As I sat with Ruth in her apartment, watching her smoke the few daily cigarettes she allowed herself, I asked what her day-to-day life was like. She seemed quite depressed. Her apartment was lined with books and classical music CDs, and the living room was overpowered by the presence of a baby grand piano. I asked her if she still played. She said no. "Do you listen to your fabulous music collection." She said no. "Do you read your books," I asked. "No," she repeated. But she directed me to her bedroom, where she kept a shelf of mystery novels. She told me she didn't understand why, but these were the only books she enjoyed reading. She would start at one end of the shelf, then read each of the 20 or more that were there. When she reached the end, she began again.

Ruth had lived such an interesting life; I was disheartened to hear her recount the smallness of her world. I invited her to have dinner with me that night at the inn where I was staying. "That would be lovely," she said. "That's my favorite place. But you will have to come and get me, because I am not steady on my feet."

"Of course," I said, and returned for her at 5:30 p.m.

It was a chilly, beautiful December evening as we strolled arm in arm back to the inn. She took my arm to steady herself, but I could feel her happiness at being close to someone. When we arrived at the inn there was a small Christmas pageant in the lobby, and we joined the audience. I got each of us a cup of mulled wine, and took quiet pleasure in watching Ruth as she emerged from her depressed mood. We then went for dinner and I told her to order anything she wanted. She happily ordered a steak and a stiff drink. With no tape recorder on, she spoke much more freely and happily.

Seeing that she had not lost the ability to enjoy herself, I asked if there was anything she might still want to do with her life. She said that while she had lived and traveled all over the world, she had never seen Alaska. She had heard that Alaskan cruises were breathtaking. And it was something she could manage, in spite of her heart problems and scoliosis, provided someone accompanied her.

"Why don't you go?" I asked. She said that she had no money. She lived on her pension and Social Security and had no savings. Money had never meant anything to her, so she had always spent whatever she had. It was simply out of the question.

The next morning we returned to talking about Sylvia. I asked if she minded being known throughout her own distinguished career as "Sylvia Plath's psychiatrist." Did she feel obscured by the myth that had grown around Sylvia? She reiterated that she was happy to set the record straight and keep people from writing things about Sylvia that weren't true.

I asked what bothered her the most. This conversation took place when the tape recorder was off, so I do not have a verbatim account. But she referred vaguely to a specific poem. "Which poem?" I asked. She didn't answer. Rather, she pointed to her bookshelves, saying she thought I would find the poem there. I looked, found a copy of "Colossus," and took it down from the shelf. Ruth said something about people making too much of the title of one of Sylvia's poems. I couldn't find anything that seemed controversial in the book, so Ruth told me she was referring to the one called "Lesbos," which turned out not to be in the "Colossus" collection at all, but in the "Collected Poems."

"So it bothered you that some people thought she might be lesbian?" I asked. She said yes. I paged through the book while I listened to Ruth.

As I went to return "Colossus" to her bookshelf, I saw that Sylvia Plath had inscribed this first edition "With love" to Ruth. I couldn't help mentioning to Ruth that this book was probably worth a great deal of money, probably enough for an Alaskan cruise for two. I asked her if she would like me to make some inquiries regarding the value of the book -- or did it mean too much to her to sell? She said she didn't need the book, that she kept Sylvia in her heart. But she scoffed at my idea, saying she thought it most unrealistic to imagine the book was valuable.

Soon, Ruth and I said our goodbyes. I felt surprisingly sad about leaving her. Upon returning home to Milwaukee, I made it my mission to discover the true value of her inscribed copy of "Colossus." Eventually, I tracked down a rare bookseller, Peter Stern, whose store was located in Boston. Stern told me the book would probably fetch at least $15,000 at auction.

When I called Ruth, I couldn't help teasing her a bit after her playful ridicule of me. "What would you say if I offered you $1,000 for the book?" I asked. She said, "I'd take it. But I don't believe it's worth that much."

I responded with, "You're right, Ruth. It isn't worth that much. I spoke with a rare bookseller in Boston and it's actually worth more like $15,000." She couldn't believe it, and it took me several minutes to convince her. I put her in touch with Stern.

Then, on March 1, 1999, Ruth e-mailed me to report that she had made reservations with her niece on the Princess Line for Aug. 17. The book was subsequently sold for $14,500 and Ruth received more than $10,000; she insisted on sending me $700, to defray the costs of my visit to her. She ended her note by saying, "I often think of your visit, what a good time I had, and wish something else would bring you here again. Best wishes -- Ruth."

Not long afterward, she saw her physician, suspecting that she had an aortic aneurysm. She was right. That meant she either had surgery or risked dying at any time. She decided on the surgery to ensure good health for her trip. She e-mailed me on April 12 to tell me the news. I immediately called her and questioned the wisdom of undergoing the surgery, given her age and existing health problems. But she wanted to do it. Living her life as a walking time bomb was not something she could do. Ruth was a woman who needed to feel in control.

She gave me her son's phone number so that I could check on her progress. When I spoke to him following her surgery he said she survived the procedure, but her kidneys had shut down. She was in pain and her condition was poor. When I heard this news I was flooded with sadness. I feared that, in spite of our best efforts, Ruth might never take that Alaskan cruise.

On May 8, 1999, at Beth Israel/Deaconess Hospital in Boston, Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse died.

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