Small Great Things Read online

"Kennedy." The familiarity sits uncomfortably on my tongue. "I can't go back to prison." I think of how, when Edison was a toddler, he'd put on Wesley's shoes and shuffle around in them. Edison will have a lifetime to see the magic he used to believe in as a child be methodically erased, one confrontation at a time. I don't want him to have to face that any sooner than necessary. "I've got my boy, and there's no one else who can raise him to be the man I know he's going to be."

  Ms. McQuarrie--Kennedy--leans forward. "I'm going to do my best. I have a lot of experience in cases with people like you."

  Another label. "People like me?"

  "People accused of serious crimes."

  Immediately, I am on the defensive. "But I didn't do anything."

  "I believe you. However, we still have to convince a jury. So we have to go back to the basics to figure out why you've been charged."

  I look at her carefully, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. This is the only case on my radar, but maybe she is juggling hundreds. Maybe she honestly has forgotten the skinhead with the tattoo who spit on me in the courtroom. "I'd think that's pretty obvious. That baby's father didn't want me near his son."

  "The white supremacist? He has nothing to do with your case."

  For a moment, I'm speechless. I was removed from the care of a patient because of the color of my skin, and then penalized for following those directions when the same patient went into distress. How on earth could the two not be related? "But I'm the only nurse of color on the birthing pavilion."

  "To the State, it doesn't matter if you're Black or white or blue or green," Kennedy explains. "To them you had a legal duty to take care of an infant under your charge." She starts listing all the ways the jury can find a reason to convict me. Each feels like a brick being mortared into place, trapping me in this hole. I realize that I have made a grave mistake: I had assumed that justice was truly just, that jurors would assume I was innocent until proven guilty. But prejudice is exactly the opposite: judging before the evidence exists.

  I don't stand a chance.

  "Do you really believe that if I was white," I say quietly, "I'd be sitting here with you right now?"

  She shakes her head. "No. I believe it's too risky to bring up in court."

  So we are supposed to win a case by pretending the reason it happened doesn't exist? It seems dishonest, oblivious. Like saying a patient died of an infected hangnail, without mentioning that he had Type 1 diabetes.

  "If no one ever talks about race in court," I say, "how is anything ever supposed to change?"

  She folds her hands on the table between us. "You file a civil lawsuit. I can't do it for you, but I can call around and find you someone who works with employment discrimination." She explains, in legalese, what that means for me.

  The damages she mentions are more than I ever imagined in my wildest dreams.

  But there is a catch. There's always a catch. The lawsuit that might net me this payout, that might help me hire a private lawyer who might actually be willing to admit that race is what landed me in court in the first place, can't be filed until this lawsuit wraps up. In other words, if I'm found guilty now, I can kiss that future money goodbye.

  Suddenly I realize that Kennedy's refusal to mention race in court may not be ignorant. It's the very opposite. It's because she is aware of exactly what I have to do in order to get what I deserve.

  I might as well be blind and lost, and Kennedy McQuarrie is the only one with a map. So I look her in the eye. "What do you want to know?" I say.

  WHEN I COME HOME THE night after my first meeting with Ruth, Micah is working late and my mother is watching Violet. The house smells of oregano and freshly baked dough. "Is it my lucky day?" I call out, shuffling off the heaviness of my job as Violet gets up from the table where she's coloring and makes a beeline for me. "Is there homemade pizza for dinner?"

  I swing my daughter up in my arms. She is clutching a violent red crayon in one small fist. "I made you one. Guess what it is."

  My mother comes out of the kitchen holding an amoebic blob on a plate. "Oh, clearly it's an...alie--" I catch my mother's eye, and she shakes her head. Behind Violet's back she puts her hands up and bares her teeth. "Dinosaur," I correct. "I mean, obviously."

  Violet smiles widely. "But he's sick." She points to the oregano spotting the cheese. "That's why he has a rash."

  "Is it chicken pox?" I ask, as I take a bite.

  "No," she says. "He has a reptile dysfunction."

  I nearly spit out the pizza. Immediately I drop Violet to her feet. As she runs back to the table to continue coloring, I raise a brow. "What were you watching?" I calmly ask my mother.

  She knows that the only television we let Violet watch is Sesame Street or Disney Junior. But from the studied wash of innocence on my mother's face I know she's hiding something. "Nothing."

  I pivot, staring at the blank TV screen. On a hunch, I pick the remote up from the couch and turn it on.

  Wallace Mercy is grandstanding in all his glory, outside City Hall in Manhattan. His wild white hair stands on end, like he's been electrocuted. His fist is raised in solidarity with whatever apparent injustice he's currently championing. "My brothers and sisters! I ask you: when did the word misunderstanding become synonymous with racial profiling? We demand an apology from the New York City police commissioner, for the shame and inconvenience suffered by this celebrated athlete--" The Fox news logo runs beneath the slightly familiar face of a handsome dark-skinned man.

  Fox News. A channel that Micah and I do not generally watch. A channel that would easily be the home of multiple ads about erectile dysfunction.

  "You let Violet watch this?"

  "Of course not," my mother says. "I just turned it on during her naptime."

  Violet looks up from her coloring. "The Five-o-Meter!"

  I shoot my mother the Look of Death. "You're watching The Five with my four-year-old daughter."

  She throws up her hands. "All right, fine, yes, sometimes I do. It's the news, for goodness' sake. It's not like I'm putting on P-O-R-N. Besides, did you even hear about this? It's a simple misunderstanding and that ridiculous fake reverend is shooting his mouth off again all because the police were trying to do their job."

  I look at Violet. "Honey," I say, "why don't you go pick out the pajamas you want to wear, and two books for bedtime?"

  She runs upstairs and I turn back to the television. "If you want to watch Wallace Mercy, at least put on MSNBC," I say.

  "I don't want to watch Wallace. In fact I don't think he's doing Malik Thaddon any good by taking on his cause."

  Malik Thaddon, that's why he looks familiar. He won the U.S. Open a few years back. "What happened?"

  "He walked out of his hotel and was grabbed by four policemen. Apparently it was a case of mistaken identity."

  Ava settles beside me on the couch as the camera zooms in on Wallace Mercy's verbal tantrum. The cords in his neck stand out and there is a throbbing vein at his temple; this man is a heart attack waiting to happen. "You know," my mother says. "If they weren't so angry all the time, maybe more people would listen to them."

  I don't have to ask who they are.

  I take another bite of my dinosaur pizza. "How about we go back to only turning the television on to a channel that doesn't have commercials with side effects?"

  My mother folds her arms. "I would think of all people you'd want your child to be a student of the world, Kennedy."

  "She's a baby, Mom. Violet doesn't need to think that the police might grab her one day."

  "Oh, please. Violet was coloring. All that went right over her head. The only thing she even remarked on was Wallace Mercy's extremely poor choice of hairdo."

  I press my fingers to the corners of my eyes. "Okay. I'm tired. Let's just table this conversation."

  My mother takes my empty plate and stands up, clearly miffed. "Far be it from me to see myself as more than just the hired help."

  She disappears into the kitche