I know,she said.
That’s all she wants. To let people know she was treated unfairly because of her race, and for her reputation as a caregiver to remain intact, even if it means it will be tarnished by a guilty verdict.
“Drinking alone,” Micah says, when he comes home from the hospital and finds me in the dark, in the kitchen, with a bottle of Syrah. “That’s the first sign, you know.”
I lift up my glass, and take a long swallow. “Of what?”
“Adulthood, probably,” he admits. “Hard day at the office?”
“It started out great. Legendary, even. And then went to hell very quickly.”
Micah sits down next to me and loosens his tie. “Do you want to talk about it? Or should I get my own bottle?”
I push the Syrah toward him. “I thought I had an acquittal in the bag,” I sigh. “And then Ruth went and decided to ruin it all.”
While he pours himself a glass of wine, I tell him everything. From the way Turk Bauer spouted his rhetoric of hate to the look in his eyes when he came after me; from the rush of adrenaline I got when my motion for judgment of acquittal was granted to Ruth’s admission about resuscitating the baby to the dizzy realization that I had to put Ruth on the stand if she demanded it. Even if it was going to tank my chances of winning my first murder case.
“What am I supposed to do tomorrow?” I ask. “No matter what I ask Ruth on the stand, she’s going to be incriminating herself. And that doesn’t even begin to consider what the prosecutor’s going to do to her on cross.” I shudder, thinking about Odette, who doesn’t even know that this boon is about to be granted. “I can’t believe I was so close,” I say softly. “I can’t believe she’s going to ruin it.”
Micah clears his throat. “Radical thought number one: maybe you need to take yourself out of this equation.”
I’ve drunk enough that he’s a little fuzzy at the edges, so maybe I’ve just misheard. “I beg your pardon?”
“Youweren’t close.Ruthwas.”
I snort. “That’s semantics. We both win, or we both lose.”
“But she has more at stake than you do,” Micah says gently. “Her reputation. Her career. Her life. This is the first trial that really matters to you, Kennedy. But it’s the only one that matters to Ruth.”
I scrub a hand through my hair. “What’s radical thought number two?”
“What if the best thing for Ruthisn’twinning this case?” Micah replies. “What if the reason this is so important to her isn’t because ofwhatshe’s going to say…but rather the fact that she is finally being given the chance to say it?”
Is it worth being able to say what you need to say, if it means you land in prison? If it nets you a conviction? That goes against everything I’ve ever been taught, everything I’ve ever believed.
But I’m not the one on trial.
I press my fingers against my temples. Micah’s words circle in my mind.
He takes his glass and empties it into mine. “You need it more than I do,” he says, and he kisses me on the forehead. “Don’t stay up too late.”
—
ONFRIDAY MORNING,as I am hurrying to meet Ruth in the parking lot, I pass the memorial on the green near City Hall. It commemorates Sengbe Pieh, who was one of the slaves involved in theAmistadmutiny. In 1839 a ship carried a group of Africans taken from their home to be slaves in the Caribbean. The Africans revolted, killed the captain and cook, and forced other sailors on board to head back toward Africa. The sailors, though, tricked the Africans, and headed north—where the ship was boarded by U.S. authorities. The Africans were imprisoned in a warehouse in New Haven, pending trial.
The Africans revolted because a mulatto cook had heard that the white crew planned to kill the blacks and eat the meat themselves. The whites on board believed the Africans were cannibals.
Neither side was right.
When I reach the parking lot, Ruth won’t even make eye contact with me. She starts walking quickly toward the courthouse, Edison by her side, until I grab her by the arm. “Are you still determined to do this?”
“Did you think if I slept on it I’d change my mind?” she asks.
“I hadhoped,” I admit. “I’m begging you, Ruth.”
“Mama?” Edison looks at her face, and then mine, confused.
I raise my brows as if to say,Think of what you’re doing to him.
