Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

“But you just don’t bring up race in a criminal trial,” I say. “It’s like one of those unspoken rules, you know, like Don’t use your brights in oncoming traffic …or Don’t be the asshole who brings a full cart to the twelve items or less lane. Even the cases based on stand-your-ground laws steer clear of it, and ninety-nine percent of the time it’s a white guy in Florida who got scared by a black kid and pulled a trigger. I get that Ruth feels singled out by her employer. But none of that has to do with a murder charge.”

Micah passes me a platter to dry. “Don’t take this the wrong way, babe,” he says, “but sometimes when you’re trying to explain something and you think you’re dropping a hint, you’re actually more like a Mack truck.”

I turn to him, waving my dish towel. “What if one of your patients had cancer, and you were trying to treat it, but she also kept telling you she had poison ivy. Wouldn’t you tell her it was more important to focus on getting rid of the cancer, and then you’d take care of the rash?”

Micah considers this. “Well, I’m not an oncologist. But sometimes, when you’ve got an itch, you keep scratching it and you don’t even realize that you’re doing it.”

I am totally lost. “What?”

“It was your metaphor.”

I sigh. “My client hates me,” I say again.

Just then the phone rings. It is nearly 10:30, the time for calls about heart attacks and accidents. I grab the receiver with a damp hand. “Hello?”

“Is this Kennedy McQuarrie?” booms a deep voice, one I know but cannot place.

“It is.”

“Excellent! Ms. McQuarrie, this is Reverend Wallace Mercy.”

The Wallace Mercy?

I don’t even realize I’ve said that aloud until he chuckles. “Rumors of my superstardom have been greatly exaggerated,” he paraphrases. “I am calling about a friend we have in common-Ruth Jefferson.”

Immediately, I go into lockdown mode. “Reverend Mercy, I’m not at liberty to discuss a client.”

“I assure you, you can. Ruth has asked me to serve as an adviser, of sorts…”

I clench my teeth. “My client hasn’t signed anything stating that.”

“The release, yes, of course. I emailed one to her an hour ago. It will be on your desk tomorrow morning.”

What. The. Hell. Why would Ruth go and sign something like that without consulting me? Why wouldn’t she even mention that she’d been talking to someone like Wallace Mercy?

But I already know the answer: because I told Ruth her case had nothing to do with racial discrimination, that’s why. And Wallace Mercy is about nothing but racial discrimination.

“Listen to me,” I say, my heart pounding so hard that I can hear its pulse in every word. “Getting Ruth Jefferson acquitted is my job, not yours . You want to boost your ratings? Don’t think you’re going to do it on my back.”

I end the call, punching the button with such vehemence that the handset goes spinning out of my hand and skitters across the kitchen floor. Micah turns off the faucet. “Damn cordless phones,” he says. “It was so much more satisfying back when you could slam them down, right?” He approaches me, his hands in his pockets. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“That was Wallace Mercy on the phone. Ruth Jefferson wants him to advise her.”

Micah whistles long and low. “You’re right,” he says. “She hates you.”

–

RUTH OPENS THE door in her nightgown and bathrobe. “Please,” I say. “I only need five minutes of your time.”

“Isn’t it a little late?”

I don’t know if she’s talking about the fact that it’s almost 11:00 P.M. or the fact that we parted on such a divisive note early this afternoon. I choose to assume the former. “I knew if I called you’d recognize my number and ignore it.”

She considers this. “Probably.”

I pull my sweater more tightly around me. After Wallace Mercy’s call, I got in the car and started driving. I didn’t even grab a coat first. All I could think was that I needed to intercept Ruth before she mailed back that release form.

I take a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t care about how you were treated-I do. It’s that I know having Wallace Mercy involved is going to cost you in the short run, if not the long run.”

Ruth watches me shiver again. “Come in,” she says, after a moment.

The couch is already made up with pillows and sheets and a blanket, so I sit at the kitchen table as her son pokes his head out of the bedroom. “Mama? What’s going on?”

“I’m fine, Edison. Go to bed.”

He looks dubious, but he backs up and closes the door.

“Ruth,” I beg, “don’t sign that release.”

She takes a seat at the table, too. “He promised me that he wouldn’t interfere with whatever you’re doing in court-”

“You’ll sabotage yourself,” I say bluntly. “Think about it-angry mobs in the street, your face on TV every night, legal pundits weighing in on the case on morning shows-you don’t want them taking control of the narrative of this case before we have a chance to.” I gesture to the closed door of Edison’s bedroom. “What about your son? Are you ready to have him dragged into the public eye? Because that’s what happens when you become a symbol. The world knows everything about you, and your past, and your family, and crucifies you. Your name will be just as familiar as Trayvon Martin’s. You’re never going to get your life back.”

She meets my gaze. “Neither did he.”

The truth of that statement separates us like a canyon. I look down into that abyss and see all the reasons why Ruth shouldn’t do this; she looks down and no doubt sees all the reasons why she should .

“Ruth, I know you have no reason to trust me, especially given the way white people have treated you recently. But if Wallace Mercy grandstands, you won’t be safe. The last thing you want is for your case to be tried in the media. Please, let’s do this my way. Give it a chance.” I hesitate. “I’m begging you.”

She folds her arms. “What if I tell you I want the jury to know what happened to me? To hear my side of the story?”

I nod, striking a bargain. “Then we put you on the stand,” I promise.

–

THE MOST INTERESTING thing about Jack DeNardi is that he has a rubber band ball on his desk the size of a newborn’s head. Other than that he is exactly what you would expect to find working in a dingy cubicle in the Mercy-West Haven Hospital office: paunch, gray skin, comb-over. He’s a paper pusher, and the only reason I’m here is that I’m fishing. I want to see if there’s anything they’d say about Ruth that might help her-or that is going to hurt her.

“Twenty years,” Jack DeNardi says. “That’s how long she worked here.”

“How many times in those twenty years was Ruth promoted?” I ask.

“Let’s see.” He pores through the files. “Once.”

“Once in twenty years?” I say, incredulous. “Doesn’t that seem low to you?”

Jack shrugs. “I’m really not at liberty to discuss that.”

“Why is that?” I press. “You’re part of a hospital. Isn’t your job to help people?”

“Patients,” he clarifies. “Not employees.”

I snort. Institutions are allowed to scrutinize their personnel and find and label every flaw-but no one ever turns the magnifying glass back on them.

He scrolls through some more paperwork. “The term used in her most recent performance review was prickly .”

I’m not going to disagree with that.

“Clearly Ruth Jefferson is qualified. But from what I can gather in her file, she was passed over for promotions because she was seen by her superiors as a little…uppity.”