The Lobotomist's Wife(4)

Fifteen minutes later, with Nellie significantly calmer and safely in the straitjacket, Ruth stood and assured Nellie they would release her from her restraints soon, then turned on the heel of her white-and-brown lace-up oxfords to move on with her rounds. She looked at her watch and was disappointed to find that it was nearly nine o’clock already—she wouldn’t have time to visit the colored dormitories or the women in the private rooms if she wanted to check in on the new patient admitted the evening before. This woman had been brought in from the Bowery, her body covered in bruises, her face bleeding, her left eye swollen shut. She would have been taken to the medical wing had she not been ranting and raving.

“I’ll kill him before I let him touch me again,” she had screamed over and over in a shrill wail as the orderlies brought her in. Ruth shuddered as she thought of what might have happened to the poor woman.

She walked directly to the hydrotherapy room, where she assumed the doctor would have placed her. The warm, continuous-flow bath was hardly cutting-edge, but Ruth still believed it was one of the best tools in their arsenal for calming agitation.

The room was lined with eight metal tubs, each containing what appeared at first glance to be floating heads. From the neck down, the women’s bodies lay beneath a hinged lid that ran the length of the tub, designed to ensure they remained submerged and unable to flail in the water, which could be made extremely hot or intensely cold to either shock or soothe their systems. Ruth found the woman from the previous evening reclining calmly as a nurse fed her some broth.

“And how is our new patient today?” Ruth asked the nurse while offering a welcoming smile to the woman in the tub.

“She has calmed down, but now she is refusing to speak.” The nurse raised her eyebrows in exasperation.

“Welcome to Emeraldine Hospital.” Ruth pulled a chair over next to the woman’s tub. The woman looked away. “I’m sure you are scared, but you’re safe here, I can promise you that. We only want to help you. Can you look at me?” The woman turned her head slightly in Ruth’s direction, and Ruth struggled to hide her shock. Up close Ruth realized that this was not a woman at all, just a girl, likely no more than twelve years old. “Sweetheart, I’m Ruth Emeraldine, the assistant superintendent for this hospital. That means I’m not a doctor here, just a person who will make sure that the doctors and nurses do everything in their power to help you. Can you tell me your name?”

“Mary,” the girl replied, almost whispering.

“Well, Miss Mary, do you know why you are here?”

Mary nodded.

“Can you tell me?”

“’Cause this time I tried to kill him.” Her response was deep and guttural. Ruth could hear the anguish in her voice.

“Who did you try to kill?” Ruth asked calmly, knowing that if this girl had actually attempted murder, she would be having a very different conversation with a very different kind of warden over on the island, not here with Mary in a warm bath. “Someone seems to have hurt you pretty badly. Can you tell me who hurt you?”

“Is he dead? I can only tell you if he’s dead.”

“Honey, I don’t know who you are speaking about, so I’m afraid I cannot tell you with certainty whether anyone you might know is dead or alive.”

Ruth watched Mary’s face grow gray with fear, and the girl’s eyes started darting wildly around the room. “He’s gonna find me. He’s gonna come get me. He said if I told anyone, he’d kill me. Kill me and do it to my dead body. Even though I scratched at him, kicked him, told him it’s ungodly, but he doesn’t care. Keeps holding that knife at me and . . .” She looked away, clearly embarrassed.

“It’s all right, you haven’t done anything wrong. You can talk to me. I promise.” Ruth reached out to stroke the girl’s head.

“Well, this time when he tried, I was gonna show him. I got his knife, hid it in my mattress. When he came home smelling all sour and pawing at me, I tried to scare him off.” She paused and started to scream and wail as she had the night before.

“Mary.” Ruth remained unflappable as she waited for Mary to come to the other side of her fit. Unfortunately, this painful story was one she had heard too many times from too many of the female patients at Emeraldine. After a moment, the hydrotherapy calmed the girl, and Ruth continued gently, “We can send police around to scare some sense into him. Is it your father?”

“My father?” Mary looked confused. “He’s dead.”

“Then who do you live with, dear?”

“My ma—and my brother.”

“Ah.” Taking another breath, Ruth continued to stroke Mary’s head. “What has happened to you isn’t your fault, do you hear me?” She took Mary’s face in her hands gently, turning it so Ruth could look her squarely in the eyes. “I know you’re scared, but you have done nothing wrong. We will help you to get better, and I promise that I will keep you safe. Your brother cannot get to you in my hospital. You can start fresh from here.”

Mary looked at her with doubt in her eyes as she began to cry and nod her head. “Thank you,” she said in barely a whisper.

“Mary, do you like flowers?” The girl looked at her quizzically. “We have many beautiful gardens here. If you can stay calm for me while I’m gone, perhaps later we can go and look at some of the flowers. Right now, I’m due at a meeting, but the nurses will take good care of you. They will make sure you are safe. Can you let them do that until I return later?” Mary nodded hesitantly as Ruth stood. She wished she could stay longer, but she was afraid that the superintendent might have already arrived. Ruth took pride in being well on top of the day’s schedule by the time they had their morning meeting. So, she gave the nurse instructions to ensure that Mary received no visitors and to notify her immediately if someone did come looking for her, and then made her way hurriedly back to the administrative wing.