The Lobotomist's Wife(72)

“It doesn’t seem like nothing. You can tell me. What is it?”

“Well, it’s just that your husband is going to fix me tomorrow. Today was my preoperative appointment.”

Margaret watched Ruth’s eyes grow so wide she feared they might tear at the edges.

“Your preoperative appointment? Maggie, no!” Ruth reached out to the wall to steady herself.

“What is it? You look upset.” Margaret was surprised by the intensity of Ruth’s reaction. Ruth seemed a little unhinged today. “Is everything okay?”

Ruth looked Margaret in the eyes. “Listen, Robert isn’t here and, to be frank, I don’t know when he’ll be back. But you can’t do this.”

“What?” Margaret recoiled. “But you told me I could fix this.”

“Not this way.” Ruth looked around nervously and then waved Margaret toward the house. “Why don’t you come inside for a few minutes. We can talk there.”

Margaret looked at her hesitantly.

“Really, you’d be doing me a favor,” Ruth said, sounding falsely upbeat. “I haven’t had much sleep and could use some fresh coffee. Perhaps Robert will return by the time we are finished!” Ruth gave her a smile, putting Margaret a little more at ease.

“All right. I could use some coffee too.” Margaret smiled back tentatively and followed her up the path and into the kitchen.

When the women were settled at the table, two steaming mugs in front of them in spite of the heat of the summer day, Ruth made her case.

“Margaret, did you know that I was there when Robert first learned about lobotomy? When he had the idea to do it here in America? I actually helped him develop and popularize lobotomy in this country.” Her voice caught.

“No, I hadn’t realized. So . . . good. Okay.” Margaret smiled. “I feel better already.”

Ruth shook her head. “When we began doing lobotomies, it seemed like the only treatment that worked for some of our most difficult patients. And for the very ill, the violent, the psychotics, it was lobotomy or be relegated to a lifetime in restraints, locked up in the secure ward of the hospital. We had a higher standard of care at Emeraldine, but the public hospitals were—are—so overcrowded . . . We thought that Robert was giving people back their lives. And I believed, for many years, that a lobotomy might very well have saved my brother had it been possible at the time.”

“Don’t you still?”

Ruth hesitated. “No. Not anymore. You see, when Harry was in the hospital, we all just wanted him to get back to normal, to be himself again. And when he died, I spent years wishing I could have done more.”

“But look at all that you have created as a result! You are the strongest woman I have ever met. I wish I had just a tiny bit of your force and ability.”

“But you do! Don’t you see? You know, you are entitled to be frustrated sometimes. To feel angry. It is entirely natural that you will have great days and utterly awful ones. We all do. Now that I’ve had time to really process my brother’s death, I wonder if the best thing I could have done for Harry might have been to tell him it was all right for him to feel what he was feeling. He went through horrible suffering in the war. And we never acknowledged that.”

Ruth took a deep breath and looked Margaret in the eye pleadingly.

“Maggie, you can’t have a lobotomy. Whatever you do . . . please, please don’t do that. Whatever my husband says, don’t believe him. You can’t. You just can’t.”

Margaret felt her face turn from pink to gray. “What do you mean? The doctor says that I must. And soon. He says the longer I wait, the less chance there is of success. I need help.”

“That’s ridiculous. Don’t you see? You aren’t that kind of sick. I’ve been reading more about postpartum conditions. The feelings can linger. I’ve learned that there have been some cases where, when you’re under anesthesia during delivery, the nurses assault the new mothers to keep them more still—it’s a horrifying fact, but you can imagine that it could surely cause enduring psychological aftereffects. That might be what’s happening for you. You gave up so much of your life for your family, that could also contribute to your ongoing depression. You see? There are many reasons that you may be feeling the way you do, and none of them should be treated with lobotomy.”

Suddenly she was standing, gripping Margaret forcefully by the shoulders. “Please, Margaret, please, do not come back here tomorrow. Save yourself.”

Margaret stood up too, her eyes wide with fear. “I’m sorry.” She walked quickly away from Ruth toward the kitchen door. “I have to go.”

The second the door shut behind her, she began to run. Ruth seemed to have lost her mind, and Margaret had to get away, get home, as fast as she could. Nothing Ruth said made any sense. She needed to talk to Frank. He would agree with her. And then she needed to find Dr. Apter so she could fix herself before it was too late.





Chapter Forty-Five


The situation was even more dire than Ruth had comprehended.

Migraine headaches? Lobotomy.

Unruly child? Lobotomy.

Unhappy wife? Lobotomy.

Robert had to be stopped.

Ruth went back to the carriage house and picked up the file she had been looking at before Margaret arrived, desperately hoping that underneath the disquieting photo of the man in the filthy boardinghouse room there would be something she could use against Robert. The file contained three pieces of paper. The first was an order from the state of Ohio for a lobotomy to be performed on a Samuel Orenbluth at Midwestern Regional Hospital. The next was a short paragraph of Robert’s handwritten notes.