Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

“So you didn’t see Ruth take action.”

“No.”

“And,” Kennedy adds, “you didn’t see Ruth not take action.”

“No.”

She holds up the piece of paper Howard has passed to her. “You stated, and I quote, When a medical emergency happens, decisions are made quickly. Do you remember saying that?”

“Yes…”

“Your stat C-section was a medical emergency, right?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you also say that a newborn suffering a respiratory seizure qualifies as a medical emergency?”

“Um, yes, of course.”

“Were you aware that there was a note in the file that said Ruth was not to care for this baby?”

“Objection!” Odette says. “That’s not what the note said.”

“Sustained,” the judge pronounces. “Ms. McQuarrie, rephrase.”

“Were you aware that there was a note in the file that said no African American personnel could care for the baby?”

“Yes.”

“How many Black nurses work in your department?”

“Just Ruth.”

“Were you aware when you grabbed Ruth to fill in for you that the baby’s parents had expressed the desire to prohibit her from caring for their newborn?”

Corinne shifts on the wooden seat. “I didn’t think anything was going to happen. The baby was fine when I left.”

“The whole reason for monitoring a baby for ninety minutes after a circumcision is because with neonates, things can change on a dime, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And the fact is, Corinne, you left that baby with a nurse who was forbidden from ministering to him, correct?”

“I had no other choice,” Corinne says, defensive.

“But you did leave that infant in Ruth’s care?”

“Yes.”

“And you did know that she wasn’t supposed to touch that baby?”

“Yes.”

“So you screwed up, essentially, two times over?”

“Well-”

“Funny,” Kennedy interrupts. “No one accused you of killing that baby.”

–

LAST NIGHT, I dreamed about Mama’s funeral. The pews were full, and it wasn’t winter, but summer. In spite of the air-conditioning and people waving fans and programs, we were all slick with sweat. The church wasn’t a church but a warehouse that looked like it had been repurposed after a fire. The cross behind the altar was made of two charred beams fitted together like a puzzle.

I was trying to cry, but I didn’t have any tears left. All the moisture in my body had become perspiration. I tried to fan myself, but I didn’t have a program.

Then the person sitting beside me handed me one. “Take mine,” she said.

I looked over to say thank you, and realized Mama was in the chair next to me.

Speechless, I staggered to my feet.

I peered into the coffin, to see who-instead-was inside.

It was full of dead babies.

–

MARIE WAS HIRED ten years after I was. Back then she was an L & D nurse, just like me. We suffered through double shifts and complained about the lousy benefits and survived the remodeling of the hospital. When the charge nurse retired, Marie and I both threw our names into the ring. When HR went with Marie, she came to me, devastated. She said that she was hoping I’d get the job, just so she didn’t have to apologize for being the one who was chosen. But really, I was okay with it. I had Edison to watch after, in the first place. And being charge nurse meant a lot more administrative work and less hands-on with patients. As I watched Marie settle into her new role, I thanked my lucky stars that it had worked out the way it had.

“The baby’s father, Turk Bauer, had asked to speak to a supervisor,” Marie says, replying to the prosecutor. “He had a concern about the care of his infant.”

“What were the contents of that conversation?”

She looks into her lap. “He did not want any Black people touching his baby. He told me that at the same time he revealed a tattoo of a Confederate flag on his forearm.”

There is actually a gasp from someone in the jury.

“Had you ever experienced a request like this from a parent?”

Marie hesitates. “We get patient requests all the time. Some women prefer female doctors to deliver their babies, or they don’t like being treated by a med student. We do our best to make our patients comfortable, whatever it takes.”

“In this case, what did you do?”

“I wrote a note and stuck it in the file.”

Odette asks her to examine the exhibit with the medical file, to read the note out loud. “Did you speak to your staff about this patient request?”

“I did. I explained to Ruth that there had been a request to have her step down, due to the father’s philosophical beliefs.”

“What was her reaction?”

“She took it as a personal affront,” Marie says evenly. “I didn’t mean it that way. I told her it was just a formality. But she walked out and slammed the door of my office.”

“When did you see the defendant again?” Odette asks.

“Saturday morning. I was in the ER with another patient, who had suffered a complication during delivery. As nurse supervisor, I’m required to make that transfer with the attending nurse, who happened to be Corinne. Corinne had left Ruth watching over her other patient-Davis Bauer-postcircumcision. So as soon as I possibly could, I ran back to the nursery.”

“Tell us what you saw, Marie.”

“Ruth was standing over the bassinet,” she says. “I asked her what she was doing, and she said, Nothing .”

The room closes in on me, and the muscles of my neck and arms tighten. I feel myself frozen again, mesmerized by the blue marble of the baby’s cheek, the stillness of his small body. I hear her instructions:

Ambu bag.

Call the code.

I am swimming, I am in over my head, I am wooden.

Start compressions.

Hammering with two fingers on the delicate spring of rib cage, attaching the leads with my other hand. The nursery too cramped for all the people suddenly inside. The needle inserted subcutaneous into the scalp, the blue barrage of swear words as it slips out before striking a vein. A vial rolling off the table. Atropine, squirted into the lungs, coating the plastic tube. The pediatrician, flying into the nursery. The sigh of the Ambu bag being tossed in the trash.

Time? 10:04.

“Ruth?” Kennedy whispers. “Are you all right?”

I cannot get my lips to move. I am in over my head. I am wooden. I am drowning.

“The patient developed wide complex bradycardia,” Marie says.

Tombstones.

“We were unable to oxygenate him. Finally, the pediatrician called the time of death. We didn’t realize that the parents were in the nursery. There was just so much going on…and…” She falters. “The father-Mr. Bauer-he ran to the trash can and took the Ambu bag out. He tried to put it on the tube that was still sticking out of the baby’s throat. He begged us to show him what to do.” She wipes a tear away. “I don’t mean to…I’m…I’m sorry.”

I manage to jerk my head a few degrees and see that there are several women in the jury box who are doing the same thing. But me, there are no tears left in me.

I am drowning in everyone else’s tears.

Odette walks toward Marie and hands her a box of tissues. The soft sound of sobs surrounds me, like cotton batting on all sides. “What happened next?” the prosecutor asks.

Marie dabs at her eyes. “I wrapped Davis Bauer in a blanket. I put his hat back on. And I gave him to his mother and father.”

I am wooden.

I close my eyes. And I sink, I sink.

–

IT TAKES ME a few minutes to focus on Kennedy, who has already started the cross-examination of Marie when I clear my head. “Did any patient ever complain to you about Ruth’s expertise as a nurse, prior to Turk Bauer?”