Now I know: adulthood is a line drawn in the sand. At some point, your child will be standing on the other side.
I thought he’d wander. I thought the line might shift.
I never expected that something I did would be the thing that pushed him over it.
—
IT TAKES ME a long time to figure out what to wear to the public defender’s office. For twenty-five years I’ve dressed in scrubs; my nice clothing is reserved for church. But somehow a floral dress with a lace collar and kitten heels don’t seem right for a business meeting. In the back of my closet I find a navy skirt I wore to parent-teacher night at Edison’s school, and pair it with a striped blouse my mama bought me for Christmas from Talbots that still has the tags on. I rummage past my collection of Dansko clogs—the saviors of nurses everywhere—and find a pair of flats that are a little worse for the wear, but that match.
When I arrive at the address on the letterhead, I’m sure I’ve got the wrong place. There’s no one at the front desk—in fact, there isn’t a front desk. There are cubicles and towers of boxes that form a maze, as if the employees are mice and this is all part of some grand scientific test. I take a few steps inside and suddenly hear my name.
“Ruth! Hello! Kennedy McQuarrie!”
As if I could possibly have forgotten her. I nod, and shake her hand, because she’s holding out her own. I don’t really understand why she is my lawyer. She told me flat out, at the arraignment, that wouldn’t be the case.
She starts chattering, so much that I can’t get a word in edgewise. But that’s okay, because I’m nervous as all get-out. I don’t have the money for a private lawyer, at least not without liquidating everything I’ve saved for Edison’s education, and I would go to prison for life before I let that happen. Still, just because everyone can have a lawyer in this country doesn’t mean all lawyers are the same. On TV the people who have private attorneys get acquitted, and the ones with public defenders pretend that there isn’t a difference.
Ms. McQuarrie suggests we go somewhere for lunch, even though I’m too anxious to eat. I start to take out my wallet after we order, but she insists on paying. At first, I bristle—ever since I was little, and started wearing Christina’s hand-me-downs, I haven’t wanted to be someone’s charity case. But before I can complain I check myself. What if this is what she does with all her clients, just to build up rapport? What if she’s trying to make me like her as much as I want her to like me?
After we sit down with our trays, out of habit, I say grace. Mind you, I’m used to doing that when other people don’t. Corinne’s an atheist who’s always joking about the Spaghetti Monster in the Sky when she hears me pray or sees me bow my head over my bag lunch. So I’m not surprised when I find Ms. McQuarrie staring at me as I finish. “So you’re a churchgoer,” she says.
“Is that a problem?” Maybe she knows something I don’t, like that juries are more likely to convict people who believe in God.
“Not at all. In fact, it’s good to know, because it’s something that can help a jury like you.”
Hearing her say that, I look into my lap. Am I so naturally unlikable that she needs to find things that will sway people in my favor?
“First,” she says, “do you prefer the term Black or African American or people of color?”
What I prefer, I think, is Ruth. But I swallow my response and say, “People of color.”
Once, at work, an orderly named Dave went off on a rant about that term. “It’s not like I don’t have color,” he’d said, holding out his pasty arms. “I’m not see-through, right? But I guess people of more color hasn’t caught on.” Then he had noticed me in the break room, and had gone red to his hairline. “Sorry, Ruth. But you know, I hardly think of you as Black.”
My lawyer is still talking. “I don’t even see color,” she tells me. “I mean, the only race that matters is the human one, right?”
It’s easy to believe we’re all in this together when you’re not the one who was dragged out of your home by the police. But I know that when white people say things like that, they are doing it because they think it’s the right thing to say, not because they realize how glib they sound. A couple of years ago, Adisa went ballistic when #alllivesmatter took over Twitter as a response to the activists who were holding signs that said BLACK LIVES MATTER. “What they’re really saying is white lives matter,” Adisa told me. “And that Black folks better remember that before we get too bold for our own good.”
Ms. McQuarrie coughs lightly, and I realize my mind’s been wandering. I force my eyes to her face, smile tightly. “Remind me again where you went to school?” she asks.
I feel like this is a test. “SUNY Plattsburgh, and then Yale Nursing School.”
“Impressive.”
What is? That I’m college educated? That I went to Yale? Is this what Edison will face for the rest of his life, too?
Edison.
“Ms. McQuarrie,” I begin.