Small Great Things(45)

I sit down on the bench. It is made of metal, and the chill goes right through my nightgown. I have to pee, but I am too embarrassed to do it here, in the open, because what if that’s the moment they come for me?

I wonder if Edison has called Adisa, if even now she is trying to get me out of here. I wonder if Adisa has filled him in, told him about the baby that died. I wonder if my own boy blames me.

I have a sudden flash of myself just twelve hours ago, dipping strands of a crystal chandelier into an ammonia solution while classical music played in the Hallowells’ brownstone. The incongruity makes me choke on a laugh. Or perhaps it is a sob. I can’t tell anymore.

Maybe if Adisa can’t get me out of here, the Hallowells can. They know people who know people. But my mama would have to be told what happened first, and although she would defend me to her death, I know there would be a part of her thinking, How did it come to this? How did this girl, whose lucky life I broke my back for, wind up in a jail cell?

And I wouldn’t know the answer. On one side of the seesaw is my education. My nursing certification. My twenty years of service at the hospital. My neat little home. My spotless Toyota RAV4. My National Honor Society–inductee son. All these building blocks of my existence, and yet the only quality straddling the other side is so hulking and dense that it tips the balance every time: my brown skin.

Well.

I didn’t do all this hard work for nothing. I can still use that fancy college degree and the years I’ve spent in the company of white people to turn this around, to make the policemen understand that this is a misunderstanding. Like them, I live in this town. Like them, I pay my taxes. They have so much more in common with me than with the angry bigot who started this debacle.

I have no idea how long it is until someone returns to the cell; I don’t have a watch or a clock. But it’s enough time for me to get that spark of hope burning in my chest again. So when I hear the tumblers click, I look up with a grateful smile.

“I’m going to take you for questioning,” the young officer says. “I have to, um, you know.” He gestures to my hands.

I stand up. “You must be exhausted,” I tell him. “Staying awake all night.”

He shrugs, but he also blushes. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

“I bet your mama’s so proud of you. I know I would be. I think my son’s only a couple of years younger than you.” I hold my hands out in front of me, innocent and wide-eyed, as he glances down at my wrists.

“You know, I think we’re okay without them,” he says after a beat. He puts his hand on my arm, still firmly guiding me.

I hide my smile inside. I take this as a victory.

I am left alone in a room with a large mirror that I am sure is a window to another space on the other side of the wall. There is a tape recorder on the table, and a fan that is whirring overhead, although it is freezing here, too. I flex my hands on my lap, waiting. I don’t stare at my reflection, because I know they are watching, and because of this I can only catch a glimpse of myself. In my nightgown, I might as well be a ghost.

When the door opens, two detectives enter—a bull of a man and a tiny sprite. “I’m Detective MacDougall,” says the man. “And this is Detective Leong.”

She smiles at me. I try to read into it. You are a woman too, I think, hoping for telepathy. You are Asian American. You’ve been in my seat metaphorically, if not literally.

“Can I get you some water, Mrs. Jefferson?” asks Detective Leong.

“That would be nice,” I say.

While she goes to get me water, Detective MacDougall explains to me that I don’t have to talk to them, but if I do, what I say might be used against me in court. Then again, he points out, if I have nothing to hide, maybe I’d like to give them my side of the story.

“Yes,” I say, although I have watched enough cop shows to know that I am supposed to shut up. But that is fiction; this is real life. I didn’t do anything illegal. And if I don’t explain, how will anyone ever know that? If I don’t explain, doesn’t that just make me look like I’m guilty?

He asks if it’s all right to turn on the tape recorder.

“Of course,” I say. “And thank you. Thank you so much for being willing to hear me out. This is all a very big misunderstanding, I’m afraid.”

By now Detective Leong is back. She hands me the water and I drink it all, a full eight-ounce glass. I did not know until I started how thirsty I was.

“Be that as it may, Ms. Jefferson,” says MacDougall, “we have some pretty strong evidence to contradict what you’re saying. You don’t deny that you were present when Davis Bauer died?”

“No,” I reply. “I was there. It was awful.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“I was part of the crash team. The baby became very ill, very fast. We did the best we could.”

“Yet I just finished looking at photos from the medical examiner that suggest the child was physically abused—”

“Well, there you are,” I blurt out. “I didn’t touch that baby.”

“You just said you were part of the crash team,” MacDougall points out.

“But I didn’t touch the baby until he started to code.”

“At which point you started hammering on the baby’s chest—”