“Oh no, not the bath!” Penelope began to writhe.
“Why not? You love the warm baths, remember?”
“When you were gone, they tricked me and it was freezing. I couldn’t feel my body. And they wouldn’t let me out, they wouldn’t . . .” She shook her head violently, her eyes squeezed shut, as if she was reexperiencing the discomfort.
“It sounds like they didn’t know you can’t tolerate the cold. I am sorry, what a bit of confusion while I was gone! I promise you that this will be the warm bath. I will see to it myself.” Ruth smiled and grabbed Penelope’s hand. “You just wait here, and I will take care of everything.”
It was nine o’clock in the evening by the time Ruth and Robert were ready to leave the hospital. Ruth checked in on Penelope and was pleased to find her peacefully sleeping, back in her old bed in her elegantly appointed room. Her hair was washed, she wore a clean nightgown and robe, and there were no new scabs on her face. “Sleep well, my dear,” Ruth whispered as she tucked the blanket gently around Penelope’s slight frame. It had been a long but rewarding first day back.
Chapter Nine
“Oh, what a lovely floral arrangement. Ruth, can I assume that you have finally decided to let Monsieur Garneil add you to his schedule for weekly delivery?”
Ruth plastered a forced smiled on her face as she nodded at her mother. Ruth loved fresh-cut flowers. She had fond memories of collecting them with her grandmother Sophia in the gardens at Magnolia Bluff. Ruth and her grandmother didn’t have much in common. Sophia was the archetype of a society lady and generally found Ruth’s lack of interest in that world even more perplexing than Helen did, but she and Ruth had a shared love of nature. The only time Sophia allowed herself to get dirty was when she was out in the garden. When she could, she preferred to tend to her vegetables, herbs, and the many varietals of exotic blooms that she had planted there, herself—and Ruth loved to spend hours on end helping. She loved to feel the velvety softness of ripe peony petals, and smell their delicate perfume, to create rainbow arrays from the long stems of vibrant gladiolus, to nibble on freshly clipped mint and basil. But having blossoms delivered to your doorstep only to be tossed a few days later when they died seemed so excessive. She would much rather use her money to help people. Still, Robert liked having them in the house. And it pleased her mother when she and Bernard came for their now-monthly dinners. So, Ruth compromised. Each week, she gave the same amount of money that she spent on flowers to Susie, to distribute in the immigrant neighborhoods. This way, she was at least doing something worthy to offset the frivolity.
Ruth marveled at the many small ways her life had changed in the nine months she and Robert had been married. Although they lived together before marriage, they “officially” moved into her four-story townhouse when they returned from their honeymoon. The location on East Twenty-Sixth Street was ideal. It was an easy commute to the hospital and adjacent to—but still comfortably tucked away around the corner from—the action of Madison Square Park. When they sat in the interior garden, they enjoyed a quiet break from the bustle of the city. Now, thanks to Robert and Helen, the house had transformed from a casual place, haphazardly festooned with an eclectic mix of Helen’s castoffs, into a proper home.
Robert felt that since they were innovators in medicine, their house should reflect their forward-thinking approach. He embraced the simplified furnishings of the Bauhaus school, which celebrated function over ornamentation, and he enlisted his new mother-in-law to execute his vision. Helen loved the idea of decorating a modern home. While this new trend was entirely inappropriate for her and Bernard’s own houses, Helen agreed that it suited Ruth and Robert perfectly. So, with Robert’s blessing and Ruth’s reluctant agreement, she transformed Ruth’s formerly hodgepodge house into a contemporary masterpiece.
Ruth liked that her home looked nothing like any place she had ever lived before. Chrome, leather, and lacquer instead of velvet, chintz, and carved wood. It felt like the heralding of a new era.
Robert also had the idea to host Bernard and Helen for dinner once a month. Helen was delighted that her daughter was finally assuming the role of a proper wife （even though it wasn’t actually the case）。 Ruth had never entertained, and in spite of the fact that she had both a cook and a housekeeper, the evenings when Helen and Bernard came to dinner made her extremely anxious. She spent the entire week leading up to each of these meals planning a menu, deliberating over whether or not to include other guests, and determining what to wear. While she couldn’t understand how her mother relished these banalities, she did gain a greater appreciation of the work that went into them.