Small Great Things

It is now thirty-nine years after the events of the opening “Early Labor” section, and Ruth is a labor and delivery nurse at Mercy-West Haven Hospital. She reflects on some of her formative experiences as an L & D nurse, beginning with “[t]he most beautiful baby I ever saw was born without a face” (9). She discusses the importance of allowing the parents to bond with the child, even when he or she is born with birth defects “incompatible with life” (10), and how “every baby is born beautiful. It’s what we project on them that makes them ugly” (11). Then she thinks about her own labor and giving birth to her son, Edison, and how the one thing she worried about once her son was safely born was her hair, and how, as a black woman, the effects of sweat were different for her hair and the hospital lacked the correct products for her hair texture: a small but significant oversight. This leads to a reflection on how one of her most prominent duties is “knowing your patient, and what she needs” (14). In the narrative present, as she arrives to work, this leads her to check on her patient from the previous night and give her a tube of lipstick to freshen up, because Ruth understands this is what this patient needs.

Ruth, along with Marie—the charge nurse who is Ruth’s direct supervisor—and the perpetually-late Corinne, go through an update on the previous night’s activities. Marie makes a slightly offensive remark about “a boy like Edison” doing so well academically, and Ruth compares it to a paper cut that she has to shake off, because “[w]hite people don’t mean half the offensive things that come out of their mouths” (15). Ruth is assigned a mother who gave birth the night before, Brittany Bauer, and gets an update from her nurse going off-shift, Lucille. Lucille tells her the father, Turk, has “something just a little…off about him” (17). Ruth has seen and dealt with a lot, and goes into the room confidently. She notices a strange dynamic between them but continues to do her duties as best she can, giving the baby, who is named Davis, a bath and examination. Ruth finds a slight heart murmur and notes it for follow-up, then attempts to facilitate nursing. Turk tells Ruth to get away from him and Davis and to get her “boss” (20). Ruth is upset, not understanding, but then gets Marie. Upon reentering, she finds Turk has rolled up his sleeve to reveal a Confederate Flag tattoo; he says he doesn’t want Ruth “or anyone who looks like her” caring for Davis (21), at which point Ruth understands it’s about her race.

Turk’s first chapter begins with the line, “The first nigger I ever met killed my older brother” (22). He reflects on the courtroom scene where the man, who had been driving the other vehicle in a collision, was released because of a hung jury. Then the chapter returns to the present, with him speeding his wife, Brit, to the hospital to deliver their child. He thinks about how lucky he is to have her, and tries to distract her from the pain by throwing out potential baby names while also alluding to an as-yet-undefined “Movement” that they are a part of (it quickly becomes apparent they are White Nationalists).

Turk then returns to his youth and the aftereffects of his brother’s death: his mother began drinking heavily and his father left so he was passed off to his maternal grandfather, who was a Vietnam vet and was going to “toughen [Turk] up,” putting him through “what he called Basic Training” (24). His grandfather does things like abandoning him at a gas station during a camping trip and making Turk track him down, and then teaching Turk how to fight, once he does. Again returning to the present, Turk watches and assists as Brit gives birth, at first seeing only a blue head and fearing something has gone wrong, at which point “[a]nger, which always seems to be on a low simmer in [his] blood, starts to boil over” (28). His son cries and everything is fine.

After his grandfather had died, on a trip to visit his father in Vermont, Turk meets Raine Tesco while working at a coffee shop, and Raine begins to radicalize him, introducing him to literature like The Turner Diaries and white power bands, which speak to the anger and hurt Turk has been feeling but that he hasn’t found an outlet for. They go to an Invisible Empire camp together, and Turk learns of Raine’s group, the North American Death Squad (NADS). He hears “one of the old guard” who is “mythic” speak; the man’s name is Francis Mitchum, and Turk feels his charisma (32).

After the birth, Turk finally hits on the name that he and Brit decide is best: Davis. The following morning, after their nurse, Lucille, has gone offshift without them knowing it, Ruth enters, and Turk goes “on full alert” (35). He and Brit attempt to not show their colors yet, since if he causes a scene, he could be removed, and “[i]f [Turk] can’t be [t]here to protect [his] family, then [he’s] already lost” (35). He thinks about how “[w]hites have become a minority in this country” (35). He perceives Ruth as “some kind of crazy witch doctor,” and when she re-swaddles and places a security anklet on Davis after giving him a bath, it is as if “he’s already being punished by the system” (36), at which point he asks for her boss.

Turk then thinks of the moment he was asked to join NADS, when he and Raine and some others went to a gay bar and began beating up patrons as they exited, and Turk saw his father was one of them. In a rage, he beat his “own father up so badly that he was hospitalized, and had to be fed through a straw for months,” making Turk “mythic” in the Movement (39).

The narrative then returns to the hospital where Turk requests that Ruth not be allowed to touch Davis, and cajoles Marie into agreeing, whispering to Davis, “You, I’ll protect for the rest of my life” (40). The chapter ends with a memory of finding the trial transcripts for the man charged with Turk’s brother’s death, after his mother has died. Despite reading the evidence that his brother was high and had drifted into the other car’s path, and the man had tried to avoid the collision, Turk concludes that “if that nigger hadn’t been driving that night, my brother wouldn’t be dead” (41).

Ruth’s next section picks up after Ruth has been “fired” by the Bauers (42). She goes to the cafeteria and a white woman struggling with a creamer pitcher subconsciously grabs her own purse as Ruth tries to assist, after which Ruth reflects, “I’m not the kind of person who sees the bad in everyone; that’s my sister Adisa” (whom we find out had changed her name from Rachel) (43). When Ruth returns, she finds there is a sticky note on Davis’s file reading, “NO AFRICAN AMERICAN PERSONNEL TO CARE FOR THIS PATIENT” (43). Angry, Ruth confronts Marie, who says the note is “just a formality” and Ruth shouldn’t take it personally, though Marie knows Ruth is the only black woman on the ward (44).

Ruth then reflects on a time when “religion got tangled up in my care of a newborn” (44), when a Muslim father-to-be requested to be the first to speak after the delivery. Ruth had explained they’d do the best they could, but if something went wrong, her first duty was to care for the child. They had agreed and everything turned out okay. Ruth thinks the difference between the Muslim man’s request and Turk’s is like “the difference between day and night. Between love and hate” (45).

Ruth then thinks of her childhood and her mother’s efforts to get Ruth a good education, using the Hallowell’s connections to get Ruth into the school their daughter, Christina, goes to. The school is named Dalton; Ruth works hard and excels. But even so, she “didn’t really fit in at Dalton,” still lived in Harlem, and when she got accepted to Cornell, people whispered, “It’s because she’s Black” (47). So when it came to her own son, Edison, she tried to make things easier, working hard with her husband (who later died on a tour of duty in Afghanistan) to move to an affluent neighborhood and starting Edison with the other kids his age in the same school from the beginning.

When Ruth gets home from her shift, Edison, now a high schooler, blows up at her about nothing. Knowing something more is the matter, Ruth goes to him in his room and asks what’s wrong. He tells her that he’s had a fight with his best friend, Bryce, because Edison wanted to ask his sister to homecoming, and Bryce had laughed and said, “It’s one thing for us to hang out. But you and Whit? [...] My parents would not be cool with my sister dating a Black guy” (51). Ruth tries to console him, worrying that even with all her precautions, it just means Edison was less prepared for this moment when it would inevitably arise.

Ruth then thinks again of her childhood and the different routes she and her sister took. Rachel, who had darker skin and was constantly overshadowed, embraced her African heritage, changing her name to the Yoruba word, Adisa. Adisa now lives in a rough neighborhood with five kids. She and their father have minimum-wage jobs.

On her day off from the hospital, Ruth meets Adisa for a nail appointment and they discuss Ruth’s situation. Ruth thinks of the disagreements they’ve had about how best to deal with racism, and Adisa says, “the point is you can do as the Romansdo all you want, but it don’t mean the Emperor will let you into his palace,” thinking that Ruth is naive for attempting to assimilate, rather than be “unapologetically herself,” meaning black (55). Ultimately, though, Adisa says, “None of what happened at the hospital is your fault” (55).

Ruth ends up taking on a double when Lucille calls in sick, and it’s a hectic night. One of her patients confides that she was raped and doesn’t know if the child is her husband’s or the rapist’s, and Ruth helps her through it, seeing that the baby, when she’s born, looks just like her husband. Eventually, the next morning, Ruth runs into Corinne as she’s prepping Davis Bauer for his circumcision, and the pediatrician, Dr. Atkins, mistakes Ruth for Davis’s nurse and then sees the sticky note in his file. To try to diffuse the tension, Ruth makes a joke: “Maybe while you’re at it [...] you can sterilize him” (61).

Eventually, as her shift is coming to an end, an emergency C-section pulls the other two nurses on duty, Marie and Corinne, away, meaning Ruth is the only one who can monitor Davis after his circumcision. Ruth is nervous, knowing she has been prohibited from touching Davis, but ultimately knows someone else should be back soon. However, she then notices that Davis has stopped breathing. Her “thoughts whip quickly into a hurricane” of doubts and hesitations, but she does “everything short of medical interaction” to try to help before Marie shows up and asks what she’s doing (63). Ruth says, “Nothing,” and then Marie repeats the steps Ruth has just taken before calling in help. Everyone responds, and they do all they can, with Ruth doing chest compressions At some point, the Bauers enter, drawn by the commotion, and a moment later, Dr. Atkins tells Ruth she’s pressing too hard, but ultimately, they find that the problem is beyond medical intervention and Dr. Atkins calls the time of death. Turk still attempts to intervene; he and Brit beg for their son’s life. In the aftermath, Ruth wonders, “had I not hesitated, that baby might still be alive” (67).

At the end of her shift, Marie finds Ruth to go over the official report, saying “when I came in, you were just standing there,” to which Ruth responds that she was “doing what [she] was supposed to do”—not touching Davis (69). Before leaving the hospital, Ruth descends to the morgue and holds Davis’s body.