The Lobotomist's Wife(2)
Margaret looked out at the warm smiles on the faces of her friends and neighbors and began to feel stronger. She continued with her demonstration, showing how the remains of an entire turkey dinner could be stored for days. She asked some of her friends who also used Tupperware, including Carolyn, to share their stories. Margaret just had to present one last item and then she could start writing up orders. And she was sure she was going to get a lot of orders.
Margaret smiled broadly at the group. “Finally, I couldn’t help but share this wonderful innovation with all of you. One of the latest products in the line and one that even you regular users may have never seen.” She crossed her living room into the kitchen and returned carrying a plastic container shaped like a Bundt pan with a lid that looked like a plate. “Who doesn’t love a Jell-O mold?
“Jell-O makes such a wonderful presentation, but you have to have the right-sized plate to release the mold into. And then, suppose you have some left over, how can you get it to keep its shape? Tupperware has solved both problems for you with this perfect piece. Simply turn the mold upside down, and the Jell-O drops right into place on the lid, which becomes a plate pretty enough to sit alongside your finest china!” Margaret demonstrated the mold gleefully. As she held aloft the masterpiece of red-, orange-, and yellow-striped Jell-O, studded with specks of white marshmallow and bright red maraschino cherries, for all to see, applause filled the room.
“And then, when it’s time to clean up, all you need to do is pop the mold back on the plate!” She grabbed the base and attempted to snap it, but it was too unwieldy. She needed a table; unfortunately, Tupperware covered the one behind her. She lifted her knee to prop the lid and demonstrate the all-important “burp” seal, but instead of a burp, she heard a tear. Her jerky motion had ripped open her too-tight dress, and her flesh poured out the side of the torn seam above her girdle. Desperate, she reached to cover herself, inadvertently throwing the Jell-O into her chest, where it splattered before sliding to the floor below.
Margaret heard a collective gasp and then silence. She fell to her knees and began scraping the cheerfully colored mess off the brown carpet with her hands. Look at the homecoming queen—she can’t take care of her children, she can’t properly fit into clothing, she can’t even demonstrate how to use a stupid plastic container. Margaret curled herself tightly into a ball, covering her face, her ears, as best as she could. Then, quietly, she began to sob.
Somewhere in her mind she realized Lucy was gathering the guests and shooing them out the door. She smelled her mother’s perfume and felt several pairs of strong hands carrying her upstairs to her bed. She heard the sound of her children begging to get in, to see Mommy, and she prayed that no one would let them. Prayed that she could hide under the blankets forever. Because she couldn’t face any of these people ever again.
PART 1
RUTH: 1933–36
Chapter One
Ruth approached the large brick edifice and swung open the ornate wrought-iron gate. It was difficult to ignore her family’s name carved into the strip of black iron that sat at eye level, but she did her best. As far as she was concerned, she was simply an employee of this hospital.
Inside the gates, the exterior courtyard was filled with trees, their leaves just beginning to show signs of vibrant reds, purples, and golds. In the next few weeks, this space would transform from a summer garden into a colorful autumnal sanctuary for new patients and their families. Emeraldine Hospital might be a public institution right in the middle of New York City, but from its inception, her family made sure that it wouldn’t feel like those cold, dark public asylums with their peeling paint, dim lighting, and stacked beds. They had created something new: a public hospital for the insane with the care and amenities of a private country retreat, a direct relationship to a medical school, and a first-class research facility.
It was something of a miracle that her father, Bernard Emeraldine, son of the great industrialist Thomas Emeraldine, was as passionate about this new hospital as Ruth was. Really, it was the one cause they were aligned on, even though her interest in science and medicine did come from him. It was his idea, after all, to create a hospital that would treat people of all classes with first-rate care. That was why he chose to give a million-dollar endowment to the New York Hospital for the Insane (now renamed Emeraldine), instead of the luxurious Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, where her brother, Harry, had been a patient after the Great War.
Back then, Ruth was so devoted to her brother’s care that she hadn’t paid much attention to her father’s hospital project. She hadn’t paid much attention to anything, really, having stepped aside from her work with the suffragists, to her father’s delight. She had even failed to turn up for her former fiancé, Lawrence, so frequently that he had ultimately given up on her, marrying one of her more available classmates from Mount Holyoke instead.
Only when they lost Harry did this hospital become her mission. While Bernard and her mother, Helen, appropriately mourned the loss of their son, receiving visitors and taking a pause from their day-to-day life, Ruth made herself busier than ever. She channeled her grief into ensuring that her family’s unprecedented endowment went toward the creation of a premier research and care facility. To hopefully spare other families the pain of unnecessarily losing one of their own.
Looking back, Ruth was surprised her father had permitted her to step in and work directly with Charles Hayden, the new superintendent. Though she suspected that her father thought the subordinate position would keep her occupied until her next beau came along, Ruth had immediately made herself indispensable. Now, more than a decade later, as assistant superintendent, she spent her time overseeing the day-to-day details of the hospital’s operations, helping to keep track of the patients’ progress, and even assisting in hiring decisions. Emeraldine Hospital had become her life’s work. Or, more accurately, it had become her life.