“At some point, did the defendant interact with your son again?”
I nod. “Davis was being circumcised. It was supposed to be no big deal. They were going to take him to the nursery and bring him back as soon as it was done. But the next thing I know, all hell breaks loose. People were screaming, calling for help, crash carts were being pushed down the hall, everyone was running toward the nursery. My kid was in there, and I just…I guess Brit and I knew. We got to the nursery and there was a crowd of people huddled around my son, and that woman, she had her hands on my baby again.” I swallow. “She was hurting him. She was jackhammering on his chest so hard she was practically breaking him in half.”
“Objection!” the other lawyer says.
The judge purses his lips. “I’ll allow it.”
“How did you react, Mr. Bauer?”
“I didn’t say anything. Brit and I, we were both shocked. I mean, they told us this procedure was nothing. We were supposed to go home that afternoon. It was like my brain couldn’t process what was right before my eyes.”
“Then what happened?”
The jury, I realize, is on the edge of their seats. Every face is turned toward me. “The doctors and the nurses, they were moving so fast I couldn’t tell whose hands were whose. Then the pediatrician came in—Dr. Atkins. She worked for a little bit on my son, and then she…then she said there was nothing else to do.” The words become three-dimensional, a movie I can’t turn away from. The pediatrician looking at the clock. The way the others all stepped back, their hands in the air, like someone was pointing a gun at them. My son, too still.
A sob belches out of me. I hold tight to the chair. If I let go, my fists will take over. I will find someone to punish. I look up, and for just one second, I let them all see how empty I am inside. “She said my son was dead.”
Odette Lawton walks toward me with a box of Kleenex. She puts it on the railing between us, but I don’t make a move to take a tissue. I am glad, right now, that Brit doesn’t have to go through this. I don’t want her to have to relive that moment.
“What did you do next?”
“I couldn’t let them stop.” The words feel like glass on my tongue. “If they weren’t going to save him, I was. So I went to the trash and I pulled out the bag they were using to help Davis breathe. I tried to figure out how to attach it again. I wasn’t going to quit on my own kid.”
I hear a sound, a high-pitched keen, one that I recognize from the weeks that Brit did not get out of bed, but shook our home with the force of her grieving. She is hunched over in her seat in the gallery, a human question mark, as if her whole body is asking why this happened to us.
“Mr. Bauer,” the prosecutor says gently, drawing my attention back. “Some people here would call you a White Supremacist, and would say that you were the one who started this ball rolling by requesting that an African American nurse be removed from the care of your child. They might even blame you for your own misfortune. How would you respond?”
I take a deep breath. “All I was trying to do was give my baby the best chance in life he could possibly have. Does that make me a White Supremacist?” I ask. “Or does that just make me a father?”
—
DURING THE RECESS, Odette coaches me in the conference room. “Her job is to do whatever she can to make the jury hate you. A little bit of that is okay, because it shows the jury the nurse’s motive. But just a little. Your job is to do whatever you can to make them see what they have in common with you, not what sets you apart. This is supposed to be a case about how much you loved your son. Don’t screw it up by focusing on who you hate.”
She leaves Brit and me alone for a few minutes, before we are called back to the courtroom. “Her,” Brit says, as soon as the door closes behind her. “I hate her.”
I turn to my wife. “Do you think she’s right? Do you think we brought this down on ourselves?”
I have been thinking about what Odette Lawton said: if I hadn’t spoken out against the black nurse, would this have ended differently? Would she have tried to save Davis the minute she realized he wasn’t breathing? Would she have treated him like any other critical patient, instead of wanting to hurt me like I’d hurt her?
My son would be five months old now. Would he be sitting up on his own? Would he smile when he saw me?
I believe in God. I believe in a God who recognizes the work we are doing for Him on this earth. But then why would He punish His warriors?
Brit stands up, a look of disgust rippling her features. “When did you become such a pussy?” she asks, and she turns away from me.