The Lobotomist's Wife(65)

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your evening.” Ruth already felt more at ease now that she’d seen Estelle for herself. She could leave them in peace.

“Please, stay,” Larry said as he took a beer from the refrigerator and waved her to follow him into the small living room. “You came all this way. Can I get you a beer?”

“Oh no, thank you! Can’t risk feeling sleepy on my drive home.” She smiled.

As soon as they were settled, Larry leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I’m glad you came, Mrs. Apter. I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about Stelle.”

“She seems well. And so happy with you and the boys. Is everything all right?”

“Oh yeah, yeah. Things are mostly fine. She’s my angel. I tell her every day that I must have done somethin’ right for the Lord to have sent me such a beautiful, kind soul for my own. Thing is, though, she has these ‘spells.’ And I’m not so sure about them. Didn’t bother me when it was just the two of us, but now that we have the boys . . . Sometimes I worry about leaving her here alone with ’em, you know?”

Ruth’s chest tightened. “What kind of spells?”

“Well, I told the doctor about ’em last time he called to check on Stelle and he said they were normal, no big deal. But I dunno. I don’t want Stelle to know that I’m worried about her. She doesn’t like to talk about the time she spent in the loony bin.” He swirled his finger in circles on the side of his head by his ear.

“Mr. Simpson, Emeraldine is not a loony bin. But I am concerned to hear about Estelle’s condition. Did you tell my associate, Mr. Mandrake, when he called you?”

“Not sure I know who you’re talking about. He probably just spoke to Stelle if he called durin’ the day. And she wouldn’t tell anyone about that.”

“I see. Well, I would like to help if I can. Can you tell me a little more about what happens during these ‘spells’ of hers?” Ruth looked anxiously at Estelle’s husband as he seemed to consider what to say.

“I don’t know. Stelle really doesn’t like us to talk about it too much.”

“I understand, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s happening. We can keep it between us.”

“All right. Well . . . they’re kinda different all the time. In the beginning, she used to take off all her clothes in the middle of a meal or somethin’. Before the boys, I thought she was tryin’ to be sexy. Sometimes she just starts screamin’. Like a banshee. Or she’ll lock herself in the bathroom with the boys, like she’s under attack. Last time she took a knife in there with her. Like I told ya, the doctor said this is all normal after the thingy she had done, but . . . I dunno. Between us, I’m startin’ to worry more and more.”

Ruth attempted to appear calm, but it was a facade. She was in a panic. She needed to get out of there as soon as possible. “Mr. Simpson.” Reaching in her purse, she retrieved a business card. With a pen, she wrote her home phone number on it as well. “I want to reassure you, but I am not sure that I can. Please, keep a close watch on Estelle. If she has another ‘spell,’ call me immediately. Do you have any friends or family who can stay with her and the boys during the day?”

He shook his head. “Her father passed last year.” Suddenly his face lit up. “She does have a cousin in Philly. Maybe I can ask her to stay for a few days?”

“Ask who what?” Estelle came into the room and Ruth started.

“I was just tellin’ Ruth about your cousin. You should invite her to visit.”

“Mathilda? Oh, sure, I guess so.” She shrugged.

Ruth walked to Estelle and gave her a strong embrace. “I’m so happy to see you today, Estelle. I’m going to call you again later this week to say hello and check in with you, does that sound good?”

“Awww, do you really have to go already?” Estelle looked like she might cry.

“I’m afraid that I do. But, I promise, I’ll see you again soon. You have a lovely home and such beautiful children. I am just overjoyed for you!”

Ruth drove for three blocks before she pulled to the side and began to sob. It was a disaster. A horrible failure. Their life’s work, hers and Robert’s, hadn’t helped. It had destroyed lives. She had championed lobotomy, promoted and encouraged it, and to what end? Even Estelle, one of the supposedly great triumphs of the procedure, wasn’t actually a success at all. What kind of life was it to need constant supervision because you might harm yourself, or your children? How was that better than before?

She had truly believed she was helping patients, but now, how could she possibly justify what they had done? What they were still doing?

When she had cried herself out, she began to drive in a frenzy. She needed to get home. She had to find a way to fix things. To help Estelle and the many others who might be quietly suffering. She had to put a stop to this failed “cure,” and she needed Robert’s help to make it happen.





Chapter Forty


Ruth paced in the dining room, shifting the silverware and napkins on the formally set table to assuage her anxiety. When had she and Robert fallen out of the habit of eating together? It hadn’t happened all at once, but lately, when he wasn’t traveling, he spent his evenings writing articles touting the benefits of lobotomy for any medical journal willing to publish them. In the past, she had seen this as his dedication and the critics as uninformed doubters. How could she have been so blind? When Dr. Nolan Lewis, at a psychiatric society symposium in ’49, warned that lobotomy was being performed indiscriminately and would “dement too large a segment of the population” or when Jay Hoffman, the head of the Veterans Administration’s Neuropsychiatric Services, suggested that the success of lobotomy, in general, shouldn’t be measured by whether patients improved over their presurgical condition but by the longer-term outcomes, which were not ideal, she had believed that these men were jealous and conservative members of the old guard. Even recently, when the Times reported that members of the World Federation of Mental Health had denounced the procedure as a cruel “violation of the principles of humanity,” based on the Russian decision to stop using the procedure, she gave lobotomy the benefit of the doubt. At least Robert’s lobotomy.