step back. “We’ve created reasonable doubt. That’s all we have to do to win.”
“But I haven’t testified,” Ruth says.
“I don’t think you should get on the stand. Right now, things are going really well for us. If the last thing the jury has in their heads is that whack job Turk Bauer trying to come after me, you already have all their support.”
She stands very, very straight. “You promised.”
“I promised I would do my best to get you acquitted, and I have.”
Ruth shakes her head. “You promised I could say my piece.”
“But the beauty of this is you don’t have to,” I point out. “The jury hands back the verdict, and then you go get your job back. You get to pretend this never happened.”
Ruth’s voice is soft, but steel. “You think I can pretend this never happened?” she asks. “I see this every day, everywhere I go. You think I’m going to just walk in and get my job back? You think I’m not always going to be that black nurse who caused trouble?”
“Ruth,” I say, incredulous. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this jury is going to find you not guilty. What more could you possibly want?”
She tilts her head. “You still have to ask?”
I know what she is talking about.
Namely, everything I refused to talk about, in court: what it is like to know that you are a target, because of the color of your skin. What it means to work hard, to be an impeccable employee, and have none of that make a difference in the face of prejudice.
True, I had said she could have a moment to tell the jury her side of the story. But what’s the point, if we’ve already given them a peg on which to hang their exoneration?
“Think of Edison,” I say.
“I am thinking of my son!” Ruth replies, heated. “I’m thinking of what he’ll make of a mother who didn’t speak for herself.” She narrows her eyes. “I know how the law works, Kennedy. I know the State has the burden of proof. I also know that you have to put me on the stand if I ask you to. So I suppose the question is: Are you going to do your job? Or are you going to be just one more white person who lied to me?”
I turn to Howard, who is watching our volley like we’re the Women’s Singles Final at the U.S. Open. “Howard,” I say evenly, “would you step out for a moment so I can speak to our client alone?”
He jerks his chin and slips outside. I turn on Ruth. “What the hell? Now is not the time to stand on principle. You have to trust me on this. If you get on the stand and start talking about race, you’ll erase the lead we currently have in the jury’s favor. You’ll be talking about issues that will alienate them and make them uncomfortable. Plus, the fact that you’re upset and angry will come through loud and clear and negate any sympathy they have for you right now. I’ve already said everything the jury needs to hear.”
“Except the truth,” Ruth says.
“What are you talking about?”
“I tried to resuscitate that baby. I told you I didn’t touch him at first. I told everyone that. But I did.”
I feel sick to my stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“At first I lied because I thought I was going to lose my job. Then I lied because I didn’t know if I could trust you. And then, every time I tried to tell you the truth, I was so embarrassed that I’d hidden it for this long it got harder and harder.” She takes a deep breath. “This is what I should have told you, the first day we met: I wasn’t supposed to touch the baby; it was in the medical file. But when he went blue, I unwrapped him. I moved him around. I tapped his feet and turned him on his side, all the things you do when you’re trying to get a baby responsive again. Then I heard footsteps and I wrapped him up tight again. I didn’t want anyone seeing me do what I wasn’t supposed to be doing.”
“Why rewrite history, Ruth?” I ask, after a moment. “The jury could hear that and think you tried your hardest. But they could also think you screwed up, and did something that made him die.”
“I want them to know that I did my job,” she says. “You keep telling me this doesn’t have anything to do with the color of my skin—that it’s about my competence. Well, in addition to everything else, I want them to know that I am a good nurse. I tried to save that baby.”
“You have this idea that if you get on the stand, you’ll be able to tell your story and be in control—and that’s not how it works. Odette is going to shred you. She’ll do everything she can to point out that this means you’re a liar.”
Ruth looks at me. “I’d rather they think I’m a liar than a murderer.”
“If you get up there and give a different version than the one we’ve already presented,” I explain carefully, “you lose your credibility. I lose my credibility. I know what’s best for you. There’s a reason we’re called counsel—you’re supposed to listen to me.”
“I’m tired of following orders. Last time I followed orders, I got into this mess.” Ruth folds her arms. “You are putting me on that stand tomorrow,” she says flatly. “Or I’m going to tell the judge that you won’t let me testify.”
And just like that, I know I’m going to lose this case.
ONE NIGHT, WHEN Ruth and I were preparing for the trial, we’d been working in my kitchen and Violet had been high on life, running in circles around the house in her underwear and pretending to be a unicorn. Her shrieks punctuated our discussions, and then suddenly the sound wasn’t joy but pain. A moment later, Violet started sobbing, and we both ran to the living room, where Violet was lying on the floor bleeding profusely from the temple.
I felt my knees wobble, but before I could even reach for my daughter, Ruth had her cradled in her arms, and had pressed the bottom of her shirt up to the wound. “Hey now,” she soothed. “What happened?”
“I slipped,” Vi hiccuped, as her blood soaked Ruth’s shirt.
“And I see you’ve got a little cut here,” Ruth said calmly. “One I’m gonna take care of.” She started ordering me around my own house, efficiently getting me to fetch a damp washcloth, antibiotic ointment, and a butterfly bandage from a first aid kit. She never let go of Violet, and she never stopped talking to her. Even when she suggested that we drive to Yale–New Haven to see if maybe a stitch was in order, Ruth was steely, measured, while I continued to freak out, wondering if Violet would have a scar, if I would be flagged by CPS for not watching my kid more closely or letting her run in socks on a slippery wooden floor. When Violet needed two stitches, it wasn’t me she clung to but Ruth, who promised her that if we sang really loud, she wouldn’t feel anything. And so the three of us belted “Let It Go” at the top of our lungs, and Violet never cried. Later that night, when she had a clean bandage on her forehead and was asleep in her bed, I thanked Ruth.
You’re good at what you do, I told her.
I know, she said.
That’s all she wants. To let people know she was treated unfairly because of her race, and for her reputation as a caregiver to remain intact, even if it means it will be tarnished by a guilty verdict.
“Drinking alone,” Micah says, when he comes home from the hospital and finds me in the dark, in the kitchen, with a bottle of Syrah. “That’s the first sign, you know.”
I lift up my glass, and take a long swallow. “Of what?”
“Adulthood, probably,” he admits. “Hard day at the office?”
“It started out great. Legendary, even. And then went to hell very quickly.”
Micah sits down next to me and loosens his tie. “Do you want to talk about it? Or should I get my own bottle?”
I push the Syrah toward him. “I thought I had an acquittal in the bag,” I sigh. “And then Ruth went and decided to ruin it all.”
While he pours himself a glass of wine, I tell him everything. From the way Turk Bauer spouted his rhetoric of hate to the look in his eyes when he came after me; from the rush of adrenaline I got when my motion for judgment of acquittal was granted to Ruth’s admission about resuscitating the baby to the dizzy realization that I had to put Ruth on the stand if she demanded it. Even if it was going to tank my chances of winning my first murder case.
“What am I supposed to do tomorrow?” I ask. “No matter what I ask Ruth on the stand, she’s going to be incriminating herself. And that doesn’t even begin to consider what the prosecutor’s going to do to her on cross.” I shudder, thinking about Odette, who doesn’t even know that this boon is about to be granted. “I can’t believe I was so close,” I say softly. “I can’t believe she’s going to ruin it.”
Micah clears his throat. “Radical thought number one: maybe you need to take yourself out of this equation.”
I’ve drunk enough that he’s a little fuzzy at the edges, so maybe I’ve just misheard. “I beg your pardon?”
“You weren’t close. Ruth was.”
I snort. “That’s semantics. We both win, or we both lose.”
“But she has more at stake than you do,” Micah says gently. “Her reputation. Her career. Her life. This is the first trial that really matters to you, Kennedy. But it’s the only one that matters to Ruth.”
I scrub a hand through my hair. “What’s radical thought number two?”
“What if the best thing for Ruth isn’t winning this case?” Micah replies. “What if the reason this is so important to her isn’t because of what she’s going to say…but rather the fact that she is finally being given the chance to say it?”
Is it worth being able to say what you need to say, if it means you land in prison? If it nets you a conviction? That goes against everything I’ve ever been taught, everything I’ve ever believed.
But I’m not the one on trial.
I press my fingers against my temples. Micah’s words circle in my mind.
He takes his glass and empties it into mine. “You need it more than I do,” he says, and he kisses me on the forehead. “Don’t stay up too late.”
ON FRIDAY MORNING, as I am hurrying to meet Ruth in the parking lot, I pass the memorial on the green near City Hall. It commemorates Sengbe Pieh, who was one of the slaves involved in the Amistad mutiny. In 1839 a ship carried a group of Africans taken from their home to be slaves in the Caribbean. The Africans revolted, killed the captain and cook, and forced other sailors on board to head back toward Africa. The sailors, though, tricked the Africans, and headed north—where the ship was boarded by U.S. authorities. The Africans were imprisoned in a warehouse in New Haven, pending trial.
The Africans revolted because a mulatto cook had heard that the white crew planned to kill the blacks and eat the meat themselves. The whites on board believed the Africans were cannibals.
Neither side was right.
When I reach the parking lot, Ruth won’t even make eye contact with me. She starts walking quickly toward the courthouse, Edison by her side, until I grab her by the arm. “Are you still determined to do this?”
“Did you think if I slept on it I’d change my mind?” she asks.
“I had hoped,” I admit. “I’m begging you, Ruth.”
“Mama?” Edison looks at her face, and then mine, confused.
I raise my brows as if to say, Think of what you’re doing to him.
She slips her arm through her son’s elbow. “Let’s go,” she replies, and she starts walking again.
The crowds have swelled in front of the courthouse; now that the media have reported that the prosecution’s side of the case is finished, the taste for blood is getting stronger. I see Wallace Mercy and his crew from the corner of my eye, maintaining their vigil. Maybe I should have sicced Wallace on Ruth; maybe he could have convinced her to duck her head and let justice be served in her favor. But then again, knowing Wallace, he would not turn down an opportunity to speak his mind. He’d probably have offered to coach Ruth in whatever it is she feels the need to say.
Howard is pacing in front of the courtroom. “So,” he says nervously. “Are we resting? Or…”
“Yes,” I say bluntly. “Or.”
“Just in case you wanted to know, the Bauers are back. They’re in the gallery.”
“Thanks, Howard,” I say with sarcasm. “Now I feel even better.”
I speak to Ruth just once more, moments before we are asked to rise at the judge’s arrival. “I will give you just one piece of advice,” I whisper. “Be as cool and calm as possible. The minute you raise your voice, the prosecution is going to be all over you. And the way you answer me should be exactly the same way you respond when Odette’s cross-examining you.”
She looks at me. It’s quick, how our eyes meet, but it’s enough for me to see the flicker in them, the fear. I open my mouth, sensing the weakness, intending to reel her back in, but then I remember what Micah said. “Good luck,” I say.
I rise, and call Ruth Jefferson to the stand.
She looks smaller in the box, somehow. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun, as usual. Have I noticed before how severe that looks? Her hands are folded in her lap tightly. I know it’s because she’s trying to keep herself from shaking, but the jury doesn’t. To them, it just looks like she’s excessively formal, prim. She repeats the oath quietly, without betraying any emotion. I know it’s because she feels like she is on display. But shyness can be mistaken for haughtiness, and that could be a fatal flaw.
“Ruth,” I begin, “how old are you?”
“Forty-four,” she says.
“Where were you born?”
“Harlem, in New York City.”
“Did you go to school there?”
“Only for a couple of years. Then I transferred to Dalton on a scholarship.”
“Did you complete college?” I ask.
“Yes, I went to SUNY Plattsburgh as an undergrad, and then got my nursing degree at Yale.”
“Can you tell us how long that program was?”
“Three years.”
“When you graduate as a nurse, do you take an oath?”
She nods. “It’s called the Florence Nightingale pledge,” Ruth says.
I enter a piece of paper into evidence and present it to her. “Is this the pledge?”
“Yes.”
“Will you read it aloud?”
“ ‘Before God and those assembled here, I solemnly pledge to adhere to the code of ethics of the nursing profession; to cooperate faithfully with the other members of the nursing team and to carry out faithfully and to the best of my ability the instructions of the physician or the nurse’ ”—she falters here—“ ‘who may be assigned to supervise my work.’ ” Ruth takes a deep breath, forging ahead. “ ‘I will not do anything evil or malicious and I will not knowingly give any harmful drug or assist in malpractice. I will not reveal any confidential information that may come to my knowledge in the course of my work. And I pledge myself to do all in my power to raise the standards and prestige of practical nursing. May my life be devoted to service and to the high ideals of the nursing profession.’ ” She looks up at me.
“Is that oath fundamental to you as a nurse?”
“We take it very seriously,” Ruth confirms. “It’s like the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for doctors.”
“How long have you been employed at Mercy–West Haven Hospital?”
“Just over twenty years,” Ruth says. “My whole career.”
“What are your responsibilities?”
“I am a neonatal nurse. I help deliver babies, I am in the OR during C-sections, I care for the mothers and then postdelivery, for the newborns.”
“How many hours a week did you work?”
“Forty-plus,” she replies. “We often were asked to pull some overtime.”
“Ruth, are you married?”
“I’m a widow,” she says. “My husband was a soldier who died in Afghanistan. It happened about ten years ago.”
“Do you have any children?”
“Yes, my son, Edison. He’s seventeen.” Her eyes shine, and she searches Edison out in the gallery.
“Do you recall coming to work the morning of October second, 2015?”
“Yes,” Ruth says. “I came in at seven A.M. for a twelve-hour shift.”
“Were you assigned to watch Davis Bauer?”
“Yes. His mother had delivered early that morning. I was assigned to do typical postpartum care of Brittany Bauer, and a nurse’s newborn exam.”
She describes the exam, and says she conducted it in the hospital room.
“So Brittany Bauer was present?”
“Yes,” Ruth says. “So was her husband.”
“Was there any significant finding during this exam?”
“I noted a heart murmur in the file. It wasn’t something I felt that we needed to be alarmed about—it’s a very common condition for newborns. But it was definitely something for the pediatrician to check out the next time she came back, which was why I wrote it down.”
“Did you know Mr. and Mrs. Bauer prior to the birth of their son?”
“No,” Ruth replies. “I met them when I came into the room. I congratulated them on their beautiful baby boy, and explained I was there to do a routine check.”
“How long were you in the room with them?”
“Ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Did you have any verbal exchange with the parents at that time?”
“I mentioned the murmur, and that it wasn’t any reason for concern. And I told them his sugar levels had improved since birth. Then after I cleaned the baby up, I suggested we try to have him nurse.”
“What response did you get?”
“Mr. Bauer told me to get away from his wife. Then he said he wanted to speak to my supervisor.”
“How did that make you feel, Ruth?”
“I was shocked,” she admits. “I didn’t know what I’d done to upset them.”
“What happened next?”
“My boss, Marie Malone, put a note in the baby’s file, stating that no African American staff should come in contact with the infant. I questioned her about it, and she said it was done at the request of the parents, and that I would be reassigned.”
“When did you next see the baby?”
“Saturday morning. I was in the nursery when Corinne—the baby’s new nurse—brought him in for a circ.”
“What were your responsibilities that morning?”
She frowns. “I had two—no, three patients. It had been a crazy night; I’d worked a shift I wasn’t supposed to work because another nurse was out sick. I had gone into the nursery to grab clean linens, and to scarf down a PowerBar, because I hadn’t eaten at all during my shift.”
“What happened after the baby was circumcised?”
“I wasn’t in the room, but I assumed it all went normally. Then Corinne grabbed me and asked me to watch over him because another one of her patients had to be rushed to the OR, and protocol required that a postcirc baby be monitored.”
“Did you agree?”
“I didn’t really have a choice. There was literally no one else to do it. I knew Corinne or Marie, my charge nurse, would be back quickly to take over.”
“When you first saw the baby, how did he look?”
“Beautiful,” Ruth says. “He was swaddled and fast asleep. But a few moments later I looked down and saw that his skin was ashen. He was making grunting noises. I could see he was having trouble breathing.”
I walk toward the witness box, and set my hand on the rail. “What did you do in that instant, Ruth?”
She takes a deep breath. “I unwrapped the swaddling. I started touching the baby, tapping his feet, trying to get him to respond.”
The jury looks puzzled. Odette sits back in her chair, arms crossed, a smile breaking over her face.
“Why did you do that? When you’d been told by your supervisor to not touch that baby?”
“I had to,” Ruth confesses. I can see it, the way she breaks free, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Her voice is lighter, the lines bracketing her mouth soften. “It’s what any good nurse would do in that situation.”
“Then what?”
“The next step would have been to call a code, to get a whole team in to resuscitate. But I heard footsteps. I knew someone was coming and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I’d get in trouble if someone saw me interacting with the baby, when I had been told not to. So I wrapped him up again, and stepped back, and Marie walked into the nursery.” Ruth looks down at her lap. “She asked me what I was doing.”
“What did you say, Ruth?”
When she glances up, her eyes are wide with shame. “I said I was doing nothing.”
“You lied?”
“Yes.”
“More than once, apparently—when you were later questioned by the police, you stated that you did not engage in any resuscitative efforts for that baby. Why?”
“I was afraid I was going to lose my job.” She turns to the jury, pleading her case. “Every fiber of my being told me I had to help that infant…but I also knew I’d be reprimanded if I went against my supervisor’s orders. And if I lost my job, who would take care of my son?”
“So you basically faced either assisting in malpractice, or violating your supervisor’s order?”
She nods. “It was a lose-lose situation.”
“What happened next?”
“The code team was called in. My job was to do compressions. I did my best, we all did, but in the end it wasn’t enough.” She looks up. “When the time of death was called, and when Mr. Bauer took the Ambu bag out of the trash and tried to continue efforts himself, I could barely hold it together.” Like an arrow searching for its mark, her eyes hone in on Turk Bauer, in the gallery. “I thought: What did I miss? Could I have done anything different?” She hesitates. “And then I thought: Would I have been allowed to?”
“Two weeks later you received a letter,” I say. “Can you tell us about it?”
“It was from the Board of Health. Suspending my license to practice as a nurse.”
“What went through your mind when you received it?”
“I realized that I was being held responsible for the death of Davis Bauer. I knew I’d be suspended from my job, and that’s what happened.”
“Have you been employed since?”
“I went on public assistance, briefly,” Ruth says. “Then I got a job at McDonald’s.”
“Ruth, how has your life changed in the aftermath of this incident?”
She takes a deep breath. “I don’t have any savings anymore. We live from week to week. I’m worried about my son’s future. I can’t use my car because I can’t afford to register it.”
I turn my back, but Ruth isn’t finished speaking.
“It’s funny,” she says softly. “You think you’re a respected member of a community—the hospital where you work, the town where you live. I had a wonderful job. I had colleagues who were friends. I lived in a home I was proud of. But it was just an optical illusion. I was never a member of any of those communities. I was tolerated, but not welcomed. I was, and will always be, different from them.” She looks up. “And because of the color of my skin, I will be the one who’s blamed.”
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.
WHEN 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 RUTH’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.
FOR 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.
TOWARD 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?”
My mother puts a hand on her hip. “One man’s curse is another’s boon, you know. Lefties are supposed to be more creative. Weren’t Michelangelo and da Vinci and Bach all left-handed? And back in medieval times you were lucky to be a lefty, because the majority of men fought with a sword in their right hand and a shield in their left, which meant you could pull off a sneak attack”—she reaches toward me with a spatula, poking me on the right side of my chest—“like this.”
I laugh. “Why do you even know that?”
“I read romance novels, sugar,” she says. “Don’t worry about Violet. If she really wants to, you know, she can always teach herself to be ambidextrous. Your father, he was just as good with his right hand as with his left one—writing, hammering, even getting to second base.” She grins. “And I am not talking about batting practice.”
“Ew,” I say. “Stop.” But meanwhile, my brain is spinning: What if the puzzle of the world was a shape you didn’t fit into? And the only way to survive was to mutilate yourself, carve away your corners, sand yourself down, modify yourself to fit?
How come we haven’t been able to change the puzzle instead?
“Mom?” I ask. “Can you stay with Vi for a few more hours?”
I REMEMBER READING a novel once that said the native Alaskans who came in contact with white missionaries thought, at first, they were ghosts. And why shouldn’t they have thought that? Like ghosts, white people move effortlessly through boundaries and borders. Like ghosts, we can be anywhere we want to be.
I decide it’s time to feel the walls around me.
The first thing I do is leave my car in the driveway and walk a mile to a bus stop. Chilled to the bone, I duck into a CVS to warm up. I stop in front of a display I’ve never paused at before and take down a purple box. Dark and Lovely Healthy-Gloss relaxer. I look at the pretty woman in the picture. For medium hair textures, I read. Straight, sleek, and shiny hair. I scan the instructions, the multiple-step process needed to get hair that looks like mine after I blow it dry.
Next I reach for a bottle, Luster’s Pink oil moisturizer hair lotion. A black tub of Ampro Pro Styl. A satin bonnet that claims to minimize frizz and breakage at night.
These products are foreign to me. I have no idea what they do, why they’re necessary for black people, or how to use them. But I bet Ruth could name five shampoos white people use, just off the top of her head, thanks to ubiquitous television commercials.
I walk downtown, where for a little while I sit on a bench for another bus and watch two homeless people soliciting strangers on the street. They target mostly well-dressed white people in business suits, or college students plugged into their headphones, and maybe one in six or seven reaches into his or her pocket for change. Of the two homeless people, one routinely gets a donation more often than the other. She’s elderly, and white. The other one—a young black man—is given a wider berth.
The Hill neighborhood of New Haven is among the most notorious in the city. I’ve had dozens of clients from there—mostly involved in selling drugs near the Church Street South low-income housing. That’s also where Adisa, Ruth’s sister, lives.
I wander the streets. There are kids running, chasing each other. Girls huddled together, speaking a flurry of Spanish. Men stand on street corners, arms folded, silent sentries. I am the only white face in the vicinity. It is already starting to get dark out when I duck into a bodega. The cashier at the counter stares at me as I walk through the aisles. I can feel her gaze like lightning between my shoulder blades. “Can I help you?” she asks finally, and I shake my head and walk out.
It’s unsettling, not seeing someone who looks like me. People I pass don’t make eye contact. I am the stranger in their midst, the sore thumb, the one that is not like the others. And yet, at the very same instant, I have become invisible.
When I get to Church Street South, I walk around the buildings. Some of the apartments, I know, have been condemned for mold, for structural damage. It is like a ghost town: curtains pulled tight, residents holed up inside. Beneath a stairwell, I see two young men, passing cash. An old lady tries to haul her oxygen tank up the stairs above them. “Excuse me,” I call out. “Can I give you a hand?”
All three of them stare at me, frozen. The men glance up, and one puts a hand on the waistband of his jeans, from which I think I see the hilt of a gun protruding. My legs are jelly. Before I can back away, the old woman says, “No hablo inglés,” and climbs the steps double time.
I had wanted to live like Ruth did, just for an afternoon, but not if it meant I’d be in danger. Yet danger, it’s relative. I have a husband with a good job and a house that’s paid off, and I don’t have to worry that something I say or do is going to threaten my ability to put food on the table or pay my bills. For me, danger looks different: it’s whatever can separate me from Violet, from Micah. But no matter what face you put on your own personal bogeyman, it gives you nightmares. It has the power to terrify, and to make you do things you wouldn’t normally think you’d do, all in an effort to stay safe.
For me, that means running through a night that’s tunneling tighter around me, until I can be sure I’m not being followed. Several blocks away, I slow down at an intersection. By now, my pulse isn’t racing, the sweat has cooled beneath my arms. A man about my age approaches, pushing the same pedestrian walk button, waiting. His dark skin is pocked on the cheeks, a road map of his life. His hands hold a thick book, but I cannot make out the title.
I decide to try one more time. I nod down toward the book. “Is it good? I’m looking for something to read.”
He glances at me, and lets his gaze slide away. He doesn’t respond.
I feel my cheeks burning as the walk signal illuminates. We cross the street side by side in silence, and then he turns away, ducking down a street.
I wonder if he was really intending to go down that street, or if he just wanted to put distance between us. My feet hurt, my whole body is shaking with the cold, and I’m feeling utterly defeated. I realize it was a short-lived experiment, but at least I tried to understand what Ruth was saying. I tried.
I.
As I trudge up to the hospital where Micah works, I think about that pronoun. I consider the hundreds of years that a black man could have gotten into trouble for talking to a white woman. In some places in this country, it’s still the case, and the repercussions are vigilante justice. For me, the dire consequence of that stoplight conversation was feeling snubbed. For him, it was something else entirely. It was two centuries of history.
Micah’s office is on the third floor. It’s remarkable how, the minute I walk through the doors of that hospital, I am in my element again. I know the healthcare system; I know how I will be treated; I know the rituals and the responses. I can stride past the information desk without anyone questioning where I’m going or why I am there. I can wave to the staff in Micah’s department and let myself into his office.
Today is a surgery day for him. I sit in his desk chair, my coat unbuttoned, my shoes off. I stare at the model of the human eye on his desk, a three-dimensional puzzle, as my thoughts speed like a cyclone. Every time I close my eyes, I see the old woman at Church Street South, shrinking away from my offer of help. I hear Ruth’s voice, telling me I am fired.
Maybe I deserve to be.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I’ve spent months so focused on getting an acquittal for Ruth, but if I’m really going to be honest, the acquittal was for me. For my first murder trial.
I’ve spent months telling Ruth that a criminal lawsuit is no place to bring up race. If you do, you can’t win. But if you don’t, there are still costs—because you are perpetuating a flawed system, instead of trying to change it.
That’s what Ruth has been trying to say, but I haven’t listened. She’s brave enough to risk losing her job, her livelihood, her freedom to tell the truth, and I’m the liar. I’d told her race isn’t welcome in the courtroom, when deep down I know it’s already there. It always has been. And just because I close my eyes doesn’t mean it’s gone away.
Witnesses swear on Bibles in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But lies of omission are just as damning as any other falsehood. And to finish out Ruth Jefferson’s case without stating, overtly, that what happened to her happened because of the color of her skin might be an even bigger loss than a conviction.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, we wouldn’t be so scared to talk about race in places where it matters the most.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, there would not be another Ruth somewhere down the line, being indicted as the result of another racially motivated incident that no one wants to admit is a racially motivated incident.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, fixing the system would be as important as acquitting the client.
Maybe I should be more courageous.
Ruth accused me of wanting to save her, and perhaps that was a fair assessment. But she doesn’t need saving. She doesn’t need my advice, because really, who am I to give it, when I haven’t lived her life? She just needs a chance to speak. To be heard.
I am really not sure how much time passes before Micah enters. He is wearing scrubs, which I’ve always thought were sexy, and Crocs, which totally aren’t. His face lights up when he sees me. “This is a nice surprise.”
“I was in the neighborhood,” I tell him. “Can you give me a ride home?”
“Where’s your car?”
I shake my head. “Long story.”
He gathers up some files and checks a stack of messages, then reaches for his coat. “Everything all right? You were a million miles away when I walked in.”
I lift the eye model and turn it over in my hands. “I feel like I’ve been standing underneath an open window, just as a baby gets tossed out. I grab the baby, right, because who wouldn’t? But then another baby gets tossed out, so I pass the baby to someone else, and I make the catch. This keeps happening. And before you know it there are a whole bunch of people who are getting really good at passing along babies, just like I’m good at catching them, but no one ever asks who the fuck is throwing the babies out the window in the first place.”
“Um.” Micah tilts his head. “What baby are we talking about?”
“It’s not a baby, it’s a metaphor,” I say, irritated. “I’ve been doing my job, but who cares, if the system keeps on creating situations where my job is necessary? Shouldn’t we focus on the big picture, instead of just catching whatever falls out the window at any given moment?”
Micah’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Behind his shoulder a poster hangs on the wall: the anatomy of the human eye. There is the optic nerve, the aqueous humor, the conjunctiva. The ciliary body, the retina, the choroid. “For a living,” I murmur, “you make people see.”
“Well,” he says. “Yeah.”
I look directly at him. “That’s what I need to do too.”