Small Great Things

Turk and Brit are also preparing for the first day of the trial. Brit dresses conservatively, as Odette has recommended, but Turk shaves his head again. Before going to the courthouse, they first go to Davis’s grave. The marker says “LOVE,” like Turk’s knuckle tattoo (331). When they arrive at the courthouse, Turk narrates, “The first thinks I see at the courthouse are the niggers” (331). As they walk up, though, they see a bunch of white people who post on Lonewolf there as well, and “[a] steady stream closes ranks around [Turk],” with Turk thinking about how these neo-Nazis who had gone underground are now, “willing to be outed once again” to help Turk’s son (332).

On the morning of the first day of the trial, Kennedy oversleeps and then rushes through breakfast with Micah and Violet. She sees not spilling her coffee as a good sign. When she arrives at the courthouse, she see the group around Wallace Mercy and then also a group of white people holding signs with Davis’s face on them: “A circus, that’s really the only way to describe it” (334). A scuffle between the two groups breaks out; Kennedy goes to the back of the courthouse to meet Ruth and Edison. She finds Ruth around the side, however, and Ruth asks for a minute. Then Ruth says, “I keep having these…thoughts” such as, “How many more times will I get to take the bus?” (335). Then she basks in the blue of the sky and asks, “How long does it take to forget this?” (335). Kennedy answers, “If I have anything to say about it [...] you’ll never find out” (335).

During the opening statements, Ruth sits in the defendant’s chair and listens. Odette Lawton begins by characterizing the Bauers’ preferences as a patients’ rights issue, and tells the jury that Ruth held a grudge and took it out on Davis: “Ruth Jefferson is a murderer” (338). Lawton points to bruising on Davis’s chest and the fact that Ruth stood by while Davis couldn’t breathe. Then Kennedy makes her statement, presenting Ruth’s exemplary record and education, and saying that “Ruth was confronted with an impossible situation” (339). Then she makes the claim that Davis had an undiagnosed medical issue that makes everything that Ruth did or didn’t do moot: either way, Davis would have died.

Odette calls Corinne, Ruth’s coworker, to the stand. Ruth thinks that she would have called Corinne a friend not long ago, but now “that turned out to be proximity instead of connection” (340). After going through the facts, Corinne tells the jury about Ruth saying “[t]hat baby means nothing to me” (341). Ruth thinks, “There is no such thing as a fact. There is only how you saw the fact, in a given moment” (342). In cross-examination, Kennedy establishes that Corinne considers Ruth and herself friends and she has a lot of respect for Ruth, and then that Corinne knowingly left Davis in the care of someone who was barred from caring for him, and yet “[n]o one accused [Corinne] of killing that baby” (345).

Next on the stand is Marie. As Odette questions her, she characterizes Ruth’s reaction to being removed from Davis’s care as a “personal affront” (346). Then she walks the jury through Davis’s death and Turk’s attempts to continue resuscitation efforts, bringing herself and others to tears. Ruth remains “wooden” (347). Kennedy asks if Marie had ever clarified Ruth’s position, should an emergency situation arrive; Marie admits she had not. As the judge breaks for lunch, Ruth finds herself doubting her own motives.

Next, the anesthesiologist is called. Odette highlights the moment he asked Ruth to lighten up on her chest compressions. Kennedy establishes that this wouldn’t have contributed to Davis’s death, and that Ruth was doing her best to save his life. Then there is another recess, during which Ruth and Kennedy talk about not really having a plan B career. Ruth makes a comment about hating Turk Bauer; Kennedy cautions her to never say that. Ruth then realizes this is Odette’s strategy: to have the jury hate Turk and show that Ruth does, too, thereby establishing motive.

Dr. Atkins, the pediatrician, is next; Ruth notes she is “the first witness to take the stand who looks directly at [Ruth] and smiles” (354). Odette highlights Ruth’s comment about sterilization, and on cross-examination, Kennedy gets Dr. Atkins to admit she thought this was just a joke and was not indicative of actual malice. Kennedy then discusses the lab results that Dr. Atkins had never had a chance to see, because Davis had died before they came back. When she realizes Davis had MCADD, she gasps, seeing that it was possibly life-threatening.

After the first day of testimony, Ruth runs into Odette in the bathroom and confronts Odette about their similar backgrounds, and that Odette is nonetheless trying to “put [her] down” (359). Odette counters that she’s just doing her job; Ruth says she’s lucky that “[n]o one told you you couldn’t” (360).

The next day, Odette calls Detective MacDougall to the stand. He tells the jury about Turk Bauer’s charges and the arrest, and Ruth thinks he is mischaracterizing everything, calling Ruth “uncooperative” (363) and seeing Edison as “a large, angry Black youth who was visibly upset” (364). Kennedy shows that the arrest happened at 3 a.m., when and Edison were asleep, and then gets in trouble for asking if Edison was “wearing a hoodie too” (364).

That evening, Christina is waiting for Ruth and Edison when they get home; she says she’s been watching the trial incognito. She tells Ruth about Lou getting mad at her for picking up a black hitchhiker, and that she’s realized Lou wasn’t scared for Christina, but for the black man. The next day, the medical examiner is called and talks about the autopsy. When a picture of Davis is shown, Brittany Bauer loses it and says she’ll “make [Ruth] pay for this” (370), and is escorted out, with Turk following. When they return to the M.E.’s testimony, he explains his findings, saying that it was “not patently clear if this was a violent or a natural death,” ending by saying if Ruth had “acted, it’s possible that none of us would be sitting here” (371). On cross-examination, Kennedy again goes through the MCADD results and gets him to admit that there is “a chance Davis Bauer would be dead even if Ruth Jefferson had performed every conceivable medical intervention” (373). At first feeling exultant, Ruth then sees Odette redirect and establish that “the defendant and her legal team might be grasping at straws” (374).

That night, while Ruth is preparing dinner, Edison leaves and doesn’t come back for hours. Ruth waits up for him, worried, and thinks about other patients she’s had who have lost their baby, and one patient in particular, for whom it took a long time to get her to accept the death. Edison finally returns six hours later, and Ruth says he needs to be more careful because she “may have to leave [him]” (378).

After Brit’s outburst in the courtroom, Turk tries to comfort her. Then Odette Lawton comes in and says a mother who is “acting so distraught” is good for juries. (379). Brit gets upset and leaves. Odette tells Turk she can’t put Brit on the stand because she’s a “wild card” and instead will call Turk. Turk wonders if this means “that [he] loved Davis less” than Brit did (381). Then Odette tells him about the MCADD. At first Turk is blindsided, worried that Davis was actually sick and the hospital missed it, but Odette says it’s just a maybe, and “there is no room for maybe in this trial. [...] Your son is dead” (381).

The next day, Turk is sworn in. For a moment he thinks of Twinkie, his sort-of friend from prison and wonders if he saw Twinkie now, if he’d “just be another nigger” (382). He is aware of people looking at his swastika tattoo. Odette asks him about the experience of having his son being born, and he says, “I’ve never felt that way in my life” and that “It was like I could see my whole future right there in his face” (383). Then he talks about being a white supremacist and removing Ruth from Davis’s care, and then seeing her “jackhammering on his chest so hard she was practically breaking him in half” (384). He then tells about trying to revive Davis after they had declared him dead and lets out a sob, saying “I wasn’t going to quit on my own kid,” while Brittany “keens” from the gallery (384). He ends this part of the testimony by saying that he just wanted to “give my baby the best chance at life he could possibly have,” asking if that makes him hateful or “does that just make me a father?” (386). Before cross-examination, Odette counsels him to not “screw it up by focusing on who you hate” (386). When she leaves, Turk asks if Brit thinks they “brought this down on ourselves”; Britt responds by asking, “When did you become such a pussy?” (386). He then thinks back to their neighbor’s dog who wouldn’t let Brit get any sleep while she was pregnant. She had poisoned it, saying it was either “our baby, or that fucking dog” (387).

Next, Kennedy questions Turk. She again goes over the MCADD, and at first Turk sticks to the script well, saying the condition was just a possibility and had never been confirmed. Kennedy submits one of his tweets as evidence, in which he had said “We all get what’s coming to us” (388).Kennedy then says Davis and his parents must have gotten what was coming to them. Turk gets upset, saying it was Ruth, but Kennedy counters that “You have to blame Ruth Jefferson, because if you don’t, then you’re the one to blame” (389). Turk loses it and lunges for Kennedy’s throat, calling her a “race traitor” (389). He doesn’t remember being escorted from the courtroom and put in a cell, but when Odette comes to get him and tell him he “undid any advantage the State might have had in this case” and that the “prosecution rests,” Turk thinks, “But I won’t. Ever” (390).