Small Great Things

by Jodi Picoult

  I love the way her wrinkles have weathered her smile. I love seeing how age will look on my face, one day.

  "Is my grandbaby here too?" she asks, looking behind me in the hall. "Did you bring him for another one of those college visits?"

  "No, Mama, he's in classes now. You're gonna have to make do with just me."

  "Just you," she teases. "As if that was never enough." She closes the door behind her as I unbutton my coat. She holds out her hand for it, but I reach into the closet instead for a hanger. The last thing I'm going to do is make my mama wait on me, too. I put my coat next to hers, and just for old times' sake, run my hand down the soft underbelly of Mama's lucky scarf before closing the closet door.

  "Where's Ms. Mina?" I ask.

  "Shopping, downtown, with Christina and the baby," she says.

  "I don't want to interrupt you if you're busy --"

  "For you, baby, I always have time. Come into the dining room. I'm just doing a little cleaning." She starts down the hallway, and I follow, carefully noticing the way she's favoring her right knee because of the bursitis in her left.

  On the dining room table a white sheet is spread, and the strings of crystal that form the massive chandelier overhead are laying on it like trails of tears. A pungent bowl of ammonia solution sits in the center. My mother sits down and resumes her task of dipping each strand, then letting it air dry.

  "How did you get those down?" I ask, eyeing the chandelier.

  "Carefully," my mama replies.

  I think about her balancing on the table, or a chair. "It's too dangerous for you to do that kind of stuff anymore--"

  She waves me away. "I been doing this for fifty years," my mama says. "I could clean crystal in a coma."

  "Well, keep climbing up to get them down from the chandelier and you might get your wish." I frown. "Did you go to the orthopedist whose name I gave you?"

  "Ruth, stop babying me." She starts to fill in the space between us by asking about Edison's grades. She says that Adisa is worried about her sixteen-year-old dropping out of high school (something she failed to mention to me at the nail salon). As we talk, I help lift strands of crystal and dip them into the ammonia solution, feeling the liquid burn my skin, and pride--even more bitter--burn the back of my throat.

  When my sister and I were little, Mama used to bring us here on Saturdays to work. She framed this as a big deal, a privilege--not all kids are well behaved enough to shadow a parent at a job! If you're good, you get to push the button on the dumbwaiter that brings the dishes up from the dining room to the kitchen! But what started as a treat soured quickly for me. True, sometimes we got to play with Christina and her Barbies, but when she had a friend over, Rachel and I were evicted to the kitchen or the laundry room, where Mama showed us how to iron cuffs and collars. At ten, I finally rebelled. "Maybe you're okay with this, but I don't want to be Ms. Mina's slave," I told my mother, loud enough to maybe be overheard, and she slapped me. "You do not use that word to describe an honest, paying job," my mama corrected. "The same job that put that sweater on your back and those shoes on your feet."

  What I didn't realize at the time was that our apprenticeship had a higher purpose. We were learning the whole time--how to make hospital corners on a bed, how to get stains out of the grout, how to make a roux. My mama had been teaching us to be self-sufficient, so that we'd never be in the position Ms. Mina was in, unable to do things for ourselves.

  We finish cleaning the crystal drops, and I stand on a chair while my mama hands them to me one by one to hang from the chandelier again. They are blinding in their beauty. "So," Mama says when we are nearly finished, "are you going to tell me what's wrong, or do I have to pry it loose?"

  "Nothing's wrong. I was just missing you, that's all."

  It's true. I came to Manhattan because I wanted to see her. I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I'd be valued.

  "What happened at work, Ruth?"

  When I was a child my mother's intuition was so uncanny it took me many years to realize she wasn't psychic. She didn't know the future; she just knew me.

  "Usually you can't stop talking about a set of triplets or a father-in-law who punched out a new daddy in the waiting room. Today, you haven't mentioned the hospital at all."

  I step down from the chair and fold my arms. The best lies are the ones that are wrapped around a core of truth. So although I conspicuously leave out any mention of Turk Bauer or the dead baby or Carla Luongo, I tell Mama about the nursing student and the patient who so easily assumed that she was the one in charge, instead of me. The words spill like a waterfall, with more force behind them than I expect. By the time I am finished, we are both sitting in the kitchen, and my mother has set a cup of tea down in front of me.

  Mama purses her lips, as if she's weighing evidence. "Maybe you just imagined it."

  I wonder if this is why I'm the way I am, the reason I tend to make excuses for everyone but myself and try so hard to fit in seamlessly. My mother modeled that behavior for years.

  But what if she is right? Could I be overreacting? I replay the interaction in my head. It's not the same as the incident with Turk Bauer--Mrs. Braunstein didn't even mention the color of my skin. What if my mama's right and I'm the one who's being overly sensitive? What if I'm making the assumption that the patient's comments were made because Virginia's white and I'm not? Doesn't that make me the one who can't see past race?

  Clear as a bell, I hear Adisa's voice in my head: That's just what they want: for you to doubt yourself. As long as they can make you think you're not worthy, they still got you in chains.

  "I'm sure the lady didn't mean anything by it," Mama pronounces.

  But it didn't make me feel any less small.

  I don't say it out loud, but I think it, and it sends a shiver down my spine. This isn't me. I don't accuse; I don't believe the majority of white people judge me because I'm Black or assume they are superior to me. I don't prowl the world looking for an excuse to pick a fight. I leave that to Adisa. Me, I do my best to fly under the radar. Sure, I know that racism exists and that people like Turk Bauer are waving that banner, but I don't judge all white folks by the historical actions of a few.

  Or, rather, I never have before.

  It's as if the little Post-it note on the patient file of Davis Bauer has nicked a vital artery, and I can't figure out how to stop the bleeding.

  Suddenly we hear a jangle of keys and bluster as Ms. Mina and her daughter and grandson return to the brownstone. Mama hurries into the foyer to take their coats and their shopping bags, and I trail after her. Christina's eyes widen when she sees me, and she throws her arms around me while Mama peels the snowsuit off her four-year-old son, Felix. "Ruth!" she cries. "This is fate. Mom, wasn't I just talking to you about Ruth's son?"

  Ms. Mina looks up at me. "She was indeed. Ruth, dear, aren't you just beautiful. Not a single wrinkle on that skin. I swear, you don't age."

  Again, I hear Adisa in my head: Black don't crack. Very forcefully, I tamp down on that voice and gently fold tiny Ms. Mina into an embrace. "Neither do you, Ms. Mina," I say.

  "Oh, go on with those lies." She pretends to wave away my words, and then smiles slyly. "No, seriously. Go on with them. I love hearing every one."

  I try to signal to my mama. "I should probably be going--"

  "Don't you cut your visit short on our account," Ms. Mina says, taking Felix from Mama's arms. "You stay as long as you want." She turns to Mama. "Lou, we'll take our tea in the gold room."

  Christina grabs my hand. "Come with me," she says, and she drags me up the stairs to the bedroom where we used to play.

  It's a shrine of sorts, with the same furniture she had as a child, but now there is a crib and a litter of toys on the floor. I step on something that nearly hobbles me, and Christina rolls her eyes. "Oh, God, Felix's Playmobil men. Crazy, right, to spend hundreds of dollars on something plastic? But you know Felix. He loves his pirates."

  I crouch down, examining
the intricate ship as Christina rummages through the closet. There is a captain in a red coat and a feathered black hat, and several pirates tangled in the plastic web of rigging. On the deck is a character with plastic skin that's an orange-brown, with a little silver collar around his neck.

  Good lord, is this supposed to be a slave?

  Yes, it's historically accurate. But still, it's a toy. Why this slice of the past? What's next--the Japanese POW internment camp play set? The Trail of Tears Lego? The Salem Witch Hunt game?

  "I wanted to tell you before you read it in the paper," Christina says. "Larry's thinking of running for Congress."

  "Wow," I answer. "How do you feel about that?"

  She throws her arms around me. "Thank you. Do you realize you're the first friend I've told who doesn't act like this is the first step to the White House or start talking about whether we should get a place in Bethesda or Arlington? You're the first person, period, who it occurred to that I might have a choice in the matter."

  "Well, don't you? It seems like a pretty big disruption for the whole family."

  "Yeah," Christina says. "I'm not sure I have the fortitude to be the wife of a politician."

  I laugh. "You have the fortitude to run the country by yourself."

  "That is exactly what I mean. Apparently I'm supposed to forget the fact that I graduated summa cum laude and instead I get to stand around holding my cute kid and smiling like the only thought I can hold in my head is what shade of lipstick matches my blouse," Christina sighs. "Promise me something? If I ever cut my hair into a bob that kind of looks like a helmet, you'll euthanize me?"

  You see, I tell myself. Here is proof. I've known Christina my whole life. And yes, maybe there are differences between us--socioeconomic, political, racial--but that doesn't mean we can't connect, human to human, friend to friend.

  "Sounds to me like you've already made up your mind," I point out.

  She looks at me, hopeless. "I can't say no to him," Christina sighs. "That's why I fell for him in the first place."

  "I know," I tell her. "But it could be worse."

  "How?"

  "Congressmen serve for two years," I point out. "Two years is a blink. Imagine if he'd set his heart on being a senator."

  She shudders, then grins. "If he makes it to the White House," Christina says, "I'm hiring you as my chief of staff."

  "Maybe surgeon general," I counter.

  Christina links her arm through mine as we walk back to the gold room, where my mama is now setting out a tray of china and a teapot, a platter of homemade almond cookies. Felix sits on the floor, playing with a wooden train. "Mmm, Lou, I dream about these cookies," Christina says. She hugs my mama before reaching for one. "We are so lucky to have you as part of our family."

  Family doesn't get a paycheck, I think.

  I smile. But like anything you wear that doesn't fit, it pinches.

  --

  DURING ONE OF those Indentured Servant Saturdays when I was playing hide-and-seek with Christina and Rachel, I took a wrong turn and found myself in a room that was off-limits. Mr. Hallowell's study was usually locked, but when I turned the knob, desperate to hide from the high-pitched squeal of Christina calling, "Ready or not, here I come..." I found myself stumbling inside the secret sanctum.

  Rachel and I had spent a good deal of time imagining what might be behind that closed door. She thought it was a laboratory, with rows and rows of pickled body parts. I thought it was candy, because in my seven-year-old mind, that was the most valuable stash worth locking up. But when I landed on my hands and knees on the Oriental rug in Mr. Hallowell's study, the reality was pretty disappointing: there was a leather couch. Shelves and shelves of what looked like silver wheels. A portable movie screen. And feeding the film into the chattering teeth of a projector was Sam Hallowell himself.

  I always thought Mr. Hallowell looked like a movie star, and Mama used to say he practically was one. As he turned around, pinning me with his gaze, I tried to come up with an excuse for why I had breached this forbidden territory but was distracted by the grainy picture, on the screen, of Tinker Bell lighting animated fireworks over a castle.

  "This is all you've ever known," he said, and I realized that his speech was funny, that the words blurred into each other. He lifted a glass to his mouth and I heard the ice cubes clink. "You have no idea what it was like to see the world change in front of your eyes."

  On the screen, a man I didn't recognize was speaking. "Color does brighten things up, doesn't it?" he said, as a black-and-white wall of photos behind him bloomed into all the shades of the rainbow.

  "Walt Disney was a genius," Mr. Hallowell mused. He sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside him, and I scrambled over. A cartoon duck with glasses and a thick accent was sticking his hand in animated cans of paint and dumping the contents on the floor. You mix them all together and they spell muddy...and then you got black, the cartoon duck said, stirring the paint with his flippered foot so that it turned ebony. That's exactly the way things were in the very beginning of time. Black. Man was completely in the dark about color. Why? Because he was stupid.

  Mr. Hallowell was close enough now for me to smell his breath--sour, like that of my uncle Isaiah, who'd missed Christmas last year because Mama said he had gone somewhere to dry out. "Christina and Louis and you and your sister, you don't know any different. For you it's always looked like this." He stood up suddenly and turned to me so that the projector shadowed his face, a dance of bright silhouettes. "The following program is brought to you in Living Color on NBC!" he boomed, spreading his arms so wide that the liquid in his glass sloshed over the side and onto the carpet. "What do you think, Ruth?" he asked.

  I thought that I wanted him to move, so I could see what the duck was going to do next.

  Mr. Hallowell's voice softened. "I used to say that before every program," he told me. "Until color TV was so common, no one needed reminding that it was a miracle. But before that--before that--I was the voice of the future. Me. Sam Hallowell. The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC!"

  I didn't tell him to move over, so that I could see the cartoon. I sat with my hands in my lap, because I knew that sometimes when people spoke, it wasn't because they had something important to say. It was because they had a powerful need for someone to listen.

  Late that night after my mama had brought us back home and tucked us into our beds, I had a nightmare. I opened my eyes and everything was cast in shades of gray, like the man on the movie screen before he pinked up and the background exploded with color. I saw myself running through the brownstone, pulling at locked doors, until Mr. Hallowell's study opened. The film we had watched was ticking through the projector, but the picture was black and white now, too. I started screaming, and my mama rushed in and Rachel and Ms. Mina and Christina and even Mr. Hallowell, but when I told them my eyes weren't working and that all the color in the world had vanished, they laughed at me. Ruth, they said, this is the way it always has been. Always will be.

  --

  BY THE TIME my train gets back to New Haven, Edison is already home and bent over the kitchen table doing his schoolwork. "Hey, baby," I say, dropping a kiss on the crown of his head as I walk in, and giving him an extra squeeze. "That's from Grandma Lou."

  "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

  "I had a half hour before my shift starts, and I decided I'd rather spend it with you than in traffic."

  His eyes flicker toward me. "You're gonna be late."

  "You're worth it," I tell him. I grab an apple from a bowl in the middle of the kitchen table--I always keep something healthy there, because Edison will eat whatever's not nailed down--and take a bite, reaching for some of the papers spread out in front of my son. "Henry O. Flipper," I read. "Sounds like a leprechaun."

  "He was the first African American graduate from West Point. Everyone in AP History has to teach a class profiling an American hero, and I'm trying to figure out what my lesson's g
oing to be."

  "Who else is in the running?"

  Edison looks up. "Bill Pickett--a Black cowboy and rodeo star. And Christian Fleetwood, a Black Civil War soldier who won the Medal of Honor."

  I glance at the grainy photos of each man. "I don't know any of these people."

  "Yeah, that's the point," Edison says. "We get Rosa Parks and Dr. King and that's about it. You ever hear of a brotha named Lewis Latimer? He drew telephone parts for Alexander Graham Bell's patent applications, and worked as a draftsman and patent expert for Thomas Edison. But you didn't name me after him because you didn't know he existed. The only time people who look like us are making history, it's a footnote."

  He says this without bitterness, the way he would announce that we are out of ketchup or that his socks turned pink in the wash--as if it is something he's not thrilled about, but can't get worked up over, because it's unlikely to change the outcome at this particular moment. I find myself thinking about Mrs. Braunstein and Virginia again. It feels like a splinter my mind keeps getting caught on, and Edison just pressed deep on it again. Have I really never noticed these things before? Or have I been very studiously keeping my eyes shut tight?

  Edison glances at his watch. "Mama," he says, "you're gonna be really late."

  He's right. I tell him what he can heat up for dinner, what time he should go to bed, what time my shift is over. Then I hurry to my car and drive to the hospital. I take as many shortcuts as I can, but I'm still ten minutes late. I take the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, and by the time I reach the birthing pavilion I am out of breath and sweating. Marie is standing at the nurses' desk, as if she's waiting on me. "I'm sorry," I say immediately. "I was in New York with my mother, and then stuck in traffic, and--"

  "Ruth...I can't let you work tonight."

  I am dumbfounded. Corinne is late more than 50 percent of the time, but I have a single transgression and I get punished for it?

  "It won't happen again," I say.

  "I can't let you work," Marie repeats, and I realize that she hasn't met my gaze, not once. "I've been informed by HR that your license is being suspended."

  Suddenly, I am made of stone. "What?"