Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

And I wouldn’t know the answer. On one side of the seesaw is my education. My nursing certification. My twenty years of service at the hospital. My neat little home. My spotless Toyota RAV4. My National Honor Society-inductee son. All these building blocks of my existence, and yet the only quality straddling the other side is so hulking and dense that it tips the balance every time: my brown skin.

Well.

I didn’t do all this hard work for nothing. I can still use that fancy college degree and the years I’ve spent in the company of white people to turn this around, to make the policemen understand that this is a misunderstanding. Like them, I live in this town. Like them, I pay my taxes. They have so much more in common with me than with the angry bigot who started this debacle.

I have no idea how long it is until someone returns to the cell; I don’t have a watch or a clock. But it’s enough time for me to get that spark of hope burning in my chest again. So when I hear the tumblers click, I look up with a grateful smile.

“I’m going to take you for questioning,” the young officer says. “I have to, um, you know.” He gestures to my hands.

I stand up. “You must be exhausted,” I tell him. “Staying awake all night.”

He shrugs, but he also blushes. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

“I bet your mama’s so proud of you. I know I would be. I think my son’s only a couple of years younger than you.” I hold my hands out in front of me, innocent and wide-eyed, as he glances down at my wrists.

“You know, I think we’re okay without them,” he says after a beat. He puts his hand on my arm, still firmly guiding me.

I hide my smile inside. I take this as a victory.

I am left alone in a room with a large mirror that I am sure is a window to another space on the other side of the wall. There is a tape recorder on the table, and a fan that is whirring overhead, although it is freezing here, too. I flex my hands on my lap, waiting. I don’t stare at my reflection, because I know they are watching, and because of this I can only catch a glimpse of myself. In my nightgown, I might as well be a ghost.

When the door opens, two detectives enter-a bull of a man and a tiny sprite. “I’m Detective MacDougall,” says the man. “And this is Detective Leong.”

She smiles at me. I try to read into it. You are a woman too, I think, hoping for telepathy. You are Asian American. You’ve been in my seat metaphorically, if not literally.

“Can I get you some water, Mrs. Jefferson?” asks Detective Leong.

“That would be nice,” I say.

While she goes to get me water, Detective MacDougall explains to me that I don’t have to talk to them, but if I do, what I say might be used against me in court. Then again, he points out, if I have nothing to hide, maybe I’d like to give them my side of the story.

“Yes,” I say, although I have watched enough cop shows to know that I am supposed to shut up. But that is fiction; this is real life. I didn’t do anything illegal. And if I don’t explain, how will anyone ever know that? If I don’t explain, doesn’t that just make me look like I’m guilty?

He asks if it’s all right to turn on the tape recorder.

“Of course,” I say. “And thank you. Thank you so much for being willing to hear me out. This is all a very big misunderstanding, I’m afraid.”

By now Detective Leong is back. She hands me the water and I drink it all, a full eight-ounce glass. I did not know until I started how thirsty I was.

“Be that as it may, Ms. Jefferson,” says MacDougall, “we have some pretty strong evidence to contradict what you’re saying. You don’t deny that you were present when Davis Bauer died?”

“No,” I reply. “I was there. It was awful.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“I was part of the crash team. The baby became very ill, very fast. We did the best we could.”

“Yet I just finished looking at photos from the medical examiner that suggest the child was physically abused-”

“Well, there you are,” I blurt out. “I didn’t touch that baby.”

“You just said you were part of the crash team,” MacDougall points out.

“But I didn’t touch the baby until he started to code.”

“At which point you started hammering on the baby’s chest-”

My face flushes with heat. “What? No. I was doing CPR-”

“A bit too enthusiastically, according to eyewitnesses,” the detective adds.

Who? I think, running through my brain to list all the people who were there with me. Who would have seen what I was doing and not recognized it for what it was: emergency medical care?

“Mrs. Jefferson,” Detective Leong asks, “did you have any discussions with anyone in the hospital about your feelings for this baby and his family?”

“No. I was taken off the case, and that was that.”

MacDougall narrows his eyes. “You didn’t have a problem with Turk Bauer?”

I force myself to take a deep breath. “We didn’t see eye to eye.”

“Do you feel that way about all white people?”

“Some of my best friends are white.” I meet his gaze squarely.

MacDougall stares at me for so long I can see his pupils shrink. I know he is waiting to see if I’ll turn away first. Instead, I notch up my chin.

He pushes back from the table and stands up. “I have to make a call,” he says, and he walks out of the room.

I take this as a victory, too.

Detective Leong sits on the edge of the table. Her badge is at her hip; it’s shiny, like a new toy. “You must be so tired,” she says, and I can hear in her voice the same game I was trying to play with the young cop in the holding cell.

“Nurses get used to working on very little sleep,” I say evenly.

“And you’ve been a nurse for a while, right?”

“Twenty years.”

She laughs. “God, I’ve been on the job for nine months. I can’t imagine doing anything for that long. I guess it’s not work if you love it, right?”

I nod, still wary. But if I have any chance of making these detectives understand that I’m being railroaded, it’s going to be with her. “That’s true. And I love what I do.”

“You must have felt awful when you were told by your supervisor you couldn’t take care of that baby anymore,” she says. “Especially given your level of expertise.”

“It wasn’t the best day I’ve ever had, no.”

“My first day on the job? I totaled a police car. Drove it into a highway barrier at a construction site. Seriously. I scored highest on the detective exam, but in the field, I was a joke. The other guys in my class still call me Crash. I mean, let’s be honest, a female detective has to work twice as hard as the guys, but the only thing they remember me for is a simple mistake. I was so upset. I still am .”

I look at her, the truth balanced on my tongue like a hard candy. I wasn’t supposed to touch the baby. But I did, even though I could have gotten in trouble. And it still wasn’t enough.

“Look, Ruth,” the detective adds, “if this was an accident, now would be the time to say so. Maybe the hurt you were feeling got the best of you. It would be totally understandable, given the circumstances. Just tell me, and I’ll do what I can to make this go down easier.”

That is when I realize that she still thinks I’m at fault.

That she’s not being nice to me by sharing her own story. She’s being manipulative.

That those TV shows are right.

I swallow hard, so that honesty sits in the pit of my belly. Instead, I speak four short words in a voice I do not recognize. “I want a lawyer,” I say.