Suddenly the door slammed opened. Edward strode angrily in the direction of his car. “If that’s what you want, fine!” he called over his shoulder.
He jumped in and started the ignition.
“Edward!” Ruth called frantically. She couldn’t let him storm off. They needed to talk. But the ocean breeze carried her voice away.
Surely, he was just going to collect Rebecca at the train. This was simply a fight between colleagues, after all.
The car tore down the drive and out of sight.
Ruth ran inside the carriage house and found Robert standing by his desk, collar undone, looking deeply shaken. “I don’t understand, I thought he’d be thrilled. We can now help everyone who needs it.”
“I know, I know,” Ruth whispered, squeezing his arm.
“People who can’t afford a hospital stay can now be cured.”
“Sh, sh, sh, yes,” Ruth said. Were there tears in the corners of his eyes? “Robert, listen to me.” She looked at him. “You have made a tremendous breakthrough. We need to spread the word far and wide about your radical innovation. I am going to make sure that everyone will know what you have pioneered. This new treatment of yours . . . it’s going to change everything.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, my darling,” he said ferociously into her hair.
“I love you too,” she whispered back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Six months later, Ruth sat at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee. Usually, the bracing bitterness was the perfect jump-start to the day, but on this particular morning, no stimulant was needed. If anything, she might require something to slow her racing heart. The morning papers, piled neatly for her when she came down to the kitchen, were now scattered everywhere, folded open to the relevant pages. The date at the top of each one, January 23, 1947, was one they would remember forever.
She looked out the window toward the water, but even the tranquil view was not enough to calm her excitement. Her body vibrated to the rhythm of her bouncing foot, and at the sound of footsteps, she nearly leapt out of her chair. “Robert?”
“Expecting someone else?” He was dressed for the day in a three-piece suit, with his walking stick. Ruth wasn’t sure the apparatus added the gravitas that Robert believed it did, but like all his flamboyant affects, she was powerless to change it, so she chose to find it charming. She smiled at her husband and stood to pour him a cup of coffee. As she crossed the kitchen, she dropped the New York Times in front of him, open to the headline: “The Ice Pick Lobotomy: A Ten-Minute Miracle Cure for the Insane.”
Ruth watched Robert as the corners of his mustache lifted and his entire face expanded into a triumphant smile. He began to read aloud, “‘Earlier this week I was one of a select group of reporters invited to a special presentation at the Emeraldine Hospital . . .’” Robert muttered, skimmed the next bit, and then read on. “‘This is not the first time that I have written about the promising work of Dr. Apter in his quest to find a more effective treatment for mental patients.’” Robert lifted his eyes to Ruth to be sure she was listening and then continued. “‘He is the man responsible for the prefrontal lobotomy, a surgery that involves drilling into the brain . . .’ Oh, I think I know how it’s done,” Robert murmured good-humoredly as he continued to scan the article. “‘。 . . For a decade, Dr. Apter has been using his lobotomy to help the most violent and incurable patients at the Emeraldine Hospital here in New York.’ Yes, yes. More about the old procedure. Ah, here we go, a direct quote from me in the New York Times!” Robert straightened up as he read his own words to Ruth. “‘For several years I have believed that there must be a more effective way to enter the brain. One that would have the same efficacy as the prefrontal lobotomy but that was not a surgery. This new method is a simple procedure that can be performed in any office in the country.’” Robert paused and looked across the kitchen to catch Ruth proudly smiling at him. His own smile grew as he continued to read, half to himself and half aloud. “‘Dr. Apter explained that the patient arriving in the operating theater had, just the day before, tried to stab a nurse with a fork she had stolen from her lunch . . . The entire procedure took less than a few minutes and, other than the unavoidable residue on the “ice pick,” there was virtually no blood . . . When the patient, an attractive former nurse who had developed violent fits of rage after the war, regained consciousness, Dr. Apter, to our horror, offered her a Waldorf salad with a fork—’ I hope Edward sees this, wherever he is.”