Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

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.”