“I need to confirm it all with Eddie and clear my calendar, but if we can make the arrangements work, Joe would like us to be there Monday.”
“I am sure I can help shift your schedule here for something so important. This poor girl. This poor family. How marvelous if you can help them all.”
“Not if—that I can help them. And how about that vote of confidence for such a high-profile family to embrace lobotomy? Now remember, no one knows about Rosemary, and Joe doesn’t want anyone—even his wife—to know about the procedure until afterward; so we must keep this between us.”
Ruth was surprised. Why wouldn’t Joseph Kennedy want his wife to know? Surely, she would want to be there with her daughter? Still, it wasn’t her family, and it wasn’t her business. “Of course.”
Ruth had asked her cook, Liana, to prepare lobster thermidor as a celebratory dinner for Robert and Edward. She was planning for the best, even though she feared the worst. They had been in Boston for nearly two weeks—a week longer than planned—with no explanation beyond that Joe had required them to stay. Not every lobotomy was a success. She knew that. They had had some failures, even a few deaths. But, overall, most patients improved and only 5 percent died. She imagined if this had happened to Rosemary, Robert would have told her immediately. Still, she worried. Something must have gone wrong. She paced in the parlor, back and forth in front of the fire, anxiously waiting.
When the men finally walked through the door, she was taken aback at the gray pallor of their skin, their eyes ringed with black circles. They seemed much more exhausted than what she would have expected after a few hours in the car. She braced herself.
“Robert, Edward—what happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Robert answered flatly as he ushered Edward into the parlor to sit down. “I need a stiff drink. Eddie?”
Edward nodded.
“I had planned on champagne but—”
“This is not a moment for champagne, I’m afraid,” Edward said wanly.
“Scotch then?”
Both men nodded. Ruth poured them all drinks and then sat beside Robert on the sofa across from Edward. “Please, tell me. What is it?” she asked as softly and gently as she could.
“It didn’t go well.” Robert looked at the floor and Ruth took his hand.
“How badly? Is she—”
“She’s alive,” Edward interjected. “But we didn’t help her. We thought that maybe, after the cerebral swelling went down, we would see a better result, but unfortunately, we did not.”
“Oh my. Do you know why? What went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong!” Robert snapped. “We performed the procedure as we always do. We had her awake, so we could be certain how deep to cut. She was speaking to us the whole time as per our usual protocol—reciting ‘God Bless America’ and counting backward—and we stopped our incision as soon as she started to become the slightest bit incoherent.”
“Yes, I am certain that we didn’t go too deep. I think she was just incurable.”
“Eddie keeps trying to make me feel better. And I know you are right, Ed. It is not as if this is our first disappointing outcome. But . . . if this one had been successful, it would have catapulted us into a new level of notoriety and influence.”
“Maybe, but that’s not why we are doing this. Mr. Kennedy wasn’t angry with the result. Very upset and disappointed, understandably, but he knew the risk.” Ruth had never heard Edward use such a short tone before.
“Robert, Edward, please! What, exactly, happened?”
“Rosemary Kennedy has not regained her mental capacity. At all. In fact, she is worse. We stayed for an extra week hoping that she was just slow to heal, but there was no change. Her intellect has diminished to that of a toddler. Needs constant care. Can hardly walk. Is incontinent. Joe insisted that we transfer her to an institution, so we moved her to Craig House before returning home. Really it is nothing so out of the ordinary. We’ve seen this before in the spectrum of our results. I just really didn’t want it to happen to her.” Robert hung his head.