Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

Which is why, when I dream of Ruth Jefferson for two consecutive nights, I know I’m in trouble.

In the first dream, Ruth and I are having an attorney-client meeting. I ask her the standard set of questions I’d ask of any client, but every time she speaks, it is in a language I don’t understand. It’s not even a language I recognize. Embarrassed, I have to keep asking her to repeat herself. Finally she opens her mouth, and a flock of blue butterflies pours out.

The second night I dream that Ruth has invited me over to dinner. It is the most sumptuous table, with enough food for a football team, and each dish is more delicious than the last. I drink one glass of water, and then another, and a third, and the pitcher is empty. I ask if I can get a refill, and Ruth looks horrified. “I thought you knew,” she says, and when I glance up I realize that we are locked inside a prison cell.

I wake up, dying of thirst. Rolling onto my side, I reach for the glass of water I keep on my nightstand and take a long, cool drink. I feel Micah’s arm slide around my waist and pull me against him. He kisses my neck; his hand slides up my pajama shirt.

“What would you do if I went to prison?” I blurt out.

Micah’s eyes open. “I’m pretty sure since you’re my wife, and over eighteen, this is legal.”

“No.” I roll to face him. “What if I did something…and got convicted?”

“That’s kind of hot.” Micah grins. “Lawyer in prison. Okay, I’ll play. What did you do? Say public indecency. Please say public indecency.” He pulls me flush against him.

“Seriously. What would happen to Violet? How would you explain it to her?”

“K, is this your way of telling me that you actually, finally did kill your boss?”

“It’s a hypothetical.”

“In that case, could we revisit the question in about fifteen minutes?” His eyes darken, and he kisses me.

–

WHILE MICAH SHAVES, I try to pin my hair into a bun. “Going to court today?” he asks.

His face is still flushed; so is mine. “This afternoon. How did you know?”

“You don’t stick needles into your head unless you’re going to court.”

“They’re bobby pins, and that’s because I’m trying to look professional,” I say.

“You’re too sexy to look professional.”

I laugh. “Let’s hope my clients don’t feel the same way.” I spear a flyaway hair into submission and lean my hip against the sink. “I’m thinking of asking Harry to give me a felony.”

“Great idea,” Micah says with mild sarcasm. “I mean, since you already have five hundred open cases, you should definitely take on one that requires even more time and energy.”

It’s true. Being a public defender means I have nearly ten times as many cases as are recommended by the ABA, and that, on average, I have less than an hour to prepare each case that goes to trial. Most of the time I am working, I do not eat lunch, or take a bathroom break.

“If it makes you feel any better, he probably won’t give it to me.”

Micah clatters his razor against the porcelain. When we were first married, I used to stare at the tiny hairs that dried in the bowl of the sink with wonder, thinking that I might read in them our future the way a psychic would read tea leaves. “Does this sudden ambition have anything to do with the question about you going to prison?”

“Maybe?” I admit.

“Well, I’d much rather you take his case than join him behind bars.”

“Her,” I correct. “It’s Ruth Jefferson. That nurse. I just can’t shake her story.”

Even when a client has done something unlawful, I can find sympathy. I can acknowledge a bad choice was made, but still believe in justice, as long as everyone has equal access to the system-which is exactly why I do what I do.

But with Ruth, there’s something that doesn’t quite add up.

Suddenly Violet comes charging into the bathroom. Micah tightens the towel around his waist, and I tie my robe. “Mommy, Daddy,” she says. “Today I match Minnie.”

She clutches a stuffed Minnie Mouse, and indeed, she has managed to pull on a polka-dotted skirt, yellow sneakers, a red bikini top, and long white tea gloves from the dress-up bin. I look at her, wondering how I am going to explain that she can’t wear a bikini to school.

“Minnie’s a fallen woman,” Micah points out. “I mean, it’s been seventy years. Mickey ought to put a ring on it.”

“What’s a fallen woman?” Violet asks.

I kiss Micah. “I’m going to kill you,” I say pleasantly.

“Ah,” he replies. “So that’s why you’re going to prison.”

–

AT THE OFFICE, we have a television-a tiny screen that sits between the coffee machine and the can opener. It’s a professional necessity, because of the press coverage our clients sometimes get. But in the mornings, before court is even in session, it’s usually tuned to Good Morning America . Ed has an obsession with Lara Spencer’s wardrobe, and to me, George Stephanopoulos is the perfect balance of hard-hitting reporter and eye candy. We sit through a round of hypothetical polls pitting presidential candidates against one another while Howard makes a fresh pot of coffee, and Ed recounts dinner with his in-laws. His mother-in-law still calls him by the name of his wife’s ex, even though they’ve been married for nine years. “So this time,” Ed says, “she asked me how much toilet paper I use.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Just enough,” Ed replies.

“Why did she even want to know?”

“She said they’re trying to cut back, ” Ed answered. “That they’re on a fixed income . Mind you, they go to Foxwoods three out of four weekends a month, but now we’re rationing the Charmin?”

“Well, that’s crap,” I say, grinning. “See what I did there?”

Robin Roberts is interviewing a portly, middle-aged redhead whose poem was accepted for a highly literary anthology-but only after he submitted it with a Japanese pseudonym. “It was rejected thirty-five times,” the man says. “So I thought maybe I’d be noticed more if my name was more…”

“Colorful?” Roberts supplies.

Ed snorts. “Slow news day.”

Behind me, Howard drops a spoon. It clatters into the sink.

“Why is this even a thing?” Ed asks.

“Because it’s a lie,” I say. “He’s a white insurance adjuster who co-opted someone else’s culture so he could get fifteen minutes of fame.”

“If that were all it took, wouldn’t hundreds of poems by Japanese poets get published every year? Clearly what he wrote was good. How come no one’s talking about that?”

Harry Blatt, my boss, blusters through the break room, his coat a tornado around his legs. “I hate rain,” he announces. “Why didn’t I move to Arizona?” With that greeting, he grabs a cup of coffee and holes himself up in his office.

I follow him, knocking softly on the closed door.

Harry is still hanging up his drenched coat when I enter. “What?” he asks.

“You remember that case I arraigned-Ruth Jefferson?”

“Prostitution?”

“No, she’s the nurse from Mercy-West Haven. Can I take it?”

He settles behind his desk. “Right. The dead baby.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, I stumble to fill the void. “I’ve been practicing for five years, almost. And I feel really connected to this one. I’d like the opportunity to try it.”

“It’s a murder,” Harry says.

“I know. But I really, really think I’m the right public defender for this case,” I say. “And you’re going to have to give me a felony sooner or later.” I smile. “So I’m suggesting sooner.”

Harry grunts. Which is better than a no. “Well, it would be good to have another go-to lawyer for the big cases. But since you’re a rookie, I’ll have Ed second-chair it with you.”