Small Great Things(90)
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.”