THE NEXT MORNING, Judge Thunder summons Odette and me to chambers. “I got a note from the foreman. We have a hung jury. Eleven to one.” He shakes his head. “I’m very sorry, ladies.”
After he dismisses us, I find Howard pacing outside chambers. “Well?”
“Mistrial. They’re deadlocked, eleven to one.”
“Who’s the holdout?” Howard asks, but it’s a rhetorical question; he knows I don’t have that information.
Suddenly, though, we both stop walking and face each other. “Juror number twelve,” we say simultaneously.
“Ten bucks?” Howard asks.
“You’re on,” I tell him.
“I knew we should have used a peremptory strike on her.”
“You haven’t won that bet yet,” I point out. But deep down, I imagine he’s right. The teacher who couldn’t admit to having any implicit racism would have been mightily offended by my closing argument.
Ruth is waiting for me in the conference room. She looks up, hopeful. “They can’t reach a verdict,” I say.
“So now what?”
“That depends,” I explain. “The case can be tried again, later, with a new jury. Or else Odette just gives up and doesn’t pursue this any further.”
“Do you think she—?”
“I learned a long time ago not to pretend I can think like a prosecutor,” I admit. “We’re just going to have to see.”
In the courtroom, the jury files in, looking exhausted. “Madam Foreman,” the judge says. “I understand that the jury has been unable to reach a verdict. Is that correct?”
The foreman stands. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Do you feel that further time would enable you to resolve this case finally between the State and Ms. Jefferson?”
“Unfortunately, Your Honor, some of us just cannot see eye to eye.”
“Thank you for your service,” Judge Thunder says. “I am dismissing this jury.”
The men and women exit. In the gallery, there are hushed whispers, as people try to understand what this means. I try to figure out in my head the odds that Odette will go back to a grand jury for that involuntary manslaughter charge.
“There is still one final thing that needs to be done in this trial,” Judge Thunder continues. “I am prepared to rule on the defense’s renewed motion for judgment of acquittal.”
Howard looks at me over Ruth’s head. What?
Holy shit. Judge Thunder is going to use the escape hatch I gave him as a matter of routine. I hold my breath.
“I have researched the law, and have reviewed the evidence in this case very carefully. There is no credible proof that the death of this child was causally related to any action or inaction of the defendant’s.” He faces Ruth. “I am very sorry you had to go through what you did at your workplace, ma’am.” He smacks his gavel. “I grant the defense’s motion.”
In this humbling moment I learn that not only can I not think like a prosecutor, I am woefully off-base about the mental machinations of a judge. I turn, a dazed laugh bubbling up inside me. Ruth’s brow is furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
He hasn’t declared a mistrial. He’s granted a bona fide acquittal.
“Ruth,” I say, grinning. “You are free to go.”
FREEDOM IS THE FRAGILE NECK of a daffodil, after the longest of winters. It’s the sound of your voice, without anyone drowning you out. It’s having the grace to say yes, and more important, the right to say no. At the heart of freedom, hope beats: a pulse of possibility.
I am the same woman I was five minutes ago. I’m rooted to the same chair. My hands are flattened on the same scarred table. My lawyers are both still flanking me. That fluorescent light overhead is still spitting like a cockroach. Nothing has changed, and everything is different.
In a daze, I walk out of the courtroom. A bumper crop of microphones blooms in front of me. Kennedy instructs everyone that although her client is obviously delighted with the verdict, we will not be making any statements until we give an official press conference tomorrow.
That right now, her client has to get home to her son.
There are a few stragglers, hoping for a sound bite, but eventually they drift away. There is a professor being arraigned down the hall for possession of child pornography.
The world turns, and there’s another victim, another bully. It’s the arc of someone else’s story now.
I text Edison, who calls me even though he has to leave class to do it, and I listen to the relief braided through his words. I call Adisa at work, and have to hold the phone away from my ear as she screams with joy. I’m interrupted by a text from Christina: a full row of smiling emojis, and then a hamburger and a glass of wine and a question mark.
Rain check? I type back.
“Ruth,” Kennedy says, when she finds me standing with my phone in my hand, staring into space. “You all right?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, completely honest. “It’s really over?”
Howard smiles. “It is really, truly, unequivocally over.”
“Thank you,” I say. I embrace him, and then I face Kennedy. “And you…” I shake my head. “I don’t even know what to say.”