It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life and think you are seeing yourself clearly. And then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, and you realize you’ve never truly seen yourself at all.

I am struggling to find the correct response here: to tell Edison that he was right in his actions, but that he could beat up every boy in that school and it would not make a difference in the long run. I am struggling to find a way to make him believe that in spite of this, we have to put one foot in front of the other every day and pray it will be better the next time the sun rises. That if our legacy is not entitlement, it must be hope.

Because if it’s not, then we become the shiftless, the wandering, the conquered. We become what they think we are.

—

EDISON AND I take the bus home in silence. As we turn the corner of our block, I tell him he’s grounded. “For how long?” he asks.

“A week,” I say.

He scowls. “This isn’t even going on my record.”

“How many times I tell you that if you want to be taken seriously, you gotta be twice as good as everyone else?”

“Or maybe I could punch more white people,” Edison says. “Principal took me pretty seriously for doing that.”

My mouth tightens. “Two weeks,” I say.

He storms away, taking the porch stairs in one leap, pushing through the front door, nearly knocking down a woman standing in front of it, holding a large cardboard box.

Kennedy.

I’m so angry about Edison’s suspension that I’ve completely forgotten we have picked this afternoon to review the State’s discovery. “Is this a bad time?” Kennedy asks delicately. “We can reschedule…”

I feel a flush rise from my collar to my cheeks. “No. This is fine—something…unexpected…came up. I’m sorry you had to hear that; my son is not usually so rude.” I hold the door open so that she can enter my house. “It gets harder when you can’t give them a swat on the behind anymore because they’re bigger than you are.”

She looks shocked, but covers it quickly with a polite smile.

As I take her coat to hang up, I glance at the couch and single armchair, the tiny kitchen, and try to see it through her eyes. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Water would be great.”

I go to the kitchen to fill a glass—it’s only steps away from her, separated by a counter—while Kennedy glances at the photographs on the mantel. Edison’s latest school photo is there, as well as one of us on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and the picture of Wesley and me on our wedding day.

She begins to unpack the box of files she lugged inside as I sit down on the couch. Edison is in his bedroom, stewing. “I’ve had a look through the discovery,” Kennedy begins, “but this is where I really need your help. It’s the baby’s chart. I can read legalese, but I’m not fluent in medical.”

I open the file, my shoulders stiffening when I turn the photocopied page of Marie’s Post-it note. “It’s all accurate—height, weight, Apgar scores, eyes and thighs—”

“What?”

“An antibiotic eye ointment and a vitamin K shot. It’s standard for newborns.”

Kennedy reaches across me and points to a number. “What’s that mean?”

“The baby’s blood sugar was low. He hadn’t nursed. The mom had gestational diabetes, so that wasn’t particularly surprising.”

“Is that your handwriting?” she asks.

“No, I wasn’t the delivery nurse. That was Lucille; I took over for her after her shift ended.” I flip the page. “This is the newborn assessment—the form I filled out. Temperature of ninety-eight point one,” I read, “nothing concerning about his hair whorls or fontanels; Accu-Chek at fifty-two—his sugar was improving. His lungs were clear. No bruising or abnormal shaping of the skull. Length nineteen point five inches, head circumference thirteen point five inches.” I shrug. “The exam was perfectly fine, except for a possible heart murmur. You can see where I noted it in the file and flagged the pediatric cardiology team.”

“What did the cardiologist say?”

“He never got a chance to diagnose it. The baby died before that.” I frown. “Where are the results of the heel stick?”

“What’s that?”

“Routine testing.”

“I’ll subpoena it,” Kennedy says absently. She starts tossing around papers and files until she finds one labeled with the seal of the medical examiner. “Ah, look at this…Cause of death: hypoglycemia leading to hypoglycemic seizure leading to respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest,” Kennedy says. “Cardiac arrest? As in: a congenital heart defect?”

She hands me the report. “Well, I was right, for what it’s worth,” I say. “The baby had a grade-one patent ductus.”

“Is that life-threatening?”

“No. It usually closes up by itself the first year of life.”

“Usually,” she repeats. “But not always.”

I shake my head, confused. “We can’t say the baby was sick if he wasn’t.”