Chapter Two

Flora had been a student at Wells College with plans to become a social worker. She was not quite sure what that kind of work specifically entailed, but she had overheard her mother and a visitor talking one day, and the woman, whose name she remembered was Harriet, said that she felt her work was the most important kind of work anyone could do. Delia had agreed with her in what sounded to the fourteen-year-old Flora like a genuine response. When she later asked her mother what Harriet’s job was, Delia told her that she helped children who were struggling in school and who didn’t have families as sound and loving as their own where they could find comfort and support.

Flora felt instantly sad for these other children whose lives were so different from her own and got it into her head then and there that she wanted to help them, too. Though Delia didn’t directly encourage Flora to consider doing so, Flora knew by the serious and slow manner in which her mother explained what Harriet did, and the way she looked at Flora for a long time after doing so, that it was something Delia would be proud to have her daughter undertake. Where Flora’s older sister was too impatient and her younger sister was too timid, Flora could see herself as a kind and confident guardian angel, doling out prudent and gentle advice and changing the lives of unfortunate children for the better. It made for a nice picture, too, of her future and her role in her family. Flora felt at ease when she could see her life from a remove, where everything fit together like a pleasing jigsaw puzzle.

Flora was blessed, she knew, with a mantle of privilege. She somehow knew this in her gut, in that she recognized and appreciated how nice everything was that surrounded her—school, her friends, her parents and sisters, her big house and lush, green yard with magnificent trees and abundant flowers, her clean and lovely clothes, her books and dolls, pleasant smells all around. She had nothing to complain about if she even had the urge. But in case there was any doubt about how fortunate she was, her parents regularly reminded Flora and her sisters of the fact. It was unnecessary, Flora thought, to drum it into their heads so assiduously. The reminders felt like scolding, as if the girls had done something wrong by being born into this good family and continuing to exist. A good thing had morphed into a sin. In the absence of these reminders, Flora might not feel the self-consciousness and shame that weighed on her like an itchy shawl she couldn’t shrug off. So that was something to complain about but, of course, she never did. She never uttered any of those feelings aloud, not even to her sisters, and that made her feel, at times, like an only child.

At Wells College, then, enrolled in a class in social welfare during her senior year, Professor Fitzgerald invited a guest speaker to one session. He was introduced as Dr. Rose, a psychiatrist from Rochester, who had an active practice with private patients and was often called upon to deliver lectures around the country and frequently served as an expert witness in court cases. It seemed as though the entire lecture hall full of young women was leaning pronouncedly forward in their seats to get a look at this handsome young doctor who had such a glamorous and important job. Flora had an odd sense of connection with this stranger, as if she’d had a dream about such a person, and she had an uncharacteristic rush of competition well up in her chest. She wanted to be noticed by this intelligent man who would see in her an unusually mature student. An uncharitable thought came to her: “He’s here for me, not you other girls.”

How it came to be that he was in this room at this speck of a women’s college in rural upstate New York was a mystery to Flora, as it was likely not the sort of audience he normally addressed. Dr. Rose’s expertise was somewhat ill-fitting with the disciplines being taught at Wells, given that he was a psychiatrist trained in neurology and working with legitimately psychiatrically disturbed patients, whereas the young women at Wells were heading towards terminal human services degrees where they would likely work at low-paying, quasi-administrative jobs with underprivileged patients who, whether or not they actually suffered from mental illness (which was likely in a good percentage of cases), would be treated not for their disorders but for their circumstances—namely poor women who lacked coping skills and family or marital support. Perhaps, Flora thought, Dr. Rose’s visiting lecture was pro bono, charitable work.

Their courtship began almost exactly one year to the day from when they first met, when Flora was introduced to Will because she had been strategically standing nearby when Professor Fitzgerald and the doctor were talking at the reception following his talk. Flora and two of her classmates had situated themselves within eavesdropping distance, feigning their own conversation, while the two men discussed a recent case on which Will had consulted.

“Miss Devereaux here is one of our students who is interested in the criminally insane,” said Professor Fitzgerald, extending his arm toward Flora to draw her into their inner circle, leaving her two friends to perform nonchalance along with their sham chatter. Will looked at Flora kindly, if not appreciatively, as he shook her hand with excessive firmness. Flora blushed and could feel perspiration accumulating under her arms.

“Miss Devereaux,” said Will, loudly, as Flora’s entourage dissipated, having lost the lottery. She expected him to show some surprise at her supposed interest and readied herself to humbly beg off her professor’s overly auspicious remarks, explaining that she had no actual interest in pursuing a career in forensic psychology, but what he said was, “Marvelous. Tell me what you have studied.” As he trained his attention on her, she noticed that he was only an inch or so taller than she was, and she was only five foot five. She also took in his startling blue eyes that contrasted perplexingly with his coal-black hair. These pleasing details—perhaps so because they promised adventure and were so unlike her own monochromatic mien—were not observable from the distance between them when he spoke in the large classroom.

She had merely written a paper on Cesare Lombroso, she told him.

“L’uomo delinquent,” he said, nodding. “And what is your conclusion about his theory?”

Though his gaze should have intimidated her, she found that his attention provoked a surge of self-assurance. “His contribution to the science of studying criminals and categorizing criminality as a disease, rather than a moral weakness, is valuable, but I believe people can be reformed, even if they are so-called born criminals.” She had the surreal feeling of both of them being taller than everyone else in the room. She was aware of Professor Fitzgerald making a gesture of excusing himself, but Flora and Will continued undisturbed. Flora asked the question she had formulated earlier, distantly admiring her bravado. Don Fitzgerald was a friend from his own college days in Madison, Will explained, and they had reconnected when crossing paths at an APA conference the previous Spring in Pittsburgh. “I enjoy teaching,” he said simply. Too soon, Professor Fitzgerald returned to escort the doctor away, and Flora was left with the bewildering feeling of missing a close friend whom she had only just met.

Flora applied for a caseworker job at the State Hospital in Rochester and began working there two weeks after her graduation from Wells. Professor Fitzgerald had sung her praises to the head of the social work department and he told her that Dr. Rose, who was a staff psychiatrist at the hospital, had thrown in a good word as well. Her father’s law office was in the city, and although it was somewhat onerous to rise at daybreak in order to get a ride in with him, she was excited by the idea of suddenly being propelled into the adult world she had imagined and longed for but didn’t expect to be realized so soon.

Flora’s initial weeks at the hospital, however, filled her with the same trepidation she felt as a teenager before jumping off the dock into Canandaigua Lake, anticipating the pain of the cold water and seriously doubting her need ever to swim again. The hospital smelled so foreign and was too bright and every face was unfamiliar. She worried so much about her ability to perform her job and about her mistaken career choice that she barely spoke to her father as they drove to the city each morning. He didn’t seem to mind or notice, absorbed as he was in listening to the news on the car radio. Flora tried to tame her mounting panic, forcing herself to focus on the farmland they passed, trying to figure out where one plot ended and the next began, but when she found herself counting hay bales and road signs, she knew her anxiety had won out and she gave in to her nagging, weighty thoughts, mentally composing monologues to her supervisor and her parents—and to Professor Fitzgerald and Dr. Rose—explaining why she couldn’t continue in her job. She couldn’t find words that would convey, in a poised and confident manner, what she felt, which was “I am too young to advise other people on how to live,” and “I have nothing in common with these people. How can I help them?” and “Why should they trust me?” She was only pretending to herself and everyone else that she was capable of taking part in the real world. She was immature and a fraud, and she thought it best to come clean before causing any damage.

She brushed off praiseful reports from her colleagues and supervisors, assuming they were acting out of compulsory politeness or professionalism, following instructions from a handbook on how to encourage junior employees.

“You’ve got a special way with people, Flora,” said Barbara, a resident psychiatric nurse. “People instantly trust you because they can feel you’re not judging them.”

“We were very lucky to find you, Flora,” said Dr. Miner, her direct supervisor. “You’re a natural.”

“Thank you,” replied Flora graciously. Some days she let herself absorb the compliments, enjoying the sustenance and smiling irrepressibly as she replayed them later. Other days they felt more like a grating across her skin. If these kind people or any patients could see inside her head, they would be dismayed to find a surfeit of unmerited judgment.

But something changed after a month or so. There wasn’t an incident with a particular patient but rather a slow awareness. One day, as she and her father drove wordlessly through the farmland, she realized she was able to relax enough to listen a bit to the news instead of straining not to think. She was not dreading her day. “These people” had detached themselves from a menacing mob and had dispersed into individuals with names and discrete personalities and, while their lives were dramatically different from hers in countless ways, their human feelings were not. Just as the lake water became more tolerable after a few minutes of moving around in it, so the hospital environment transformed for her. Of course, it wasn’t always a walk in the park after that. Most weeks were more frustration than success and that ratio increased in tandem with her responsibilities over the years. She always had the capacity to swing swiftly from identifying with a patient’s predicament—fear of the unknown, or of reproach, or of failure—to manifest impatience, barely able to keep from shouting, “Just do it! Do something! The world won’t explode!” Flora had known for a fact that the lake water would be fine after a minute but dreaded it and procrastinated each time nonetheless, repeatedly receiving Lillian’s impatience: “Just get in! It’s not going to get any easier the longer you wait!” Looking at her own mysterious, often disappointing, behavior from a distance helped Flora to find common ground.

Flora simply learned to temper her expectations and to be realistic about what could actually happen with a person’s life. She, Flora, couldn’t always change things, but she could try, and the trying seemed to be enough for someone who hadn’t had anyone in their court for, perhaps, ever. When she had gained even more experience she expected disappointment, and then she had to learn to temper that because sometimes people could surprise her. Just when she thought all hope was lost with someone, they’d up and turn over a new leaf, get a job, get excited about a new hobby, have a breakthrough with their child, begin to enjoy life a bit more, and Flora would chastise herself for being so dour and unimaginative.

But those phases of her work life were still a ways off. Upon the urging of Delia, Flora sent Dr. Rose a thank you note for his part in securing her job. She wasn’t sure where to send it but she found his name in the hospital directory on the secretary’s desk, wrote his building and office number on the envelope, and left it in the inter-hospital outgoing mail. The next afternoon, he appeared at the same desk while she was there chatting with the secretary and asked her to lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

After four months of frequent but irregularly-spaced cafeteria lunches—Flora never knew when the invitations would come since Will’s schedule was erratic—he asked her if she would like to go for a drive on Saturday to take in the start of the autumn foliage along the lakes. He suggested picking her up at her home, and Flora recognized this as a request to meet her parents. That trace of adventure she had imagined when first seeing him at Wells College returned and made the air around her feel charged.

“Will he stay for lunch?” Delia asked, visibly delighted at the prospect of meeting the man her daughter had been seeing and not saying enough about for too long, as far as she and Flora’s sister Ruth were concerned. All Flora would say is that he was witty, generous, brilliant, and fascinating, judiciously doling out the words of admiration one per session so as not to appear too eager herself.

Will would not stay for lunch but instead insisted that he treat them all to lunch at the Kan-ya-to Inn in Skaneateles. When Frank Devereaux heard about the plan, the vertical line in his brow deepened further. Flora’s parents still referred to the inn by its old name, the Packwood House, because they were used to it and because her father didn’t like its new name, which he thought “sounded too Japanese.” Flora liked that Will confidently called it by its proper, Iroquois name. He had announced each syllable with the same emphasis, as if to return to the Native Americans the dignity that was unjustly and violently wrested from them. Flora braced herself for some tension, likely compounded by the very idea that this thirty-two-year-old man would be was taking it upon himself to foot the bill for her family to eat lunch when Frank could well afford such a gesture himself. But Frank was eager to sit down and talk with the man as his reputation preceded him. He had heard his name around the office and seen it occasionally in the newspaper when Will would serve as an expert witness or was quoted on criminal profiles.

To Flora’s surprise and relief, the fact that he was eleven years her senior never factored into any commentary from the peanut galleries. To her, the gap felt even larger. Flora could listen to Will talk about his work endlessly. And his personal history. He was born in Russia and lived there with his parents, his grandmother, and his two older brothers, until the whole lot of them emigrated to America when Will was still an infant. His parents spoke Yiddish, but once they moved, they insisted all the children speak only English even though they never learned it themselves. They settled in Yonkers and Will lived there until he was eighteen, taking the train into Manhattan to take evening college courses in biology at Columbia University while he was still in high school. He chose the University of Wisconsin in Madison to go to college, based solely on the fact that they had the first and only Yiddish language program to which he availed himself so as to return the dignity to his native language that was wrested from him. There was no mention of Will’s being Jewish. No matter what they truly thought or felt, their outward stance on the difference in their religions was one of silent beneficence. Flora hated to even think it, but the fact that Jews were being treated so savagely in Europe likely helped Will’s cause in this case.

While Flora might otherwise question why such a charismatic man found her interesting enough to spend time with, given her presumption that the other dull boys—few in number—she had gone with mirrored her own qualities, she did not harbor this insecurity with Will. From their first conversation, he shone a light on her and made her feel special and smart, and he never stopped praising her looks and wit—“Myrna Loy and Bette Davis in one fabulous package,” he’d said. Around him, she often did feel like a star, twinkling, rising, shooting.

The lunch was genial and relaxed, the men finding much to talk about, mostly professional, and they largely conversed among themselves to the exclusion of the women—Delia, Ruth, and Flora—a fact that satisfied Flora. She knew her parents were intent on good marriages for all three daughters, meaning financial security as well as admirable and respectable sons-in-law. As for the scenic drive, Frank and Delia let the two girls go off with Will on their own, and the three of them enjoyed the rest of the leaf-peeping afternoon immensely. At a Christmas party at the Devereaux’s home in December, with Lillian and her husband Arthur home from California for the holidays, Flora and Will announced their engagement and plan to marry the following August. Flora felt like she was on a speeding train passing by lush scenery—forests, rolling hills dotted with hay bales, shimmering lakes. The mild anxiety of missing the opportunity to contemplate the views was mostly countered by her impatience to start her adulthood.