“Have you been employed since?”
“I went on public assistance, briefly,” Ruth says. “Then I got a job at McDonald’s.”
“Ruth, how has your life changed in the aftermath of this incident?”
She takes a deep breath. “I don’t have any savings anymore. We live from week to week. I’m worried about my son’s future. I can’t use my car because I can’t afford to register it.”
I turn my back, but Ruth isn’t finished speaking.
“It’s funny,” she says softly. “You think you’re a respected member of a community—the hospital where you work, the town where you live. I had a wonderful job. I had colleagues who were friends. I lived in a home I was proud of. But it was just an optical illusion. I was never a member of any of those communities. I was tolerated, but not welcomed. I was, and will always be, different from them.” She looks up. “And because of the color of my skin, I will be the one who’s blamed.”
Oh God,I think.Oh God, oh God, shut up, Ruth. Don’t go here.“Nothing further,” I say, trying to cut our losses.
Because Ruth is no longer a witness. She’s a time bomb.
—
WHENISITback down at the defense table, Howard is gaping. He pushes me a piece of paper:WHAT IS GOING ON???
I write back on the bottom:That was an example of what you NEVER want a witness to do.
Odette strides toward the witness stand. “You were instructed not to touch that baby?”
“Yes,” Ruth says.
“And until today you said that you had not touched that baby until you were expressly told to by your charge nurse?”
“Yes.”
“Yet now you testified on your direct examination that you in factdidtouch that baby while he was in distress?”
Ruth nods. “That’s true.”
“So which is it?” Odette presses. “Did you or didn’t you touch Davis Bauer when he initially stopped breathing?”
“I did.”
“So let me get this straight. You lied to your supervisor?”
“Yes.”
“And you lied to your colleague Corinne?”
“Yes.”
“You lied to the risk management team at Mercy–West Haven, didn’t you?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“You lied to the police?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Even though you realize they have a duty and a moral obligation to try to find out what happened to that dead infant?”
“I know but—”
“You were thinking of saving your job,” Odette corrects, “because deep down you knew you were doing something shady. Isn’t that right?”
