Read Online Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent - Free Book Online

borrow a nineteenth-­century phrase the
New York Times
used to describe the maladies of patients shuttered in the asylum where we now lived, had been let loose within the confines of those walls. It was now sure to spill over to the outside world. Maybe friends had already noticed the sharp tones we used to address each other. At work, Melissa probably suspected. Why else was she so respectfully silent during my very uncomfortable phone calls home—conversations (could I even call them that?) that involved screaming on the other end and me trying unsuccessfully—in the middle of the newsroom—to calm the drama du jour in strained sotto voce.
    In some ways, I identified with Nellie Bly, the investigative reporter who went undercover at my madhouse in 1887 and wrote a series of exposés for Joseph Pulitzer’s
New York World.
After ten days at the psychiatric hospital, she documented forced meals of spoiled food and ice-­cold baths where prisoners were required to stand in long lines and wash themselves in the dirty water left by their fellow inmates.
    Bly wrote about how prisoners from the nearby penitentiary even doubled as orderlies, keeping inmates in check through savage beatings. Among Bly’s observations, recorded in her book
Ten Days in a Mad-­House
, which I had recently read, “From the moment I entered the insane ward on the island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted the crazier I was thought to be.”
    Well, maybe things weren’t as bad as all that but, like Bly, I was an investigative reporter who had also entered The Octagon undercover—when we moved in I was pretending that everything was all right with my life. But as soon as I began to get a grip on reality and reclaim myself, “the crazier I was thought to be.” When I brought up divorce with my husband, I was taken aback by his response. Was I mentally ill, menopausal? Had I had my thyroid checked lately? Perhaps I needed a psychiatrist, antidepressants? What about yoga? Bly’s statement ricocheted through my brain.
    I’m not sure I did a good job explaining any of this to Edward. On that fateful Sunday afternoon I spent a lot of time crying my way through the bourbon, sounding incoherent even to myself. Edward listened and, at one point, rose to refill our glasses, having forgotten that we had already consumed the last of the bottle. I looked out his living room windows at the lights in the buildings across the water. It was already dark and I knew it was time to go home. Even in my leave-­taking, though, there was something comforting. I guess I knew that after the drama, Edward would always be there. As he escorted me to the elevator, holding the door open with his outstretched cane, he said, “Let’s have dinner soon, OK?”
    A couple of days later, I received a phone call from Valerie. Edward had told her everything about my crisis. She told me he was distraught, mostly because he felt there was nothing he could do to help me. As I listened, I became upset with myself for having put Edward under so much stress. “He’s very worried about you,” said Valerie.
    But Edward never conveyed his worries to me. He never dwelt on my situation, rarely offered any specific marriage advice, never interfered. On occasion, he would sigh and shake his head. “It’s a bloody shame,” he would say, knowing that I was the only one who could solve my problems.

8

    Beef with Sauce Bordelaise
    Pan-­Fried Potatoes with Gruyère
    Salad of Mixed Greens with Homemade Vinaigrette
    Apple and Pear Galette
    Malbec
    E dward was cutting beef into very thin slices with the precision of a surgeon when I showed up for dinner with a bottle of Argentine Malbec. He glanced quickly at the bottle and, surprisingly, decided that the wine would be excellent with his