The Lobotomist's Wife(13)
“Hello, Father, thank you,” Ruth responded softly, wishing what she looked like didn’t matter so much, and then walked to her father’s side to give him a forced kiss on the cheek.
“Well, I’m hungry, let’s head into the dining room.”
“Bernard, give them a moment to settle in, have a drink. They haven’t even lost the chill from their clothes! I’ll just go let Chef know that we will be ready shortly, but you three settle in for a cocktail.”
Ruth saw her father shoot her mother a frustrated glance before he stood up and headed to the bar cart. “Dr. Apter, how do you take your martini?”
Ruth never stopped being surprised at the power her mother seemed to have over her otherwise domineering father. Helen and Harry were the only two people in Bernard’s life who could soften him that way. Ruth wished she had the same skill.
“Dry with two olives, if you have them,” Robert replied confidently. Ruth warmed inside, proud to see that her father couldn’t easily intimidate her husband-to-be. “Mr. Emeraldine, I am anxious to know your thoughts on the direction we are moving in the hospital. Are you pleased with the development of the research lab?”
“I find it interesting,” Bernard answered in a flat and dismissive tone as he walked back to the seating area with two cocktails. Ruth could see him working to remain indifferent and began to worry about the path the evening might take.
“Well, it is interesting! We Americans have become so fixated on analysis over the past few decades that we have lost track of the fact that mental health is part of the medical field. We need the discipline of deconstructive research. Dissection, imaging, biological exploration. Talking isn’t going to move inmates out of asylums and into society again. We need medical action.”
Bernard sat quietly, his lips tight, his eyes seemingly unblinking as he stared at Robert, almost daring him to continue. A clammy sweat began to form on Ruth’s lower back, and she worried that her father would launch into one of his infamous tirades. She had never seen Robert challenged, and she feared he might be a fiery and defensive adversary.
Instead, her father said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.” Ruth was so stunned she nearly choked on her cocktail. “While I think Dr. Freud’s little theories are lovely for people with minor malaise, we are running a hospital. We need to think more medically. That’s why I was so pleased when Ruth told me they had hired you.” Ruth began to fume—if her father was happy about Robert’s hire, he certainly hadn’t said a word to her. In fact, she could hardly remember him registering the conversation, let alone having a positive opinion about it. “You might not be aware, but while I myself have no formal training in medicine, I have made an examination of the trade my second career. Would you like to see my study, Dr. Apter?” Bernard rose and Robert followed.
“Robert, you will enjoy this,” Ruth said as brightly as she could, knowing that she should be glad that her father took an interest in Robert instead of hurt that, as usual, he excluded her. “Father has the largest medical library of any private home in the country.”
“Larger than some universities,” Bernard added as he ushered Robert out of the living room and down the hall. A painful sense of déjà vu overtook Ruth as she watched her fiancé and her father head toward the wood-paneled hallway. She felt as though she had spent her entire childhood on one side of the double doors while, on the other, Harry and Bernard had discussed everything she found truly interesting: contagion, virology, surgical innovations, and treatment trials.
Ruth and her mother sat for nearly an hour, Helen growing agitated about dinner and Ruth suffering through tales of the tribulations of this season’s party schedule. “It is widely known that the Rockefellers host the first party of the holiday season. But this year, that Woolworth girl—you know, Barbara Hutton—stole the season right out from under them.” Ruth looked at her mother, perplexed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ruth! Do you pay no attention? I am certain I told you about the event after you refused to attend with us—at the grand, new Ritz-Carlton? The eucalyptus and silver birch trees imported all the way from California? Four orchestras? It was a bit garish, but it was the absolute talk of the town. A party unlike any other. Of course, now Abby Rockefeller is simply beside herself because her Christmas ball will seem so pedestrian in comparison.”
“Such a shame,” Ruth said without intonation as she stared at the archway, waiting anxiously for Robert and her father to return.
“Why, yes, it is! And now Madeleine Astor Dick is talking about hosting an additional ball here in New York—she says it is all the rage to have more spontaneous parties. Honestly, I am not sure we will ever get to Palm Beach.”
How could Helen possibly think that Ruth cared about any of this? What did it matter who hosted which parties and where, when people struggled every day just to stay warm? She knew the answer, of course, but somehow it never failed to hurt a little. Much like Bernard, Helen didn’t see the woman who was actually sitting in front of her; instead, when forced to spend time with her daughter, Helen simply pretended Ruth was the person Helen wanted her to be. Just at the point when Ruth felt she might actually explode, the men returned. They had a relaxed energy between them, and an undercurrent of excitement that Ruth rarely saw in her father.
“Bernard, the entrée is likely to be entirely dried out at this point. Honestly!”