Talk Before Sleep (17 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Berg

BOOK: Talk Before Sleep
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W
e keep everyone away that first night. Ruth says she wants to settle into herself, think about what to do. “All I know right now,” she says, as we lie in her bed together that night, “is that I want to be here. I want you guys around me. You and L.D. and Sarah and Helen. And Michael, of course. He’s coming home from school tomorrow night. Those are the only people I want here anymore. I don’t want to have to deal with anyone else.”

“What if Eric wants to come?”

“No. We’ve said our good-byes.”

“I’ll bet.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” she says. “It was actually kind of nice. We had an hour-long phone conversation last night. We’ve made peace with each other.”

“And what about Joel? He wants to be here, I know.”

“Oh, I know, but …” She shrugs. “I don’t want him to come. Something changes when men are around, even good ones.”

I shake my head. “It’s so funny that he just appeared
like that. I like him. And I feel so bad that … I think you could have been …”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “That just doesn’t matter anymore.” There is such private peace in her voice. I can’t know how she got to where she is now. I can only see that she is there. She turns on her side, faces me. “Listen, you need to get this, okay? I’m okay about dying. I am. I just want to do it as right as I can, I want some control. I mean, I don’t want a religious service. And I want all of you to say something about me at the funeral. Will you?”

“Oh, God, Ruth.”

“And I want you to take me to a cemetery tomorrow. I think I know where I want to be buried. Sarah found it; she likes it, too. My spot would be by water. And there are two trees there that will bloom in the spring.”

I swallow, nod okay.

“That will be good, to have flowers there every spring, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And I want an angel on my grave. A grown-up woman angel, with huge wings that look really powerful. Like she works out. I’ve been dreaming about angels. I think they’re real. I want one on my grave.”

“Okay.”

“So that’s it. Tomorrow you’ll take me to the cemetery. And then tell the others they can come visit whenever they want. And we’ll just … wait. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“Ruth?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think this is it? I mean, doesn’t this feel … impossible?”

“Not any more.” She puts her hand over mine, holds it. “I’m sorry.”

I start to cry and she says, “Don’t. It’s okay. It’s okay. I feel … like I’m behind the camera now, and not in front of it, do you know what I mean?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t know what you mean. I feel terrible.” I cry harder.

“Stop it,” she says. “Listen to me. My perspective is different. I see everything differently. I’m telling you that it’s okay and I want you to believe me. In some perverse sort of way, I’m looking forward to it. I mean, I finally get to see what happens, you know what I mean?”

I nod. “I guess so.”

“The only scary thing is how alone I’ll be, doing it. I mean, even with you here. I wish I could get together a bunch of women like me—God knows we’re all over the place. I could round up a bunch of us terminal breast cancers and we could jump off a cliff together, like those buffalo. We could all experience death in the same way, at the same time, and then it wouldn’t be lonely. We’d all die together. And then we’d all rise up together, check each other’s teeth for lipstick before we entered the pearly gates.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What are you talking about? What buffalo?”

“Someone told me this, I forget who. That’s how the Indians got their buffalo, they chased them over a cliff. I suppose the Indians thought they were pretty
clever. But I think maybe those buffalo knew, that they chose that way to die. It was better than arrows, better than dying one by one.”

“It’s like
Thelma and Louise,”
I say. “They went off a cliff together rather than be killed the other way.”

“I know. They were the real Buffalo Gals.”

We stare at each other. There is a moment, and then we are both laughing. I get the TV guide and we watch a rerun of
The Dick Van Dyke Show
. Then Ruth is tired, wanting to go to sleep, so I make my bed in the living room. Ruth sits in a chair, supervising. “Get that flowered quilt out of the linen closet,” she says. “You can’t put that ugly plain one next to your skin.” Then, abruptly, “I want you to make more friends.”

I look up at her, surprised.

“I’m worried about you,” she says. “What will you do without me?”

I shrug, put the pillowcase on the pillow, throw it on the bed.

“Ann?” she says.

“What?”

“I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.”

“Come tuck me in.”

I follow her into her bedroom. Her gait is slow, slightly unsteady. She crawls under her blankets, pulls them up high. “Keep my shade open. I want to see the stars. I always like to see the stars before I go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Remember when we slept under the stars?”

“Yes.”

“You kissed me.”

“I know.”

“Good night,” she says, and I lean down and kiss her cool and perfect forehead. There is no fever here. Her forehead is fine.

W
e went camping just last summer, because Td never gone and Ruth thought that was crazy. “You have to sleep under the stars at least once in your life,” she said. “There is nothing like it.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” I said.

“It’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “I’ve been in a sleeping bag. It’s not comfortable. You can’t get proper alignment.”

“Ann,” she said, “you are lying under the fucking stars. You don’t think, oh, jeez, I wonder if this is hurting my posture.”

“I didn’t say anything about ‘posture,’” I said. “I said alignment. You just can’t he right. And it’s uncomfortable. There are rocks under you. And little hills and valleys, things like that. And killer wildlife all over the place just waiting for you to go to sleep.”

“I’m taking you this weekend,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t make it.”

“Nine o’clock Saturday night, I’m picking you up,” she said. “Bring your sleeping bag and your analgesics.”

We laid out our bags that night, and she was right, I looked up at the sky and it was all I thought about. I
felt suspended in time and in space. I believed myself uniquely privileged at the same time that I understood my connection to the millions of humans who had done this before me and would afterward.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Ruth asked, lying beside me.

“Yes.”

“Does anything else matter now?”

“No.”

“Do you find that comforting?”

“Yes, but scary, too,” I said.

“Are you scared?”

“Well, I don’t know if ‘scared’ is the right word. I just feel how unimportant we are.”

“But that’s good.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I want to mean something. I want it to matter that I’m here.”

“Ah, make your mark, huh?”

“Don’t you?” I asked.

“I think …” she said. “I believe you make your mark inside yourself. I think we’re meant to use every single thing we’re given. I want to act on every impulse.”

“I want more. I want someone to know I was here.”

“But you still have to start with yourself,” she said. “You have to let yourself know you’re here. Take things in. Let things happen. Everything.”

I was quiet for a long time, then said, “I know I don’t do that. Do I?”

“No.”

“That’s what makes me scared.”

“I know.”

“But also, I’m not like you.”

“Not in all ways.”

“I don’t think in any, Ruth. I mean, you’re my best friend. I admire you. But we’re very different.”

“We’re more alike than you think.” She rose up, leaned over me. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

“I think you’re beautiful. Everybody does.”

“Have you ever thought about loving me?”

“I do, I do love you, that’s what I meant.”

“No. I mean, physically loving me.”

“No!”

“No?”

“Well, I’m sorry, Ruth, but no, I haven’t.”

She put her face down close to mine. I didn’t move. She put her hand along the side of my face, pushed my hair back, raised her eyebrows slightly. I didn’t move. The stars surrounded her, they and her face were all that I saw. And then she pulled away, lay back down on her bag, started laughing.

“What?” I asked, embarrassed and a little angry.

“You should have seen your face!” she said.

I leaped up, lay on top of her, and kissed her passionately. Then I got back into my sleeping bag.

After a stunned moment, she said, “Well, congratulations! A plus.”

“How come you’re always the teacher?” I asked.

“Well,” she said. “I’m not. Obviously.”

I closed my eyes. I went to sleep.

I
t was weeks later, while I was lying in the bathtub, as a matter of fact, that it came to me that I could be pleased about what happened, that it wasn’t something that diminished me, but rather made me fuller, and richer. I saw that every person is a multifaceted and complex being, worthy of respectful exploration and discovery; that this longing we can’t name and try to cure with relationships might only be us, wanting to know all of our own selves. I felt like I was starting to learn, and I sort of whooped a little in happiness, like a cowgirl. Meggie, who’d been walking by the bathroom door, called in, “What happened? Are you all right?” I said that nothing was the matter, that I was just fine, just an old cowgirl taking a bath.

“You’re not a cowgirl!” she said, laughing.

“Why not?” I said. “It’s up to me.”


What
?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. Which was odd, because it was everything.

T
he noises of Ruth’s house at night are still unfamiliar to me. It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I am also thinking, how can I just go to sleep? There must be something I can do. How can I just lie here and be sleepy and comfortable and normal and
have nothing be wrong with me, nothing hurting in my body? I think of Joe telling me, “You have to remember that this is happening to her, okay? You have to differentiate yourself. Or you can’t help her.”

“What do you know about it?” I said. “You don’t know anything about it!”

“I know she wants you to stay yourself,” he said. “I know she wants you to be happy.”

“You don’t know anything,” I said.

But of course he did. I’ll do Ruth no good by regretting that I’m not dying, too. But I can’t help it. I regret that I can’t jump off with her, hold hands, take a step and fall, looking up at the sky the whole way down.

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