Small Great Things

by Jodi Picoult

  Slowly, Ruth turns around. "One last chance," she agrees.

  --

  WHEN I STAND up, I'm not alone.

  Yes, there is a courtroom waiting for my closing argument, but I'm surrounded by the stories that have blazed through the media but have mostly been ignored in courts of law. The stories of Tamir Rice, of Michael Brown, of Trayvon Martin. Of Eric Garner and Walter Scott and Freddie Gray. Of Sandra Bland and John Crawford III. Of the female African American soldiers who wanted to wear their hair natural and the children in the Seattle school district who were told by the Supreme Court that cherry-picking students to maintain racial diversity was unconstitutional. Of minorities in the South, who've been left without federal protection while those states put laws into effect that limit their voting rights. Of the millions of African Americans who have been victims of housing discrimination and job discrimination. Of the homeless black boy on Chapel Street whose cup is never going to be as full as that of a white homeless woman.

  I turn toward the jury. "What if, ladies and gentlemen, today I told you that anyone here who was born on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday was free to leave right now? Also, they'd be given the most central parking spots in the city, and the biggest houses. They would get job interviews before others who were born later in the week, and they'd be taken first at the doctor's office, no matter how many patients were waiting in line. If you were born from Thursday to Sunday, you might try to catch up--but because you were straggling behind, the press would always point to how inefficient you are. And if you complained, you'd be dismissed for playing the birth-day card." I shrug. "Seems silly, right? But what if on top of these arbitrary systems that inhibited your chances for success, everyone kept telling you that things were actually pretty equal?"

  I walk toward them, continuing. "I told you when we started this case that it was about Ruth Jefferson being presented with an impossible choice: to do her job as a nurse, or to defy her supervisor's orders. I told you that evidence would show Davis Bauer had underlying health conditions that led to his death. And that is true, ladies and gentlemen. But this case, it's about a lot more than I let on to you.

  "Out of all the people who interacted with Davis Bauer at Mercy-West Haven Hospital during his short life, only one of them is sitting in this courtroom at the defense table: Ruth Jefferson. Only one person is being charged with a crime: Ruth Jefferson. I spent an entire trial skirting a very important question: Why?

  "Ruth is black," I say flatly. "That rubbed Turk Bauer, a white supremacist, the wrong way. He can't stand black people, or Asian people, or gay people, or anyone else who isn't like him. And as a result, he set into motion a chain of events that would lead to Ruth becoming a scapegoat for the tragic death of his son. But we are not supposed to talk about race in the criminal justice system. We're supposed to pretend it is merely the icing on the cake of whatever charge has been brought to the table--not the substance of it. We are supposed to be the legal guardians of a postracial society. But you know, the word ignorance has an even more important word at its heart: ignore. And I don't think it's right to ignore the truth any longer."

  I look right at juror number 12, the teacher. "Finish this sentence," I say. "I am...?" I pause at the blank. "Maybe you'd answer: shy. Or blond. Friendly. Nervous, intelligent, Irish. But the majority of you wouldn't say white. Why not? Because it's a given. It's identity that is taken for granted. Those of us who were lucky enough to be born white are oblivious to that good fortune. Now, we're all blissfully unmindful of lots of things. Probably, you did not give thanks for showering this morning, or for having a roof over your head last night. For eating breakfast and having clean underwear. That's because all those invisible privileges are easy to take in stride.

  "Sure, it's so much easier to see the headwinds of racism, the ways that people of color are discriminated against. We see it now when a black man is accidentally shot by the police and a girl with brown skin is bullied by classmates for wearing a hijab. It's a little harder to see--and to own up to--the tailwinds of racism, the ways that those of us who aren't people of color have benefited just because we're white. We can go to a movie and be pretty certain that most of the main characters will look like us. We can be late for a meeting and not have it blamed on our race. I can go into Judge Thunder's chambers and raise an objection and not be told I'm playing the race card." I pause. "The vast majority of us do not come home from work and say, Hooray! I didn't get stopped and frisked today! The vast majority of us did not get into college and think, I got into the school of my choice because the educational system really works in my favor. We don't think these things, because we don't have to."

  By now, the jury is getting uneasy. They shift and shuffle, and from the corner of my eye I see Judge Thunder regarding me narrowly, even though a closing argument is mine alone to give, and theoretically, if I wanted to read Great Expectations out loud, I could.

  "I know you're thinking: I'm not racist. Why, we even had an example of what we think real racism looks like, in the form of Turk Bauer. I doubt there are many of you on the jury who, like Turk, believe that your children are Aryan warriors or that black people are so inferior they should not even be able to touch a white baby. But even if we took every white supremacist on the planet and shipped them off to Mars, there would still be racism. That's because racism isn't just about hate. We all have biases, even if we don't think we do. It's because racism is also about who has power...and who has access to it.

  "When I started working on this case, ladies and gentlemen, I didn't see myself as a racist. Now I realize I am. Not because I hate people of different races but because--intentionally or unintentionally--I've gotten a boost from the color of my skin, just like Ruth Jefferson suffered a setback because of hers."

  Odette is sitting with her head bowed at the prosecution table. I can't tell if she is delighted that I am building my own coffin out of words or if she is simply stunned that I have the balls to antagonize the jury at this late stage of the game. "There is a difference between active and passive racism. It's kind of like when you get on the moving walkway at the airport. If you walk down it, you're going to get to the other end faster than if you just stand still. But you're ultimately going to wind up in the same spot. Active racism is having a swastika tattoo on your head. Active racism is telling a nurse supervisor that an African American nurse can't touch your baby. It's snickering at a black joke. But passive racism? It's noticing there's only one person of color in your office and not asking your boss why. It's reading your kid's fourth-grade curriculum and seeing that the only black history covered is slavery, and not questioning why. It's defending a woman in court whose indictment directly resulted from her race...and glossing over that fact, like it hardly matters.

  "I bet you feel uncomfortable right now. You know, so do I. It's hard to talk about this stuff without offending people, or feeling offended. It's why lawyers like me aren't supposed to say these things to juries like you. But deep down, if you've asked yourself what this trial is really about, you know it's more than just whether Ruth had anything to do with the death of one of her patients. In fact, it has very little to do with Ruth. It's about systems that have been in place for about four hundred years, systems meant to make sure that people like Turk can make a heinous request as a patient, and have it granted. Systems meant to make sure that people like Ruth are kept in their place."

  I turn to the jury, beseeching. "If you don't want to think about this, you don't have to, and you can still acquit Ruth. I've given you enough medical evidence to show that there's plenty of doubt about what led to that baby's death. You heard the medical examiner himself say that had the newborn screening results come back in a more timely fashion, Davis Bauer might be alive today. Yes, you also heard Ruth get angry on the stand--that's because when you wait forty-four years to be given a chance to speak, things don't always come out the way you want them to. Ruth Jefferson just wanted the chance to do her job. To take care of that infant
like she was trained to do."

  I turn, finally, toward Ruth. She breathes in, and I feel it in my own chest. "What if people who were born on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday were never the subjects of extensive credit checks when they applied for loans? What if they could shop without fear of security tailing them?" I pause. "What if their newborn screening test results came back to the pediatrician in a timely manner, allowing medical intervention that could prevent their deaths? Suddenly," I say, "that type of arbitrary discrimination doesn't seem quite so silly, does it?"

  AFTER ALL THAT.

  After months of telling me that race doesn't belong in a court of law, Kennedy McQuarrie took the elephant in the room and paraded it in front of the judge. She squeezed it into the jury box, so that those men and women couldn't help but feel the pinch.

  I stare at the jury, all lost in thought and utterly silent. Kennedy comes to sit down beside me, and for a moment, I just look at her. My throat works while I try to put into words everything I am feeling. What Kennedy said to all those strangers, it's been the narrative of my life, the outline inside of which I have lived. But I could have screamed it from the rooftops, and it wouldn't have done any good. For the jurors to hear it, really hear it, it had to be said by one of their own.

  She turns to me before I can speak. "Thank you," she says, as if I'm the one who's done her the favor.

  Come to think of it, maybe I have.

  The judge clears his throat, and we both look up to find him glaring. Odette Lawton has risen and is standing in the spot Kennedy just vacated. I stroke my mother's lucky scarf, looped around my neck, as she begins to speak. "You know, I admire Ms. McQuarrie and her rousing cry for social justice. But that's not what we're here for today. We are here because the defendant, Ruth Jefferson, abandoned the ethical code of her profession as a labor and delivery nurse and did not adequately respond to an infant's medical crisis."

  The prosecutor approaches the jury. "What Ms. McQuarrie said...it's true. People have prejudices, and sometimes they make decisions that don't make sense to us. When I was in high school, I worked at McDonald's."

  This surprises me; I try to imagine Odette timing fries, but I can't.

  "I was the only Black kid working there. There were times I'd be at the register and I would see a customer walk in, look at me, and then go into another cashier's line to place their order. How did that make me feel?" She shrugs. "Not so great. But did I spit in their food? No. Did I drop the burger on the floor and then tuck it into the bun? No. I did my job. I did what I was supposed to do.

  "Now let's look at Ruth Jefferson, shall we? She had a customer choose another line, so to speak, but did she continue to do what she was supposed to do? No. She did not take the directive to not care for Davis Bauer in stride as a simple patient request--she blew it up into a racial incident. She did not honor her Nightingale pledge to assist her patients--no matter what. She acted with complete disregard to the infant's welfare because she was angry, and she took her anger out on that poor child.

  "It's true, ladies and gentlemen, that Marie Malone's directive to excuse Ruth as a caretaker for Davis Bauer was a racist decision, but it is not Marie on trial here for her actions. It is Ruth, for not adhering to the vow she made as a nurse. It's true, too, that many of you were made uncomfortable by Mr. Bauer and his beliefs, because they are extreme. In this country, he is allowed to express those views, even when they make others feel uneasy. But if you are going to say you are unnerved by how Turk Bauer is filled with hate, you must admit that Ruth, too, is filled with hate. You heard it, when she told you it was better for that baby to die than to grow up like his father. Perhaps that was the only moment she was candid with us. At least Turk Bauer is honest about his beliefs--as unpalatable as they may seem. Because Ruth, we know, is a liar. By her own admission, she did intervene and touch the infant in the nursery, in spite of telling her supervisor and Risk Management and the police that she did not. Ruth Jefferson started to save this baby--and what made her stop? Fear for her job. She put her own interests in front of the patient's...which is exactly what a medical professional should never do."

  The prosecutor pauses. "Ruth Jefferson and her attorney can throw up a dog and pony show about tardy lab results, or the state of race relations in this country, or anything else," she says. "But it doesn't change the facts of this case. And it's never going to bring that baby back to life."

  --

  ONCE THE JUDGE has given instructions to the jury, they are led from the courtroom. Judge Thunder leaves, too. Howard jumps up. "I've never seen anything like that!"

  "Yeah, and you probably never will again," Kennedy mutters.

  "I mean, it was like watching Tom Cruise--You can't handle the truth! Like..."

  "Like shooting myself in the foot," Kennedy finished. "On purpose."

  I put my hand on her arm. "I know what you said back there cost you," I say.

  Kennedy stares at me soberly. "Ruth, it's most likely going to cost you more."

  She has explained to me that because the murder charge was thrown out before I testified, the jury has only the negligent homicide charge to decide. Although our medical evidence definitely creates reasonable doubt, an outburst of anger is like a poker burned into a juror's mind. Even if they're not deciding on a premeditated murder charge now, they might still feel like I didn't care for that baby as well as I possibly could. And whether that was even possible, under the circumstances, I don't know anymore.

  I think about the night I spent in jail. I imagine spinning it out to many nights. Weeks. Months. I think about Liza Lott and how the conversation I have with her now would be very different than the one I had back then. I would start by saying that I'm not naive anymore. I have been forged in a crucible, like steel. And the miracle about steel is that you can hammer it so thin it's stretched to its limit, but that doesn't mean it will break. "It was still worth hearing," I tell Kennedy.

  She smiles a little. "It was worth saying."

  Suddenly Odette Lawton is standing in front of us. I panic slightly. Kennedy also said that there was one other alternative the prosecutor might choose--to throw out all charges and start over with a grand jury, using my testimony to show malice in the heat of the moment, and with a new charge of second-degree murder.

  "I'm getting the case against Edison Jefferson dismissed," Odette says briskly. "I thought you'd want to know."

  My jaw drops. Of everything I thought she might say, that was not it.

  She faces me and for the first time in this trial, meets my gaze. Except for our bathroom run-in, she has not made direct eye contact with me the entire time I was sitting at the defense table, glancing just past me or over my head. Kennedy says that's standard; it's the way prosecutors remind defendants they're not human.

  It works.

  "I have a fifteen-year-old daughter," Odette says, a fact and an explanation. Then she turns to Kennedy. "Nice closing, Counselor," she says, and she walks away.

  "Now what?" I ask.

  Kennedy takes a deep breath. "Now," she says, "we wait."

  --

  BUT FIRST, WE have the press to deal with. Howard and Kennedy formulate a plan to get me out of the courthouse with no media contact. "If we aren't able to avoid them completely," she explains, "the correct answer is no comment. We are waiting for the jury's decision. Period."

  I nod at her.

  "I don't think you get it, Ruth. They're going to be out for blood; they are going to pick at you and goad you into exploding so that they can get it on tape. For the next five minutes, until you leave this building, you are blind, deaf, dumb. You understand?"

  "Yes," I tell her.

  My heart is a drum as we push through the double doors of the courtroom. Immediately there are flashes of lights, and microphones thrust in my face. Howard runs interference, shoving them away, as Kennedy barrels us through this circus: acrobat reporters, trying to reach over the heads of others to get a statement; clowns doing their act--the Baue
rs in a heated interview with one conservative news station--and me, trying to navigate my tightrope without falling.

  Approaching us from the opposite direction is Wallace Mercy. He and his supporters form a human blockade, elbows locked, which means we will have to engage. Wallace and a woman stand in the middle; as I watch, they step forward to lead the rest. The woman wears a pink wool suit. Her close-cropped hair is dyed a hot red. She stands straight as an arrow, her arm tightly tucked through Wallace's.

  I look to Kennedy, a silent question: What do we do?

  But my question is answered for me. Wallace and the woman do not come toward us. Instead, they veer to the far side of the hallway, where Turk Bauer is still in conversation with a reporter, his wife and his father-in-law standing by his side.

  "Brittany," the woman says, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh, Lord. Look at how beautiful you are."

  She reaches toward Brittany Bauer as the cameras roll. But we are not in Judge Thunder's court, and she can say or do anything she pleases. So I see the woman's hand coming toward her as if in slow motion, and I know even before it happens that Brittany Bauer will push her away. "Get the hell away from me."

  Wallace Mercy steps forward. "I think this is someone you want to meet, Ms. Bauer."

  "She doesn't need to, Wallace," the woman murmurs. "We met twenty-six years ago, when I gave birth to her. Brit, honey, you remember me, don't you?"

  Brittany Bauer's face blooms with color--shame, or anger, or both. "Liar. You disgusting liar!" She lunges for the older woman, who goes down too easily.

  People scramble to pull Brittany away, to lift the woman to safety. I hear shouts: Help her! And Are you getting this on tape?