Talk Before Sleep

by Elizabeth Berg

  “I know whatever happens, I’ll get through this,” she said that night. “I know I’ll be fine. I just know it. Don’t you feel that, sometimes, a kind of absolute sureness?” I could smell her shampoo, feel the slight pull her weight created on her side of the bed. I could see the dim outline of all her things around us, her furniture, the art on her walls, the restless flutter of her curtains in the night air. In her jewelry box, bracelets and earrings waited, in her cupboard were unopened cans of soup and boxes of spaghetti. Mail came addressed to her; her voice was on her answering machine; she had a savings account and a checking account and ice skates she used every winter. Where could danger fit in her busy life? I turned my pillow over, flipped my hair up to feel the coolness against my neck. I relaxed. Because I believed her.

  “I guess I do have some real sureness about some things,” I said. “I know I won’t die on a plane. That’s why I’m never afraid to fly.”

  Ruth yawned, then said, “How do you think we do know that stuff?”

  “Grace,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Grace. I mean, I think that’s what grace is, the messages we get. Only we miss most of them.”

  “Grace is ‘God’s loving mercy toward mankind,’” Ruth said. “I learned it in Sunday school.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean,” I said. “They’re merciful, those messages. If only we could understand them.”

  Ruth wore a black knit dress to meet with the surgeon. I wore a purple sweater over my jeans, having heard that it was a healing color. I tried to tell Ruth to change when I picked her up.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well … ”

  She strode over to the full-length mirror in her bedroom. “Does this look bad? Is my stomach sticking out?”

  “No. It’s just grim, black. Funereal. It might bring bad luck.”

  “Oh, bullshit. I look fabulous. Let’s go.”

  In the car, Ruth told me about having seen Eric the day before. “He came over and tried to offer his regrets, you know. I was actually sort of glad to see him. I was telling him about what the deal was, and I asked him if he wanted to see what they’d done, you know, the biopsy site? I don’t know why. I think I just wanted to man-test it, see if the next time I sleep with someone they’ll be freaked out about a scar on my boob. I mean, this one was a decent cut.”

  “So what did he say about it?”

  She laughed. “He didn’t even look! I started to pull my shirt up and he said, ‘Ruth, do you mind?’”

  “Good old Eric.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he’s squeamish.”

  “Maybe he’s a jerk.”

  When we arrived at the doctor’s office, Ruth and I sat together on one side of a massive desk. The surgeon came in, unfamiliar-looking now in a dark-brown suit. He sat opposite us, folded his hands on top of the desk, raised his eyebrows. Then he sighed nearly imperceptibly.

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  “So,” he said. “How are you, Ruth?”

  She laughed.

  He smiled, embarrassed, then said, “Has this … sunk in a little over the last few days?”

  She shrugged. “Well, I guess so. I think it’s just the suddenness that’s the problem. I mean, I’m fine. I’m really healthy. I ran three miles the morning before you cut me. It’s like you’re doing dishes or something and the phone rings and somebody else answers it and hands it to you and says, ‘It’s for you. It’s cancer.’”

  The doctor stared at her, attempted an empathetic nod.

  “Of course, I know I’ll be fine and everything; it’s just kind of a shock, that’s all. I woke up the past two mornings and thought, wait, what’s wrong, something’s wrong. And then I remembered.”

  He looked down at her file, pulled out a paper, cleared his throat. “We got the full path report back,” he said.

  Ruth opened her purse, got a stick of gum. “And?”

  “Well. It’s not too good, Ruth. What you have are the most aggressive kinds of cancer cells—highly undifferentiated. And of course, you’re premenopausal.”

  “I certainly am,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. She wasn’t understanding. I thought I remembered that breast cancer acts worse when you’re premenopausal. I stared straight ahead.

  “You might want to consider a mastectomy,” the doctor said. “Under these circumstances, most women do. The other choice would be a lumpectomy. Either choice will be followed, of course, by chemotherapy and radiation therapy. We’ll need to check your nodes. That will be the best prognosticator. We’ll hope it’s not there. If it is … well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  She sat quite still, then turned to me, held out her pack of gum. “Want a piece of this?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Take some,” she said, and I did.

  L.D. meets me at Ruth’s door. “Did you bring it?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Hot fudge.”

  I hold up the gigantic container.

  “Wow. I didn’t know you could buy that much.”

  “You can now.”

  “Let’s go,” she says, and starts for the kitchen. “Ruth’s really hungry. She’s eating like crazy.” She turns around to look at me. “This is it. I think she’s turned the corner. I swear to God. I think she’s getting better. I’m bringing her some more of those Chinese pills. And we need to get her out more. She can make it. I know she can.”

  I wish I had L.D.’s unwavering hope. Sometimes I think I’m starting to get close to it, and then I remember standing beside Ruth only a couple of weeks ago while her doctor showed her her chest X rays, her CAT scan. We’d been taken to a little room with light boxes so we could see them, and her doctor was pointing out all the pathology. A radiology resident had been in the room when we came in, looking at Ruth’s films, and his face changed from curiosity into something resembling fear mixed with pity when Ruth’s doctor introduced her to him. The name on the films! Here! He actually stepped back after he said hello, as though she were contagious. I stepped closer to her, stared at him defiantly. But after she shook his hand, Ruth ignored him, looked instead at pictures of her own lungs.

  “This,” her doctor said, beginning his horrible lecture, “is the cancer in your lungs, Ruth. This whiteness.” He pointed here, there, everywhere. Then, defeated, he put his hand down at his side. “I mean … it’s just a snowstorm in there.” He wasn’t being cruel. Ruth had insisted that she be shown these things. “I want to see it,” she said. “Then I can visualize it going away.”

  Next her doctor showed her slices of her brain from the CAT scan. “It’s here,” he said, pointing again. “And here.” Then, in a voice we could barely make out, “And … here.”

  “Jesus,” Ruth said.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s impressive.” He was using the vocabulary of medicine. He was hiding. He showed her her liver, her besieged spine.

  “So,” Ruth said. “You’re absolutely sure we should stop the chemo? It won’t help at all?”

  He shook his head.

  “Radiation?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing, really nothing you can do, Howard?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sighed, looked at the radiology resident, by now skulking like a rat in the corner. Then she smiled at me, oh, this radiant smile. “Want to go to the movies?” she asked.

  We went. We found a comedy and we went. And on the way there, Ruth said, “Now, don’t think this is crazy, okay? I’m actually sort of relieved. Now it’s just up to me. It’s all under my control. I always felt so helpless when they were giving me all that stuff. I mean, with the chemo, you know, I would watch it drip in and look around the room and read stupid magazines and I just felt … I don’t know, it felt wrong. I was always real nervous. Scared to death. I couldn’t do any of that visualization, couldn’t see the chemo as this good, gold stuff that would save me. I never did, Ann, even when I told you I did. And when I got radi
ation and this huge machine was hanging over me and all the technicians had to leave the room and stare at me from the booth … I can’t tell you what that feels like! You’re so much at the mercy of someone else’s idea! And these ridiculous posters on the wall, saying ‘If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ Please!! This way … I don’t know, I’ve always worked best when I’m in charge. I’ll eat a billion carrots. I’ll work out my own way. Maybe I had to get this bad so I could take over and get better. Maybe.” She looked out the window. “I think maybe so.”

  I said nothing. I found an illegal parking place close to the doors of the movie, the manager’s spot, so she wouldn’t have to walk so far. We saw a comedy and we laughed out loud, a lot. After the movie was over, we went to the bathroom and Ruth washed her face at the sink, then stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. “For a dead guy, I look good as hell,” she said.

  She did all right for a while. Then she started getting weaker. But now L.D. swears she’s getting better again. Maybe Ruth was right. Maybe she’ll heal herself in the nick of time and show up in all the medical journals.

  I start to go to Ruth’s room. I want to see her. I want to see the evidence. I’m starting to get excited. But L.D. stops me. “Just stay in here and help me make sundaes,” she said. “Fucking Eric is here.”

  “What for?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, exactly. Something about her will. Something about money to be left for Michael.”

  “Oh.”

  L.D. hears the disappointment in my voice. “Come on,” she says, pulling the ice cream from the freezer. “What did you think? That he came to bring her roses, to tell her how wonderful she is?” She pulls the lid off the ice cream, digs her fingers in, and puts a big helping into her mouth. “Does she have any bananas?” she asks. “Nuts?”

  I get three bowls from the cupboard, set them on the table. “I think we should wait a minute before we make these, L.D. Wait till he leaves. I don’t want to eat in front of him.”

  She turns to look at me, surprised. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. He’s so …” I lower my voice. “He makes me so uncomfortable. He’ll probably tell me I chew wrong.”

  “Let’s go see if they’re almost done,” L.D. says. Then, over her shoulder, “You worry too much about other people, Ann. You’re all the time worrying about what other people think.”

  “I know.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Okay.”

  The door to Ruth’s bedroom is closed. L.D. starts to open it, then stops. They are arguing. Ruth’s voice is distraught, saying she didn’t know something, and then Eric’s muffled voice is asking how could she not know, what kind of incompetent does she have handling her affairs anyway? I am astounded at the level of his insensitivity.

  L.D. opens the door, and Ruth turns quickly toward her, red-eyed.

  “Want some ice cream?” L.D. asks, her voice so smooth and low it gives me chills. I move in to stand close behind her.

  “Oh, thanks, L.D.,” Ruth says. “No, I don’t think so. You guys go ahead. We’re almost done.”

  “You wanted a hot fudge sundae,” L.D. says, staring at Eric.

  “I know,” Ruth says. “But maybe later, okay?”

  There is an awkward silence, and then Eric says, “You’ll need, naturally, to take care of this right away, Ruth.”

  She nods, then flings the covers aside. “I have to pee.” We hear her crying quietly after she closes the bathroom door. Eric crosses his legs, sighs, leans back in the chair. Then, when he looks at his watch, L.D. is on him. She grabs at his chest, picks up handfuls of his burgundy V-necked sweater and white shirt, leans in close to his face. “Time’s up, pal.”

  Eric looks coldly into her face. “Let go of me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I should do that, Eric. Because if I let go of you, I’ll punch your fucking face so fucking hard you’ll end up on fucking Pluto. Now, get the fuck out of here.”

  “So eloquently put,” Eric says, and awkwardly rises. L.D. still has hold of him.

  “L.D.,” I whisper.

  She turns to me, her eyes devillike slits. “What?”

  “Well …” I gesture toward Eric. “Let him go.”

  She looks down at her hands, lets go. He straightens his sweater, rights his posture, reaches for a manila envelope on Ruth’s bed. He starts toward the door, turns back to look at L.D. and me and shakes his head. Then he closes the door quietly behind him.

  “I’m going to push him down those steps and break his goddamn head open,” L.D. says quietly. “He’s such a fucking asshole. He’s just a goddamn asshole. He’s really an asshole. The stupid fuck.”

  “But do you like him?” I ask.

  Ruth comes out of the bathroom and we both turn quickly toward her. When she sees Eric gone, she looks questioningly at us. “He had to go,” L.D. says.

  Ruth nods, climbs into bed. “Oh. Okay.”

  “He had an appointment with the Marquis de Sade.”

  Ruth smiles. “Did you scare him away, L.D.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well. Good.” She fluffs her pillows up behind her. “I think I’ll have that sundae after all, okay?”

  L.D. goes into the kitchen and I sit beside Ruth on the bed. “What did he want?”

  “Oh, I’ve done something wrong in the will. I have to … I don’t know. Sarah will help. It’s okay. I just have to make sure it gets done. As Eric reminded me, I don’t have all the time in the world.” She looks at me, smiles. “He’s always been so very helpful.”

  “Where are the nuts?” L.D. yells.

  “Right here,” Ruth and I answer together. No matter what, neither of us can ever resist an easy opener. Ruth yells back that they are in the upper right-hand cabinet. Then, to me, she says, “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I still don’t have any of that pain. Until Eric got here, I was feeling really good. Why do you think that is? Do you think my brain’s just not getting pain messages anymore or something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She takes in a breath, looks hard at me. “Do you think I could be getting better?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, Ann, what if I were?”

  “Well, that would be wonderful.” I hold her tight against me, and say, “I’m so glad I’m here. I want you to know I am exactly where I want to be. I’m so happy to be with you. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.”

  “Ann?”

  “Yes?”

  Anything. I will do anything for her. I hold her a little tighter.

  “Will you make sure I get a lot of ice cream?”

  L.D. kicks the door open, sees us embracing. “Break it up. Look what I got.” She is holding a tray with three bowls. There are towers of whipped cream over what I know are at least five scoops of ice cream.

  “Oh,” Ruth says. “Nevermind.”

  There is a knock, then Sarah’s voice calling out “Hello?”

  “Here we go again,” L.D. sighs.

  “What we need,” Ruth says, “is a real party.”

  “You want one?” I ask.

  Ruth thinks about it, nods. “Yeah.”

  “Done,” I say.

  Sarah comes into the room, unwraps the scarf from around her neck, unbuttons her coat. “I just passed fucking Eric on the road. What an asshole.”

  L.D. raises her eyebrows, looks Sarah up and down. Then, “Here,” she says, handing Sarah her sundae. “I’ll go make me another one.”

  It was shortly after Ruth had gotten her apartment that she talked me into taking a trip with her to New York City. I’d been there and hated it, and Ruth insisted that was because I’d seen it with the wrong person, namely, my husband. “Come with me,” she said. “Just for a weekend. I promise you’ll love it.”

  I said I’d go mostly because I was in another marriage rut and the idea of a weekend without Joe seemed like good medicine. Lately we
couldn’t have a conversation without it degenerating into a fight. “Did you pick up the cleaning?” I’d ask, and he’d say, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I’d begun to hate the sound of his chewing, the sight of his shoes, one lying over the other in the corner of the bedroom. I separated them with disgust, as though I’d caught them messily mating, flung them hard into the back of his closet. I resented his shaver next to the bathroom sink; I wanted a bouquet of pansies there, I wanted a clear Lucite container holding all my makeup. I had recently had the bizarre experience of picking up the water glass he left in the sink and squeezing it with a shaking hand, making some sort of growling noise at it before 1 slammed it down hard in the dishwasher. I knew that Ruth didn’t have to even look when she pulled something to drink out of her refrigerator—she’d picked everything for herself, so how could she not like it? All the mail she got was for her; each time the phone rang, that was for her, too. She could leave the light on to read until late into the night, or she could turn it off early and go to sleep without explanation. She could have terrific sex whenever she felt like it simply by picking up the phone. It was order-in service of inestimable quality. I muttered out loud to myself while I transferred loads of laundry from the washer to the dryer; I took aspirin for headaches; I sat at stop lights and wiped away tears that came more from anger than sorrow.

  Shortly before Ruth suggested our trip, we had seen a movie with a fleshy scene that made my pelvis feel as if it was being pulled forward off my seat, and I heard a little groan come out of me that was absolutely involuntary. I blushed, snuck a look at Ruth to see if she’d noticed. She was staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious, but then quietly asked, “Enjoying the show?”

  Afterward, we walked slowly through the parking lot toward our cars. The stars were so clear and beautiful I felt rebuked. I stopped to stare up at them and said, “Well, here I go, home to my lover. The man whose idea of foreplay is the eleven o’clock news.”