Small Great Things

by Jodi Picoult

  Jiao didn't respond. I looked at her husband, her poor husband, who nodded, encouraging.

  I filled a basin with warm water and took a stack of wipes. Gently, at the foot of Jiao's bed, I unwrapped her baby. I dipped a cloth in warm water and ran it over her baby's sausage legs, his blue arms. I wiped his swollen face, his stiff fingers.

  Then I handed Jiao a damp cloth. I pressed it into her palm.

  I don't know if the water shocked her into awareness, or if it was the baby. But with my hand guiding her she washed every fold and curve of her baby. She wrapped him in the blanket. She held him to her breast. Finally, with a sob that sounded like she was tearing a piece of herself away, she offered the body of her child back to me.

  I managed to hold it together while I carried her infant out of the Kangaroo Suite. And then, as she collapsed in her husband's arms, I lost it. I just lost it. I sobbed over that baby the whole way to the morgue, and when I got there, I couldn't let him go any easier than his mother had.

  Now, the key turns in the lock, and Edison slips inside. His eyes are adjusting to the darkness; he is creeping because he expects me to be asleep. Instead, in a clear voice, I say his name from my spot at the kitchen table.

  "Why aren't you asleep?" he asks.

  "Why weren't you home?"

  I can see him clearly, a shadow among shadows. "I was alone. I was out walking."

  "For six hours?" I blurt.

  "Yes. For six hours," Edison challenges. "Why don't you just put a GPS chip on me, if you don't trust me?"

  "I do trust you," I say carefully. "It's the rest of the world I'm not so sure about."

  I stand so that we are only inches apart. All mothers worry, but Black mothers, we have to worry a little bit more. "Even walking can be dangerous. Just being can be dangerous, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "I'm not stupid," Edison says.

  "I know that better than anyone. That's the problem. You are smart enough to make excuses for people who aren't. You give the benefit of the doubt when other people don't. That is what makes you you, and that is what makes you remarkable. But you need to start being more careful. Because I may not be here much longer to..." My sentence snaps, unravels. "I may have to leave you."

  I see his Adam's apple jerk down, and then back, and I know what he has been thinking about all this time. I imagine him walking the streets of New Haven, trying to outdistance himself from the fact that this trial is coming to an end. And that when it does, everything will be different.

  "Mama," he says, his voice small. "What am I supposed to do?"

  For a moment, I try to decide how to sum up a life's worth of lessons in my response. Then I look at him, my eyes shining. "Thrive," I say.

  Edison wrenches away from me. A moment later, the door to his bedroom slams shut. Music whitewashes all the other sounds I try in vain to discern.

  I think I know now why it is called the Kangaroo Suite. It's because even when you no longer have a child, you carry him forever.

  It's the same when a parent is ripped away from the child, but the suite is the size of the world. At Mama's funeral, I put a handful of cold dirt from her grave in the pocket of my good wool coat. Some days I wear that coat inside the house, just because. I sift through the soil, hold it tight in my fist.

  I wonder what Edison will keep of me.

  I PUT MY HANDS ON both sides of Brit's face and touch my forehead to hers. "Breathe," I tell her. "Think of Vienna."

  Neither of us has ever been to Vienna, but Brit found an old picture in an antique shop once that she hung on the wall of our bedroom. It shows the fancy city hall building, the plaza in front of it filled with pedestrians and mothers towing children by the hand--all of them white. We always thought that we could save up for a vacation there, one day. When Brit was putting together a birthing plan, Vienna was one of the words I was supposed to use to help her focus.

  It doesn't escape me that I'm whispering the same word I used to calm her when she was delivering Davis--but now I'm repeating it to help her stop seeing the image of our dead son.

  Suddenly the door to the conference room opens and the prosecutor walks in. "That was a nice touch. The jury loves a mother who's acting so distraught that she can't control herself. But the threat in open court? Not the wisest move."

  Brit bristles. She pushes away from me and gets up in the lawyer's face. "I am not acting," she says, her voice dangerously soft. "And you don't get to tell me what's a good idea and what's not, bitch."

  I grasp her arm. "Baby, why don't you go wash up? I'll take care of this."

  Brit doesn't even blink. Just keeps herself like a wall in front of Odette Lawton, like an alpha dog standing over another mutt until it has the good sense to cower. Then, abruptly, she walks away and slams the door behind her.

  I know it is already a big deal that Brit and I are allowed in the courtroom, even though we are going to testify. There was a hearing about it and everything, before the trial began. That goddamned public defender thought she could keep us away by asking for all witnesses to be sequestered, but the judge said we deserved to be there because we were Davis's parents. I'm sure the prosecutor doesn't want to give him any good reason to rethink his decision.

  "Mr. Bauer," the lawyer says, "you and I need to talk."

  I fold my arms. "Why don't you just do what you're supposed to do? Win this case?"

  "It's a little hard when your wife is acting like an intimidating thug and not a grieving mother." She stares at me. "I can't call her as a witness."

  "What?" I say. "But we did all that practicing--"

  "Yes, but I don't trust Brittany," she says flatly. "Your wife is a wild card. And you do not put a wild card in the witness box."

  "The jury needs to hear from Davis's mother."

  "Not if I can't be certain she won't start screaming racist slurs at the defendant." She eyes me coolly. "You and your wife may detest me and everyone who looks like me, Mr. Bauer. And frankly I don't care. But I am the best chance--the only chance--you have to get justice for your son. So not only will I tell you what is a good idea and a bad idea, I will also be calling all the shots. And that means your wife is not testifying."

  "The judge and the jury will think something's off if she isn't a witness."

  "The judge and the jury will think she's distraught. And you will be a solid witness in your own right."

  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 th
e 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."

  "Objection!" the other lawyer says.

  The judge purses his lips. "I'll allow it."

  "How did you react, Mr. Bauer?"

  "I didn't say anything. Brit and I, we were both shocked. I mean, they told us this procedure was nothing. We were supposed to go home that afternoon. It was like my brain couldn't process what was right before my eyes."

  "Then what happened?"

  The jury, I realize, is on the edge of their seats. Every face is turned toward me. "The doctors and the nurses, they were moving so fast I couldn't tell whose hands were whose. Then the pediatrician came in--Dr. Atkins. She worked for a little bit on my son, and then she...then she said there was nothing else to do." The words become three-dimensional, a movie I can't turn away from. The pediatrician looking at the clock. The way the others all stepped back, their hands in the air, like someone was pointing a gun at them. My son, too still.

  A sob belches out of me. I hold tight to the chair. If I let go, my fists will take over. I will find someone to punish. I look up, and for just one second, I let them all see how empty I am inside. "She said my son was dead."

  Odette Lawton walks toward me with a box of Kleenex. She puts it on the railing between us, but I don't make a move to take a tissue. I am glad, right now, that Brit doesn't have to go through this. I don't want her to have to relive that moment.

  "What did you do next?"

  "I couldn't let them stop." The words feel like glass on my tongue. "If they weren't going to save him, I was. So I went to the trash and I pulled out the bag they were using to help Davis breathe. I tried to figure out how to attach it again. I wasn't going to quit on my own kid."


  I hear a sound, a high-pitched keen, one that I recognize from the weeks that Brit did not get out of bed, but shook our home with the force of her grieving. She is hunched over in her seat in the gallery, a human question mark, as if her whole body is asking why this happened to us.

  "Mr. Bauer," the prosecutor says gently, drawing my attention back. "Some people here would call you a White Supremacist, and would say that you were the one who started this ball rolling by requesting that an African American nurse be removed from the care of your child. They might even blame you for your own misfortune. How would you respond?"

  I take a deep breath. "All I was trying to do was give my baby the best chance in life he could possibly have. Does that make me a White Supremacist?" I ask. "Or does that just make me a father?"

  --

  DURING THE RECESS, Odette coaches me in the conference room. "Her job is to do whatever she can to make the jury hate you. A little bit of that is okay, because it shows the jury the nurse's motive. But just a little. Your job is to do whatever you can to make them see what they have in common with you, not what sets you apart. This is supposed to be a case about how much you loved your son. Don't screw it up by focusing on who you hate."

  She leaves Brit and me alone for a few minutes, before we are called back to the courtroom. "Her," Brit says, as soon as the door closes behind her. "I hate her."

  I turn to my wife. "Do you think she's right? Do you think we brought this down on ourselves?"

  I have been thinking about what Odette Lawton said: if I hadn't spoken out against the black nurse, would this have ended differently? Would she have tried to save Davis the minute she realized he wasn't breathing? Would she have treated him like any other critical patient, instead of wanting to hurt me like I'd hurt her?

  My son would be five months old now. Would he be sitting up on his own? Would he smile when he saw me?