The Lobotomist's Wife(39)

“Ruth, what is it? You’re doing all you can. We all are.” Edward crossed the room and touched her back tentatively, like an awkward boy looking to comfort his mother.

“But what if it isn’t enough?”

“What if what isn’t enough?” Robert asked as he bounded through the door. “Eddie, my boy, what on earth have you done to bring my wife to tears?”

Ruth chuckled at what she realized was the absurdity of this moment. She shouldn’t be the one crying. Robert and Edward worked nonstop for their patients. When they weren’t treating people at Emeraldine, they traveled to other hospitals to train their doctors in lobotomy. They had even begun to consult for the Veterans Administration. These two men were swimming in a sea of mentally ill soldiers, and she had to stay strong and support them and her hospital. “Sorry, dear. Edward just caught me having a moment. Time to go home?” Ruth stood, gave Edward’s arm a grateful squeeze, and neatly restacked the remaining files on her desk. She could read them first thing tomorrow morning.

Robert helped her with her coat and turned out her light, then the three of them walked down the dimly lit corridor toward the exit.

“Eddie, I think it is time that I tell Ruth about my new idea, don’t you?”

“You haven’t told her yet?” Edward sounded surprised, perhaps relieved. “I thought you told Ruth everything the moment it entered your head.”

“Yes, yes. I usually do.” Robert inclined his head toward Ruth and gave her a little smile. “But we’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t had time for a proper conversation. And, with her being the final decision maker on all matters at the hospital now, I need to be careful to present to her professionally.” He laughed. Robert had been thrilled about Ruth’s promotion both for her success and because he knew she was the greatest champion of his ideas. “In fact, Eddie, why don’t you come back to the house with us? We are staying in the city since it is so late. It will be the perfect time to begin to explain my idea to Ruth. The three of us can talk about it while we eat. You can spend the night.”

“Edward, you are always welcome to stay with us, of course. But I am too exhausted for any sort of presentation tonight. I plan to head straight to bed when we get home.” Ruth was comfortable enough around Edward that she didn’t worry about offending him.

“Come now, Ruthie, you need to eat. And I promise this will be worth staying awake for.”

“Frankly, I don’t even know if there’s anything in the house for supper. But I suppose Liana can make some sandwiches.”

Once they were seated at the dining table with a simple supper of omelets, greens, and French baguettes, Robert excitedly began. “What if I told you I’ve come up with an adaptation of our lobotomy that could exponentially grow the number of people we can treat?”

“Exponentially?” Ruth knew Robert had been struggling with the constraints that prefrontal lobotomy presented. Emeraldine currently had a backlog of patients still waiting for the treatment because the hospital didn’t have the capacity to administer the care required for so many. It was even worse in the overcrowded and less well-funded public hospitals that Robert had been visiting. If they could perform more lobotomies, it would be a boon to mental health.

“You heard me correctly.” Robert smiled and stood, preparing for what Ruth now thought of as his “professorial mode” of conversation. “Amarro Fiamberti.” He paused for dramatic effect or, perhaps, because Liana had arrived with a tray of food for them. As she left quietly, he continued. “This Italian doctor has been accessing the brain differently, without disturbing the skull. Through the upper membrane of the eye socket.”

“Through the eyes?” Ruth didn’t understand. “For lobotomy?”

“Well, he isn’t using the access point regularly for lobotomy. But I think we can.”

“But, how can you . . .”

“We’ve been doing lobotomies for nearly a decade now. We understand where we need to be in the brain. Eddie could do them blind at this point. Not that he ever would.” Robert laughed, turning to Edward. “Perhaps you should try that first.”

“Robert, how can you joke?” Ruth admonished.

“I’m not joking, exactly. If we enter up through the eye socket—transorbitally—we would essentially be performing a lobotomy with no view of the brain. But we can do that, I think, because we know that part of the brain so well now. Plus, there is some margin for error. Right, Eddie?”

“Well.” He looked at Ruth, seeming a bit uncomfortable. “Robert believes that since none of the patients from whom we’ve taken samples have shown any difference in result from those who we haven’t, that if we weren’t perfectly precise in the transorbital approach, the patients wouldn’t suffer.”

“Samples?” Ruth sought confirmation.

“Yes, the live tissue we’ve periodically collected for our research has helped our progress tremendously.”

“Right, of course.” Ruth wasn’t certain she knew about this, but she assumed they had told her at some point, and she simply hadn’t thought to make a note of it. It was a common enough practice for patients to serve the double duty of research subjects. “So, what is the benefit of this new point of entry for lobotomy? How would it change anything?”