Elizabeth Gilbert - Stern Men

Ruth Thomas sat down on the bed, a handsome brass heirloom covered with a lace spread. Her mother sat beside her and asked, “Does it smell a bit musty in here?”

“No, it’s fine.”

They sat quietly for a time. Ruth’s mother stood and raised the window shades. “We may as well let in some light,” she said, and sat down again.

“Thank you,” Ruth said.

“When I bought that wallpaper, I thought it was cherry blossoms, but now that I look at it, I think it’s apple blossoms. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know why I didn’t see that at first.”

“Apple blossoms are nice.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, I suppose.”

“Either way is nice. You did a good job with the wallpapering.”

“We paid a man to do it.”

“It looks really pretty.”

After another long silence, Mary Smith-Ellis Thomas took her daughter’s hand and asked, “Should we go see Ricky now?”

Ricky was in a baby’s crib, although he was nine years old. He was the size of a small child, a three-year-old, perhaps, and his fingers and toes were curled like talons. His hair was black and short, matted in the back because of the way he swiveled his head back and forth, back and forth. He was forever grinding his head against the mattress, forever flipping his face from side to side, as though searching desperately for something. And his eyes, too, rolled to the left and to the right, always seeking. He made screeching sounds and high-pitched whines and howls, but when Mary approached, he settled into a steady muttering.

“Here’s Mama,” she said. “Here’s Mama.”

She lifted him out of the crib and placed him, on his back, on a sheepskin mat on the floor. He could not sit up or hold up his head. He could not feed himself. He could not speak. On the sheepskin mat, his small, crooked legs flopped to one side and his arms to the other. Back and forth he swung his head, back and forth, and his fingers waved and tensed, fluttering in the air the way sea plants flutter in the water.

“Is he getting any better?” Ruth asked.

“Well,” her mother said, “I think so, Ruth. I always think he’s getting a little better, but nobody else ever sees it.”

“Where’s his nurse?”

“Oh, she’s around. She may be down in the kitchen, taking a break. She’s a new woman, and she seems very nice. She likes to sing to Ricky. Doesn’t she, Ricky? Doesn’t Sandra sing to you? Because she knows you like it. Doesn’t she?”

Mary spoke to him the way mothers speak to newborns, or the way Senator Simon Addams spoke to his dog Cookie, in a loving voice with no expectation of reply.

“Do you see your sister?” she asked. “Do you see your big sister? She came to visit you, little boy. She came to say hello to Ricky.”

“Hello there, Ricky,” said Ruth, trying to follow the cadence of her mother’s voice. “Hello there, little brother.”

Ruth felt sick. She bent over and patted Ricky’s head, which he whipped away from under her palm, and she felt his matted hair slip away in a flash-gone. She pulled back her hand, and he let his head rest for a moment. Then he flipped it with a suddenness that made Ruth start.

Ricky was born when Ruth was nine years old. He was born in a hospital in Rockland. Ruth never saw him when he was a baby, because her mother didn’t return to the island after Ricky was born. Her father went to Rockland with his wife when the baby was due, and Ruth stayed with Mrs. Pommeroy next door. Her mother was supposed to come back with a baby, but she never did. She didn’t come back, because something was wrong with the baby. Nobody had expected that.

According to what Ruth had heard, her father, from the moment he saw the severely retarded infant, started laying out the blame, fast and mean. He was disgusted and he was angry. Who had done this to his son? He immediately decided that the baby had inherited the sad condition from Mary’s ancestors. After all, what did anyone know of the Bath Naval Hospital orphan or of the Italian immigrant? Who knew what monsters had lurked in that dark past? Stan Thomas’s ancestors, on the other hand, were accounted for back to ten generations, and nothing of this sort had ever appeared. There had never been any freaks in Stan’s family. Obviously, Stan said, this is what you get for marrying someone whose background isn’t known. Yes, this is what you get.

Mary, still exhausted in her hospital bed, came back with her own demented defense. She was not normally a fighter, but she fought this time. She fought back dirty. Oh, yes, she said, all Stan’s ancestors could be accounted for, precisely because they were all related to one another. They were all siblings and first cousins, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that, after enough generations of inbreeding and incest, this is what you get. This child, this Ricky-boy with the flippy head and the clawed hands.

“This is your son, Stan!” she said.

It was an ugly, wretched fight, and it upset the nurses in the maternity ward, who heard every cruel word. Some of the younger nurses cried. They had never heard anything like it. The head nurse came on duty at midnight and led Stan Thomas away from his wife’s room. The head nurse was a big woman, not easily intimidated, even by a tough-mouthed lobsterman. She hustled him away while Mary was still screaming at him.

“For the love of God,” the nurse snapped at Stan, “the woman needs her rest.”

A few afternoons later, a visitor came to see Mary and Stan and the new baby in the hospital; it was Mr. Lanford Ellis. Somehow, he had heard the news. He had sailed over to Rockland on the Stonecutter to pay his respects and to offer Mary and Stan the Ellis family’s condolences on their tragic situation. Stan and Mary were coolly reconciled by this time. At least they could be in the same room.

Lanford Ellis told Mary of a conversation he’d had with his sister Vera, and of their consensus. He and his sister had discussed the immediate problem and had agreed that Mary should not take the baby to Fort Niles Island. Mary would have no medical support there, no professional help for Ricky. The doctors had already announced that he would need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. Did Mary and Stan have a plan?

Mary and Stan admitted that they did not. Lanford Ellis was sympathetic. He understood that this was a difficult time for the couple, and he had a suggestion. Because of the Ellis family’s attachment to Mary, they were prepared to help. Lanford Ellis would pay for Ricky’s care at an appropriate institution. For life. No matter the cost. He had heard of an excellent private facility in New Jersey.

“New Jersey?” Mary Thomas said, incredulous.

New Jersey did seem far away, Lanford Ellis conceded. But the home was said to be the best in the country. He had spoken with the administrator that morning. If Stan and Mary weren’t comfortable with the arrangement, there was one other possibility…

Or…

Or what?

Or, if Mary and her family moved to Concord, where Mary could resume her position as companion to Miss Vera, the Ellis family would provide Ricky with private care right there, at the Ellis mansion. Lanford Ellis would have part of the servants’ wing converted into a comfortable area for young Ricky. He would pay for good private nurses and for the finest medical care. For life. He would also find Stan Thomas a good job and would send Ruth to a good school.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Stan Thomas said, in a dangerously low voice. “Don’t you fucking dare try to take my wife back.”

“It is merely a suggestion,” said Lanford Ellis. “The decision is yours.” And he left.

“Did you people fucking poison her?” Stan Thomas shouted after Lanford as the old man walked away, down the hospital hall. Stan followed him. “Did you poison my wife? Did you people make this happen? Answer me! Did you goddamn people set this whole fucking thing up just to get her back?”