Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

Does this mean that I loved Davis less? Because my grief isn’t enough to keep me from censoring myself, like Brit?

“Yesterday you heard the defense introduce the theory that your son had an undiagnosed metabolic disease?”

It was when the pediatrician was on the stand. There was a lot of medical jargon I did not understand, but I got the gist of it. “Yeah, yeah. I get it,” I say. “It was a Hail Mary pass.”

“Not quite. While you were gone, the medical examiner verified the results. Davis screened positive for MCADD. I did my best to get the jury to discount his testimony, but the bottom line is the defense planted a seed that’s already taken root: that your baby was tested for a potentially fatal disorder and the results arrived too late. And if none of that had happened, he might still be alive.”

I feel my knees giving out, and I sit heavily on the tabletop. My baby boy was actually sick, and we didn’t know? How could a hospital overlook that?

It’s so…random. So pointless.

The prosecutor touches my arm, and I can’t help it, I flinch. “Don’t do it. Don’t get lost in your own head. I’m telling you this so you can’t be surprised during a cross-examination. But all Kennedy McQuarrie has done is find a possible diagnosis. It was never confirmed. Davis wasn’t treated. She could have just as well said that your son would develop heart disease as an adult, because that’s what his genetic predisposition is. That doesn’t mean it would ever happen.”

I think of my grandfather, dropping dead of a heart attack.

“I am telling you this because when we go back in there,” Odette says, “I’m going to call you to the stand. And you’re going to answer just the way we rehearsed in my office. All you need to remember is that there is no room for maybe in this trial. There is no this might have happened . It already did happen. Your son is dead.”

I nod. There is a body. And someone has to pay.

–

Do you swear to tell the truth?

My hand flexes on the leather Bible. I don’t read it a lot anymore. But swearing on it makes me remember Big Ike, from back when I was in jail. And Twinkie.

I think about him a lot, to be honest. I imagine he’s out now. Maybe eating the Chef Boyardee he craved. What would happen if I ran into him on the street? At a Starbucks? Would we do the man hug thing? Or would we pretend we didn’t know each other? He knew what I was, on the outside, just like I knew what he was. But in jail, things were different, and what I’d been taught to believe didn’t hold true. If we crossed paths now, would he still be Twinkie to me? Or would he just be another nigger?

Brit is finally back in the courtroom, anchored beside Francis. When she returned from the bathroom, her face still damp from wiping it with a towelette and her nose and cheeks pink, I said that I’d told the prosecutor no one tells my wife how to grieve. And that I couldn’t bear the thought of Brit having another breakdown, so I told Odette Lawton there was no way she was putting my wife on the stand. I told Brit that I loved her, and it hurt me too much to see her hurting.

She bought it.

Do you swear to tell the truth?

“Mr. Bauer,” the prosecutor asks, “was this your first child with your wife, Brittany?”

Sweat breaks out on my back. I can feel jurors staring at the swastika tattoo on my head. Even the ones who are pretending not to look are sneaking glances. I curl my hands around the base of the chair. The wood feels good. Solid. A weapon. “Yes. We were very excited.”

“Did you know it was going to be a boy?”

“No,” I reply. “We wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Were there any complications during the pregnancy?”

“My wife had gestational diabetes. The doctor told us that wasn’t a big deal, as long as she watched her diet. And she did. She wanted a healthy kid as much as me.”

“How about the delivery, Mr. Bauer? Was it a normal birth?”

“Everything went smoothly,” I say, “but then again, I wasn’t doing the heavy lifting, exactly.” The ladies on the jury smile, just like the prosecutor said they would, if I made myself seem like any other father.

“And where did you and your wife have the baby?”

“Mercy-West Haven Hospital.”

“Did you get to hold your son, Davis, after he was born, Mr. Bauer?”

“Yeah,” I say. When we rehearsed this in the prosecutor’s office, as if we were actors learning lines, she told me how effective it would be if I teared up. I said I couldn’t cry on demand, for fuck’s sake, but now, thinking back on the moment Davis was born, I’m getting choked up. It’s crazy, isn’t it, that you can love a girl so much you can actually create another human being? It’s like rubbing two sticks together and getting fire-all of a sudden there’s something alive and intense there that did not exist a minute before. I can remember Davis’s feet kicking against me. His head in the palm of my hand. Those stormy, unfocused eyes, puzzling me out. “I’ve never felt that way in my life,” I confess. I’m off script, and I don’t care. “I thought it was a lie, when people said they fell in love with a baby at first sight. But it’s the truth. It was like I could see my whole future right there in his face.”

“Did you know any of the hospital staff prior to going to that particular hospital?”

“No. Brit’s OB worked there, so it was sort of a done deal.”

“Did you have a good experience at this hospital, Mr. Bauer?”

“No,” I say firmly. “I did not.”

“Was it like that from the moment your wife was admitted?”

“No. That was fine. So was the labor and delivery.”

The prosecutor walks toward the jury box. “So when did things change?”

“When another nurse took over after the first one went off shift. And she was black.”

The prosecutor clears her throat. “Why was this an issue, Mr. Bauer?”

Unconsciously, I reach up and rub the tattoo on my scalp. “Because I believe in the superiority of the White race.”

Some of the jurors stare harder at me, curious. Some shake their heads. Others look into their laps.

“So you’re a White Supremacist,” the prosecutor says. “You believe that black people, people like me, should be subordinate.”

“I’m not anti-black,” I tell her. “I’m pro-White.”

“You understand that many people in the world-in fact, many people here-might find your beliefs offensive.”

“But hospitals have to treat all patients,” I say, “even the ones whose ideas they might not like. If a school shooter gets injured when the cops try to take him out and he’s brought to the ER, the doctors do surgery to save his life, even if he’s killed a dozen other people. I know the way my wife and I live is not the way others choose to live. But the great thing about this country is that we all have a right to believe whatever we want.”

“What did you do when you found out there was a black nurse caring for your newborn son?”

“I made a request. I asked that she not touch my baby.”

“Is the African American nurse you are referring to here today?”

“Yes.” I point to Ruth Jefferson. I think maybe she shrinks back in her chair.

I want to think that, anyway.

“Who did you ask?” the prosecutor says.

“The head of the nurses,” I reply. “Marie Malone.”

“As a result of that conversation, what happened?”

“I don’t know, but she got reassigned.”

“At some point, did the defendant interact with your son again?”

I nod. “Davis was being circumcised. It was supposed to be no big deal. They were going to take him to the nursery and bring him back as soon as it was done. But the next thing I know, all hell breaks loose. People were screaming, calling for help, crash carts were being pushed down the hall, everyone was running toward the nursery. My kid was in there, and I just…I guess Brit and I knew . We got to the nursery and there was a crowd of people huddled around my son, and that woman, she had her hands on my baby again.” I swallow. “She was hurting him. She was jackhammering on his chest so hard she was practically breaking him in half.”