I kissed Brit, while behind us, someone lit a wooden swastika to brand this moment. I swear I felt a shift in me that day. Like I really had handed over half my heart to this woman, and she had given me hers, and the only way we would both continue to survive was with this patchwork.
I was dimly aware of Francis speaking, of people clapping. But I was pulled toward Brit, like we were the last two people on earth.
We might as well have been.
"MY CLIENT HATES ME," I tell Micah, as we are standing in the kitchen washing dishes.
"I'm sure she doesn't hate you."
I glance at him. "She thinks I'm a racist."
"She has a point," Micah says mildly, and I turn to him, my eyebrows shooting up to my hairline. "You're white and she's not, and you both happen to live in a world where white people have all the power."
"I'm not saying that her life hasn't been harder than mine," I argue. "I'm not one of those people who thinks that just because we elected a black president we're magically postracial. I work with minority clients every day who've been screwed by the healthcare system and the criminal justice system and the educational system. I mean, prisons are run as a business. Someone's profiting from keeping a steady stream of people going to jail."
We had hosted some of Micah's colleagues for dinner. I'd had high hopes of serving a gourmet meal but wound up making a taco bar and offering a store-bought bakery pie that I passed off as being homemade after I broke off the edges of the crust a little to make it slightly less perfect. Throughout the evening, my mind wandered. Granted, when conversation drifted toward rates of retinal nerve fiber layer loss in contralateral eyes of glaucoma patients with unilateral progression, I couldn't be blamed. But I already was obsessing over my earlier argument with Ruth. If I was in the right, how come I couldn't stop rehashing what I'd said?
"But you just don't bring up race in a criminal trial," I say. "It's like one of those unspoken rules, you know, like Don't use your brights in oncoming traffic...or Don't be the asshole who brings a full cart to the twelve items or less lane. Even the cases based on stand-your-ground laws steer clear of it, and ninety-nine percent of the time it's a white guy in Florida who got scared by a black kid and pulled a trigger. I get that Ruth feels singled out by her employer. But none of that has to do with a murder charge."
Micah passes me a platter to dry. "Don't take this the wrong way, babe," he says, "but sometimes when you're trying to explain something and you think you're dropping a hint, you're actually more like a Mack truck."
I turn to him, waving my dish towel. "What if one of your patients had cancer, and you were trying to treat it, but she also kept telling you she had poison ivy. Wouldn't you tell her it was more important to focus on getting rid of the cancer, and then you'd take care of the rash?"
Micah considers this. "Well, I'm not an oncologist. But sometimes, when you've got an itch, you keep scratching it and you don't even realize that you're doing it."
I am totally lost. "What?"
"It was your metaphor."
I sigh. "My client hates me," I say again.
Just then the phone rings. It is nearly 10:30, the time for calls about heart attacks and accidents. I grab the receiver with a damp hand. "Hello?"
"Is this Kennedy McQuarrie?" booms a deep voice, one I know but cannot place.
"It is."
"Excellent! Ms. McQuarrie, this is Reverend Wallace Mercy."
The Wallace Mercy?
I don't even realize I've said that aloud until he chuckles. "Rumors of my superstardom have been greatly exaggerated," he paraphrases. "I am calling about a friend we have in common--Ruth Jefferson."
Immediately, I go into lockdown mode. "Reverend Mercy, I'm not at liberty to discuss a client."
"I assure you, you can. Ruth has asked me to serve as an adviser, of sorts..."
I clench my teeth. "My client hasn't signed anything stating that."
"The release, yes, of course. I emailed one to her an hour ago. It will be on your desk tomorrow morning."
What. The. Hell. Why would Ruth go and sign something like that without consulting me? Why wouldn't she even mention that she'd been talking to someone like Wallace Mercy?
But I already know the answer: because I told Ruth her case had nothing to do with racial discrimination, that's why. And Wallace Mercy is about nothing but racial discrimination.
"Listen to me," I say, my heart pounding so hard that I can hear its pulse in every word. "Getting Ruth Jefferson acquitted is my job, not yours. You want to boost your ratings? Don't think you're going to do it on my back."
I end the call, punching the button with such vehemence that the handset goes spinning out of my hand and skitters across the kitchen floor. Micah turns off the faucet. "Damn cordless phones," he says. "It was so much more satisfying back when you could slam them down, right?" He approaches me, his hands in his pockets. "You want to tell me what that was all about?"
"That was Wallace Mercy on the phone. Ruth Jefferson wants him to advise her."
Micah whistles long and low. "You're right," he says. "She hates you."
--
RUTH OPENS THE door in her nightgown and bathrobe. "Please," I say. "I only need five minutes of your time."
"Isn't it a little late?"
I don't know if she's talking about the fact that it's almost 11:00 P.M. or the fact that we parted on such a divisive note early this afternoon. I choose to assume the former. "I knew if I called you'd recognize my number and ignore it."
She considers this. "Probably."
I pull my sweater more tightly around me. After Wallace Mercy's call, I got in the car and started driving. I didn't even grab a coat first. All I could think was that I needed to intercept Ruth before she mailed back that release form.
I take a deep breath. "It's not that I don't care about how you were treated--I do. It's that I know having Wallace Mercy involved is going to cost you in the short run, if not the long run."
Ruth watches me shiver again. "Come in," she says, after a moment.
The couch is already made up with pillows and sheets and a blanket, so I sit at the kitchen table as her son pokes his head out of the bedroom. "Mama? What's going on?"
"I'm fine, Edison. Go to bed."
He looks dubious, but he backs up and closes the door.
"Ruth," I beg, "don't sign that release."
She takes a seat at the table, too. "He promised me that he wouldn't interfere with whatever you're doing in court--"
"You'll sabotage yourself," I say bluntly. "Think about it--angry mobs in the street, your face on TV every night, legal pundits weighing in on the case on morning shows--you don't want them taking control of the narrative of this case before we have a chance to." I gesture to the closed door of Edison's bedroom. "What about your son? Are you ready to have him dragged into the public eye? Because that's what happens when you become a symbol. The world knows everything about you, and your past, and your family, and crucifies you. Your name will be just as familiar as Trayvon Martin's. You're never going to get your life back."
She meets my gaze. "Neither did he."
The truth of that statement separates us like a canyon. I look down into that abyss and see all the reasons why Ruth shouldn't do this; she looks down and no doubt sees all the reasons why she should.
"Ruth, I know you have no reason to trust me, especially given the way white people have treated you recently. But if Wallace Mercy grandstands, you won't be safe. The last thing you want is for your case to be tried in the media. Please, let's do this my way. Give it a chance." I hesitate. "I'm begging you."
She folds her arms. "What if I tell you I want the jury to know what happened to me? To hear my side of the story?"
I nod, striking a bargain. "Then we put you on the stand," I promise.
--
THE MOST INTERESTING thing about Jack DeNardi is that he has a rubber band ball on his desk the size of a newborn's head. Other than that he is exactly wh
at you would expect to find working in a dingy cubicle in the Mercy-West Haven Hospital office: paunch, gray skin, comb-over. He's a paper pusher, and the only reason I'm here is that I'm fishing. I want to see if there's anything they'd say about Ruth that might help her--or that is going to hurt her.
"Twenty years," Jack DeNardi says. "That's how long she worked here."
"How many times in those twenty years was Ruth promoted?" I ask.
"Let's see." He pores through the files. "Once."
"Once in twenty years?" I say, incredulous. "Doesn't that seem low to you?"
Jack shrugs. "I'm really not at liberty to discuss that."
"Why is that?" I press. "You're part of a hospital. Isn't your job to help people?"
"Patients," he clarifies. "Not employees."
I snort. Institutions are allowed to scrutinize their personnel and find and label every flaw--but no one ever turns the magnifying glass back on them.
He scrolls through some more paperwork. "The term used in her most recent performance review was prickly."
I'm not going to disagree with that.
"Clearly Ruth Jefferson is qualified. But from what I can gather in her file, she was passed over for promotions because she was seen by her superiors as a little...uppity."
I frown. "Ruth's superior, Marie Malone...how long has she been working here?"
He enters a few keystrokes into his computer. "Roughly ten years."
"So someone who worked here for ten years was giving Ruth orders--dubious ones at that--and maybe Ruth questioned them from time to time? Does that sound like she's being uppity...or just assertive?"
He turns to me. "I couldn't say."
I stand up. "Thanks for your time, Mr. DeNardi." I gather my coat and my briefcase, and just before I cross the threshold I turn. "Uppity...or assertive. Is it possible the adjective changes depending on the color of the employee?"
"I resent that implication, Ms. McQuarrie." Jack DeNardi presses his lips together. "Mercy-West Haven does not discriminate based on race, creed, religion, or sexual orientation."
"Oh, okay. I see," I say. "Then it was just dumb luck that Ruth Jefferson was the employee you chose to throw to the wolves."
As I walk out of the hospital, I consider that none of this conversation can or will be used in court. I'm not even sure what made me turn back at the last minute and toss that final question to the HR employee.
Except, perhaps, that Ruth is rubbing off on me.
--
THAT WEEKEND, A cold rain pelts the windows. Violet and I sit at the coffee table, coloring. Violet is scribbling across the page, without any regard for the predrawn outline of a raccoon in her coloring book. "Grandma likes to color inside the lines," my daughter informs me. "She says it's the right way."
"There is no right way or wrong way," I say automatically. I point to her explosion of reds and yellows. "Look how pretty yours is."
Who came up with that rule anyway? Why are there even lines?
When Micah and I went on our honeymoon to Australia, we spent three nights camping in the red center of the country, where the ground was cracked like a parched throat and the night sky looked like a bowl of diamonds that had been upended. We met an Aboriginal man, who showed us the Emu in the Sky, the constellation near the Southern Cross that is not a dot-to-dot puzzle, like our constellations, but the spaces in between the dots--nebulas swirling against the Milky Way to form the long neck and dangling legs of the great bird. I couldn't find it, at first. And then, once I did, it was all I could see.
When my cellphone starts to ring and I recognize Ruth's number, I immediately pick up. "Is everything all right?" I ask.
"Fine." Ruth's voice sounds stiff. "I was wondering if maybe you had any free time this afternoon."
I glance at Micah, who's come into the living room. Ruth, I mouth.
He scoops up Violet, tickling her, letting me know that I have all the time I need. "Of course," I say. "Was there something in the discovery you wanted to talk about?"
"Not exactly. I need to go shopping for a birthday gift for my mama. And I thought you might like to come along."
I recognize an olive branch when I see it. "I'd like that," I say.
As I drive to Ruth's, I think about all the reasons this is a colossal mistake. When I was starting out as public defender, I spent my salary, which didn't even cover my groceries for the week, on my clients when I could see they needed a clean set of clothes or a hot meal. It took me a while to realize that helping my clients couldn't extend to my bank account. Ruth seems too proud to drag me to a mall and hint that she could really use a new pair of shoes, however. I think maybe she just wants to clear the air between us.
But as we drive to the mall, all we discuss is the weather--when the rain is going to stop, if it might turn to sleet. Then we talk about where we will be spending the upcoming holidays. At Ruth's suggestion, I park near T.J.Maxx. "So," I say. "Are you looking for something in particular?"
She shakes her head. "I'll know it when I see it. There are items that just scream my mama's name, usually ones covered in sequins." Ruth smiles. "The way she dresses for church, you'd think she was headed to a black-tie wedding. I always figured it was because she wears a uniform all week long, maybe this was her way of cutting loose."
"Did you grow up here in Connecticut?" I ask, as we get out of the car.
"No. Harlem. I used to take the bus into Manhattan every day with my mama to work, and then get dropped off at Dalton."
"You and your sister went to Dalton?" I ask.
"I did. Adisa wasn't quite as...scholarly minded. It was Wesley who made me settle in Connecticut."
"How did you two meet?"
"At a hospital," Ruth says. "I was a nursing student, on an L and D ward, and there was a woman having a baby whose husband was in the service. She had tried and tried to contact him. She was delivering twins a month early, and she was scared, and convinced she was gonna have those babies alone. Suddenly when she was in the middle of pushing, a guy comes flying in, wearing camo. He takes one look at her and drops like a stone. Since I was just a student, I was stuck taking care of the fainter."
"So wait," I say. "Wesley was married to someone else when you met?"
"That's what I assumed. When he came to, he started hitting on me, turning up the charm. I thought he was the biggest jackass I'd ever met, flirting while his wife was delivering his twins, and I told him so. Turned out they weren't his babies. His best friend was the father, but was out training and couldn't get furlough, so Wesley promised to take his place and help the guy's wife till he got there." Ruth laughs. "That's about when I started thinking maybe he wasn't the biggest jackass after all. We had some good years, Wesley and me."
"When did he pass away?"
"When Edison was seven."
I can't imagine losing Micah; I can't imagine raising Violet by myself. What Ruth has done with her life, I realize, is braver than anything I've ever done. "I'm sorry."
"Me too," Ruth sighs. "But you know, you go on, right? Because what other choice have you got?" She turns to me. "Mama taught me that, as a matter of fact. Maybe I'll find it embroidered on a pillow."
"In glitter," I say, and we walk through the store doors.
Ruth tells me about Sam Hallowell, whose name rings a faint bell, and how her mother has been working as a domestic in that household for almost fifty years. She talks about Christina, who gave her her first illicit sip of brandy when she was twelve, from her father's liquor cabinet, and who paid her way through trigonometry, buying the answers to tests off an exchange student from Beijing. She tells me, too, how Christina tried to give her money. "She sounds awful," I admit.
Ruth considers this. "She's not. It's just what she knows. She never learned any other way of being."
We move through the aisles, trading stories. She confesses that she wanted to be an anthropologist, until she studied Lucy the Australopithecus: How many women from Ethiopia do you know named Lucy? I tel
l her how my water broke in the middle of a trial, and the dick of a judge wouldn't give me a continuance. She tells me about Adisa, who convinced her when she was five that the reason Ruth was so pale by comparison was because she was turning into a ghost, that she'd been born black as a berry but was fading away little by little. I tell her about the client I hid in my basement for three weeks, because she was so sure her husband was going to kill her. She tells me about a man who, in the middle of labor, told his girlfriend she needed to wax. I confess that I haven't seen my father, who is in an institution for Alzheimer's, in over a year, because the last time I was so sad I couldn't shake the visit for months. Ruth admits that walking through Adisa's neighborhood scares her.
I am starving, so I grab a box of caramel corn from a display and open it as we talk, only to find Ruth staring at me. "What are you doing?" she asks.
"Eating?" I say, my mouth full of popcorn. "Take some. It's my treat."
"But you haven't paid for it yet."
I look at her like she's crazy. "I'm going to, obviously, when we leave. What's the big deal?"
"I mean--"
But before she can answer, we are interrupted by an employee. "Can I help you find something?" she asks, looking directly at Ruth.
"Just browsing," Ruth says.
The woman smiles, but she doesn't leave. She trails us at a distance, like a child's toy being dragged on a string. Ruth either doesn't notice or doesn't choose to notice. I suggest gloves or a nice winter scarf, but Ruth says her mother has one lucky scarf she's owned forever, and she'd never trade up. Ruth keeps up a steady patter of conversation until we find a section of bargain basement DVDs. "This might be fun. I could do up a whole bunch of her favorite shows, and package them with microwave popcorn and call it movie night." She begins sifting through the barrels of DVDs: Saved by the Bell. Full House. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
"Dawson's Creek," I say. "Man, does that take me back. I was absolutely going to grow up and marry Pacey."
"Pacey? What kind of name is that?"
"Didn't you ever watch it?"
Ruth shakes her head. "I've got about ten years on you. And if there was ever a white-girl show, this was it."
I reach deep into the barrel and pull out a season of The Cosby Show. I think about showing it to Ruth, but then hide it underneath a box of The X-Files, because what if she thinks that the only reason I'm picking it is the color of their skin? But Ruth plucks it out of my hand. "Did you watch this when it was on TV?"