The Lobotomist's Wife(7)
Ruth realized she had been holding her breath. Standing to collect herself, she crossed from behind her desk to square off with this man, this stranger. As she realized she was taller than him, she quickly leaned against the edge to meet his gaze.
“Dr. Apter—”
“Please, call me Robert.”
“Dr. Apter,” she said with more conviction, “if there is a possibility that what you’re saying is true, it could revolutionize the care of the insane.”
“Yes, Miss Emeraldine, I’m well aware of the potential magnitude of this work. My question to you is: Do you want this hospital to be the place that makes it possible? We could make history.”
Ruth felt herself blush. In spite of her family’s pedigree, or perhaps because of it, Ruth was a very private person. Having been raised not to make waves, or seek attention, she preferred to keep her life and her work quiet and hidden away from the public world. Yes, she desperately wanted to revolutionize treatment for the insane. Yes, she wanted to do anything and everything she could to make that happen. But the idea that she would deliberately seek the spotlight for the hospital was abhorrent. Fame was not her goal. She strove for progress, better treatments, a cure. Dr. Apter couldn’t have known how badly Ruth wanted these things. Still, somehow, he seemed to intuit them.
Ruth had interviewed many candidates in the past, but never had she hired one on the spot. She didn’t really even have the authority to do so. Still, there was something about this man. His arrogance might become infuriating, but his passion was inspiring. “Dr. Apter, please, tell me more about the specifics of what you think you’ll need for your research. Because I would like to offer you a position here, effective immediately.”
After she spent years hoping for it, someone had finally walked through the door who just might help them find a cure, and she simply couldn’t risk losing him.
Chapter Two
Before she met Dr. Robert Apter, Ruth was quite certain that the “swept off your feet” feeling so often portrayed in the cinema was just that: a theatrical conceit. She wasn’t oblivious to the charms of the opposite sex, but the men who crossed Ruth’s path had never made a lasting impression. Ruth saw dating as a chore, particularly after Harry’s death, so when she did entertain suitors, they were generally selected by her mother and resembled her ex-fiancé, Lawrence—perfectly bred and not the slightest bit exciting. A few of them managed to hold her interest in the bedroom, but anywhere else, she found that they had about as much dimension as a sheet of paper.
For a time in the late ’20s, Ruth had an uncharacteristically active social life, courtesy of her dearest friend, Susie Davenport. Although they belonged to the same sorority at Mount Holyoke, they hadn’t met until 1917, when they were awkwardly paired to hold opposite sides of the banner MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE? at a demonstration in Washington, DC.
“Figures they would stick the chipmunk with the giraffe,” Susie said teasingly. “Can you at least bend your knees? You know, so we don’t look lopsided?”
Ruth laughed. Rarely did anyone at school dare to poke fun at her. She looked around the street and found a garbage pail, which she turned upside down for Susie to stand on.
“I get it now.” Susie smiled as Ruth helped her climb on top of the makeshift riser. “It’s not that you hold your head high because you think you’re better than the rest of us, it’s just that you’re so damn tall you literally have your head in the clouds.”
“You believe that I think I’m better than you?” Ruth was surprised. She was quiet in school, but that was because she took her studies seriously. If her parents wouldn’t let her go to the front to volunteer as a medical assistant with her brother, she would make the most of her education.
“Well, I don’t think that. Everyone knows the Emeraldines are nothing compared to the Boston Davenports. My mother can show you our lineage all the way back to the Mayflower.” Susie rolled her eyes and giggled. “As if that will do a damn for anyone in the world, right, Raffey?”
“Raffey?” Ruth looked at Susie askance. “I’m . . . Ruth?” While these young women had not previously met, they lived in the same sorority house. Was Ruth so invisible that Susie didn’t even know her name?
“Geez, you’re dense.” Susie grinned as she casually threw her arm around Ruth’s waist. “Your name may be Ruth, but you tower over me like a giraffe. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll call you Raffey.”
“Raffey it is then, I suppose.” Ruth smiled back. She clearly had no choice in the matter. But that suited her fine. Other than Harry, she’d never been close enough with anyone to warrant a nickname. It seemed she’d finally found her first real friend.
After college, Susie rejected her family’s plans for her to marry a fellow Brahmin and, instead, moved to Greenwich Village, where she lived a “liberated” life with Meg, a female photographer who had won her heart. Ruth envied Susie’s bravery. While women never held a romantic interest for her, Ruth would have loved to live among the like-minded radical thinkers in the Village, but she valued her work at the hospital too much to risk marring the family’s name with such a blatant disregard for society’s rules. A Village bohemian could not be the assistant superintendent of Emeraldine Hospital. So, when she moved from her family’s Gramercy Park mansion into her own townhome, she relocated to Madison Square Park, a tony and “appropriate” neighborhood slightly north from her parents.