Small Great Things (9 page)

I nod, sitting down across from her at the table. Someone has tossed a handful of hard candy on it. I take a piece and unwrap it, let the butterscotch bleed onto my tongue. I hope it will keep me from saying what I shouldn't say.

“What a morning,” Marie sighs.

“What a night,” I answer.

“That's right, you pulled a double.” She shakes her head. “That poor family.”

“It's horrible.” I may not agree with their beliefs, but that doesn't mean I think they deserve to lose a baby.

“We had to sedate the mom,” Marie tells me. “The baby's gone downstairs.”

Wisely, she does not mention the father to me.

Marie flattens a form on the table. “This is obviously just protocol. I need to write up what officially happened when Davis Bauer went into respiratory arrest. You were in the nursery?”

“I was covering for Corinne,” I reply. My voice is steady, soft, even though every syllable feels as dangerous as a blade at my throat. “She got called to the OR unexpectedly. The Bauer baby had his circ at nine, and couldn't be left unattended. Since you were at the stat C, too, I was the only body even available to stand in for observation.”

Marie's pen scratches across the form; none of this is anything she doesn't know or expect. “When did you notice that the infant had stopped breathing?”

I curl my tongue around the candy. Tuck it high in my cheek. “A moment before you arrived,” I say.

Marie starts to speak, and then bites her lip. She taps the pen twice, then puts it down with a definitive click. “A moment,” she repeats, as if she is weighing the scope and size of that word. “Ruth…when I came in, you were just
standing
there.”

“I was doing what I was supposed to do,” I correct. “I wasn't touching that baby.” I get up from the table, buttoning my coat, hoping she cannot see that my hands are shaking. “Is there anything else?”

“It's been a tough day,” Marie says. “Get some rest.”

I nod and leave the break room. Instead of taking the elevator to street level, though, I plunge to the bowels of the hospital. In the overexposed fluorescent fixtures of the morgue, I blink, letting my eyes adjust. I wonder why clarity is always so damn white.

He's the only dead baby there. His limbs are still pliable, his skin hasn't taken on a chill. There's mottling in his cheeks and feet, but that is the only clue that he is anything other than what he seems to be at first glance: someone's beloved.

I lean against a steel gurney, cradling him in my arms. I hold him the way I would have, if I'd been allowed to. I whisper his name and pray for his soul. I welcome him into this broken world and, in the same breath, say goodbye.

I
T'S BEEN QUITE THE MORNING.

First, we all overslept because I thought Micah had set his alarm and he thought I had set my alarm. Then our four-year-old, Violet, refused to eat a bowl of Cheerios and sobbed until Micah agreed to fry an egg for her, at which point she was so far gone down the path of nuclear meltdown that she burst into tears again when the plate was set down. “I want a fuckin' knife!” she screamed, and it was quite possibly the only thing that could have stopped both Micah and me in our frenetic tracks.

“Did she say what I think she said?” Micah asked.

Violet wailed again—this time more clearly. “I want a fork and knife!”

I burst out laughing, which made Micah give me a withering look. “How many times have I told you to stop swearing?” he says. “You think it's funny that our four-year-old sounds like a sailor?”

“Technically she wasn't. Technically, you misheard it.”

“Don't lawyer me,” Micah muttered.

“Don't lecture me,” I said.

So by the time we left—Micah taking Violet to preschool before he went to perform six back-to-back surgeries; me, driving in the opposite direction to my office—the only family member in a good mood was Violet, who had breakfast with
all
her utensils and was wearing her fancy sequined Mary Janes because neither of her parents had the energy to fight her about that, too.

A
N HOUR LATER,
my day has gone from bad to worse. Because although I went to law school at Columbia, graduated in the top 5 percent of my class, spent three years clerking for a federal judge, today my boss—the head of the New Haven Judicial District of the Division of Public Defender Services in the state of Connecticut—has sent me to negotiate about bras.

Warden Al Wojecwicz, the director of corrections at the New Haven facility, is sitting in a stuffy conference room with me, his deputy director, and a lawyer from the private sector, Arthur Wang. I'm the only woman in the room, mind you. This convening of what I've come to call the Itty Bitty Titty Committee has been precipitated by the fact that two months ago, female lawyers were barred from entering the prison if we were wearing underwire bras. We kept setting off the metal detectors.

The prison wouldn't settle for a pat-down, insisting on a strip search, which was illegal and time-consuming. Ever resourceful, we started going into the ladies' room and leaving our underwear there, so that we could go in and visit our clients. But then the prison said we couldn't go inside braless.

Al rubs his temples. “Ms. McQuarrie, you have to understand, this is just about minimizing risk.”

“Warden,” I reply, “they let you go inside with
keys
. What do you think I'm going to do? Bust someone out of jail with a foundation garment?”

The deputy warden cannot meet my gaze. He clears his throat. “I went to Target and looked at the bras they have for sale there—”

My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline, and I turn to Al. “You sent him to do field research?”

Before he can answer, Arthur leans back in his chair. “You know, it does beg the question of whether the entire clothing policy should be under review,” he muses. “Last year I was trying to see a client last-minute, before I headed out for vacation. I was wearing sandals, and was told I couldn't enter the prison with them. But the only other shoes I had were golf cleats, which were perfectly acceptable.”

“Cleats,” I repeat. “The shoes with actual
spikes
on the bottom? Why would you send someone in with cleats but not flip-flops?”

The warden and the deputy exchange a glance. “Well, because of the toe-lickers,” says the deputy.

“You're afraid that someone is going to suck our toes?”

“Yes,” the deputy says, deadpan. “Trust me, it's for your own protection. It's like a conjugal visit with your foot.”

For just a heartbeat I picture the life I could have had if I'd joined a sterile corporate law firm, on the partner track. I imagine meeting my clients in paneled wood conference rooms, instead of repurposed storage closets that smell like bleach and pee. I imagine shaking the hand of a client whose hand isn't trembling—from meth withdrawal or abject terror at a justice system he doesn't trust.

But there are always trade-offs. When I met Micah, he was a fellow in ophthalmology at Yale–New Haven. He examined me and said I had the most beautiful colobomas he'd ever seen. On our first date I told him I really did believe justice was blind, and he said that was only because he hadn't had a chance to operate yet. If I hadn't married Micah, I would have probably followed the rest of the law review staff to sleek chrome offices in big cities. Instead, he went into practice, and I stopped clerking to give birth to Violet. When I was ready to go back to work, Micah was the one who reminded me of the sort of law I used to champion. Thanks to his salary, I was able to practice it.
I'll make the money,
Micah used to tell me.
You make the difference.
As a public defender I was never going to get rich, but I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror.

And since we live in a country where justice is supposed to be meted out equally, no matter how much money you have or what age you are or what your race or gender or ethnicity is, shouldn't public defenders be just as smart and aggressive and creative as any attorney for hire?

So I flatten my hands on the table. “You know, Warden, I don't play golf. But I do wear a bra. You know who else does? My friend Harriet Strong, who's a staff attorney for the ACLU. We went to law school together, and we try to have lunch once a month. I think she'd be fascinated to hear about this meeting, considering Connecticut prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and given that only female lawyers or those lawyers identifying as female would even be wearing bras when visiting clients in this facility. Which means that your policy is infringing on attorneys' rights
and
is preventing us from providing counsel. I'm also pretty sure Harriet would love to talk to the Women's Bar Association of Connecticut to see how many other female lawyers have complained. In other words, this falls smack into the category of
You are fucked if this gets out in the press
. So the next time I come to see a client, I am going to take my thirty-four C Le Mystère demi-cup with me, and—pardon the metaphor—I am going to assume there will not be any fallout. Would I be assuming correctly?”

The warden's mouth tightens. “I'm confident we can revisit the underwire ban.”

“Good,” I say, gathering my briefcase. “Thanks for your time, but I have to get to court.”

I sail out of the little room, Arthur at my heels. As soon as we are outside the prison, in the blinding sunlight, he grins. “Remind me not to wind up opposite you in court.”

I shake my head. “Do you
really
play golf?”

“I do when it means sucking up to a judge,” he says. “Are you
really
a thirty-four C?”

“You'll never know, Arthur,” I laugh, and we head to our separate cars in the parking lot, off to minister to two very different worlds.

M
Y HUSBAND AND
I do not sext. Instead our phone conversations consist of a roll call of nationalities: Vietnamese. Ethiopian. Mexican. Greek. As in “Where should we get takeout from tonight?” But when I get out of my meeting at the jail, there is a message waiting for me from Micah:
Sorry I was an asshole this morning.

I grin, and text him back.
No wonder our kid curses.

Date 2nite?
Micah writes.

My thumbs fly over my phone.
U had me at asshole,
I type.
Indian?

I vindalook forward to it,
Micah responds.

See, this is why I can't ever stay mad at him.

M
Y MOTHER, WHO
grew up in North Carolina on the debutante circuit, believes there is nothing a little cuticle softener and eye cream can't fix. To this end, she is always trying to get me to
take care of myself,
which is code for
try to make an effort to look nice,
which is completely ridiculous, given that I have a small child and about a hundred needy clients at any given moment, all of whom deserve my time more than the hairdresser who could put highlights in my hair.

Last year, for my birthday, my mother gave me a gift I have consciously avoided until today: a gift certificate to a day spa for a ninety-minute massage. I can do a lot in ninety minutes. File one or two briefs, argue a motion, make and feed Violet breakfast, even (if I'm going to be honest) squeeze in a rollicking romp in the sheets with Micah. If I have ninety minutes, the last thing I want to do is spend it naked on a table while some stranger rubs oil all over me.

But, as my mother points out, it's expiring in a week, and I haven't used it yet. So—because she knows I'm too busy to take care of details like this, she has taken the liberty of booking me into Spa-ht On, a day spa catering to the busy professional woman, or so it says on the logo. I sit in the waiting room until I am called, wondering if they really thought that name through. Spa-ht on? Or Spat on?

Either one sounds unpalatable to me.

I stress about whether or not I am supposed to wear panties under my robe, and then struggle to figure out how to open my locker and secure it. Maybe this is the grand plan—clients are so frustrated by the time they get to the massage that they cannot help but leave in a better state than they started. “I'm Clarice,” my therapist tells me, in a voice as soft as a Tibetan gong. “I'm just going to step out while you get comfortable.”

The room is dark, lit with candles. There is some insipid music playing. I shrug off my robe and slippers and climb under the sheet, fitting my face into the little hole in the massage table. A few moments later, there is a soft knock. “Are we ready?”

I don't know.
Are
we?

“Now, you just relax,” Clarice says.

I try. I mean, I really do. I close my eyes for about thirty seconds. Then I blink them open and stare at her feet in their sensible sneakers through the face hole of the massage table. Her firm hands begin to run the length of my spine. “Have you worked here a long time?” I ask.

“Three years.”

“I bet there are some clients you walk in and see and wish you didn't have to touch,” I muse. “I mean, like back hair? Ugh.”

She doesn't answer. Her feet shift on the floor. I wonder if she's thinking that I'm one of those clients, now.

Does she really see my body like a doctor would—a slab to be worked upon? Or is she seeing the cellulite in my ass and the roll of fat that I usually hide under my bra strap and thinking that the yoga mom she rubbed down last hour was in much better shape?

Clarice, wasn't that the name of the girl from
Silence of the Lambs
?

“Fava beans and a nice Chianti,” I murmur.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry,” I mutter, my chin mashed into the massage table. “Hard to talk in this contraption.” I can feel my nose getting stuffy. When I lie facedown like this too long, that happens. And then I have to mouth-breathe and I think that the therapist is listening and sometimes I even drool through the hole. More reasons I don't like massages.

“Sometimes I think about what would happen if I got into a car crash and was stuck upside down like that,” I say. “Not in the car, you know, but at the hospital in one of those neck braces that get screwed into your skull so that your vertebrae don't shift? What if the doctors flipped me onto my belly, and I got congested like I am right now and couldn't tell them? Or if I was in that kind of coma where you're awake but trapped inside your body and you can't talk, and you desperately need to blow your nose.” My head is pounding now, from being in this position. “It doesn't even have to be that complicated. What if I live to a hundred and five and I'm in a rest home and I get a cold and no one thinks to get me a few drops of Afrin?”