Riverside Sanctuary

Riverside Sanctuary is the cold-sleep institution where Dan Davis finds Frederica Virginia Heinicke—Ricky—after decades of separation and is present when she wakes. It first appears as a guarded name in a newspaper withdrawal notice; its rules initially keep Dan at a distance, but its director eventually permits him to witness the moment when Ricky recognizes him and Pete.

Institution and Client Confidentiality

The Sanctuary enters Dan’s search through the vital-statistics columns of the Los Angeles Times. On May 2, 2001, among the withdrawals listed in the Wednesday paper, he finds the entry “Riverside Sanctuary . . . F. V. Heinicke.” The initials connect the institution to Ricky’s grandmother’s surname, Heinicke, and to a piece of knowledge Dan recognizes without being able to explain how he acquired it. The public notice gives him a lead, but not the identity behind it; he has to call the Sanctuary and ask.

The phone exchange establishes a firm boundary around client information. The night technician confirms that Dan has reached the Riverside Sanctuary, but says it is closed and refuses to discuss a client over the phone. He directs Dan to call after ten or, better, to come in person. Dan presses for the meaning of the initials, and the technician eventually checks a card. Reading it first as “Frances” and then correcting himself to “Frederica Virginia,” he confirms the name Dan has been hoping to hear. The Sanctuary’s limited disclosure does not reveal Ricky’s circumstances, but it turns an uncertain clue into a confirmed identity.

That restriction continues at the Sanctuary itself. When Dan arrives around daylight, the night nurse, Mrs. Larrigan, sympathizes with him and shows him Ricky’s photograph, asking whether she is his cousin. The image identifies Ricky unmistakably: she is now a beautiful young woman, but her unchanged eyes and recognizable, pixie-like quality preserve the link to the child Dan remembers. Mr. Larrigan immediately objects that his wife should not have shown the photograph, invokes the rules, and tells Dan that the director is the person to see. He also notes that Dr. Bernstein has no authority to answer questions and was not Ricky’s physician. The episode distinguishes personal compassion from institutional permission: Mrs. Larrigan helps, while her husband insists that access to information belongs to authorized channels.

Dan’s Search and the Director’s Decision

After the first call and visit, Dan returns to Riverside to pursue the lead formally. On Monday, April 30, he checks out and takes a room at the Mission Inn. The following morning, at ten, he presents himself to the director, Dr. Rumsey, and identifies himself as Daniel B. Davis. To establish who he is, he shows a Denver driver’s license issued in 1970 and his withdrawal certificate from Forest Lawn Sanctuary. He believes Ricky is scheduled for withdrawal that day and asks permission to be present—not for the processing, but for the final moment when she receives the last restimulant and regains consciousness.

The request is personal, but the scene remains governed by the Sanctuary’s process. Dan is told to wait in the lobby or return later; staff will not need him for a couple of hours. He retrieves Pete from the lobby and takes him for a walk, carrying him in a new travel bag made as much like his old one as possible. At eleven-thirty, Dan is back, and the staff finally let him see Ricky. The sequence makes the Sanctuary both the place where their reunion becomes possible and the institution that controls its timing and terms.

Ricky’s Awakening

When Dan is admitted, Ricky’s body is covered and only her face is visible. He recognizes her as his Ricky, now grown to a woman, and sees her lying as if asleep. Dr. Rumsey explains that she is under posthypnotic instruction and says he will bring her up; he asks Dan to put the cat outside. Dan refuses. The director starts to speak, then shrugs and turns back to his patient, proceeding with the awakening while Pete remains present.

Rumsey tells Ricky to wake. Her eyelids flutter, her eyes open and wander briefly, and then she sees Dan and Pete and smiles sleepily. She names them together: “Danny and Pete.” Raising both arms, she reveals Dan’s Tech class ring on her left thumb. Pete chirrlups and jumps onto the bed, making ecstatic shoulder dives against her. These details give the reunion its force: recognition comes immediately, the ring makes their continuing bond visible, and Pete answers Ricky’s waking with an unrestrained welcome.

Narrative Significance

Riverside Sanctuary’s role develops from a guarded entry in the newspapers into the setting of the novel’s reunion. Its withdrawal notice supplies the clue Dan almost misses; its phone and privacy rules make him work to confirm what the initials mean; and its staff’s divided responses show how personal concern operates within institutional limits. The same establishment that controls access to Ricky also preserves the procedures through which she can be awakened.

The final scene brings the Sanctuary’s formal language of commitment, withdrawal, and posthypnotic instruction into contact with an intimate recognition that the procedures alone cannot explain. The staff can bring Ricky to consciousness, but Dan and Pete are the first people she identifies. Her greeting and the ring on her thumb turn a clinical awakening into the culmination of a relationship carried across the cold sleep that separated them. Riverside Sanctuary is therefore not merely the destination of Dan’s search: it is the controlled threshold at which his lost past becomes a shared present again.