Talk Before Sleep (25 page)

“You know,” she says, “I was thinking today about how I used to get so pissed off just because my laundry hamper was full. Now it takes so little to make me happy. This is good to finally learn, you know what I mean? It’s not so bad, Ann, honest. It’s kind of interesting. I sort of feel like I’m only going home, like I’m being called in first, like when we were kids. Of course we always hated to go, right?—everybody
else
got to stay out, there was still some
light
, but then when you got in, you were sort of glad to be there. I think I’ll be glad to be there. I just don’t want to be in pain, so I’ve got lots of stuff around in case I need it.”

I look out the window. “Do you look the same?”

“I don’t know. I don’t look in the mirror anymore. It’s getting pretty messy, Ann. You’re not missing a thing.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you look the same?” she asks.

“Yeah, except for my marine haircut. And I’ve gained even more weight. I guess I
don’t
look the same.”

I can hear her smile. Then she asks, “Did you see the full moon last night?”

“Yes! So big!”

“Yes.”

And then we don’t talk for a while. I think we are both savoring the fact that there is still something we can see at the same time. Ruth once said that the best parameters of her mental health were her skin and her awareness of what phase the moon was in.

“Ann?” she says. “I’m kind of whipped, okay?”

That’s how she always ends the conversations.

I
read a good book,” I tell her. “Want me to send it?”

“I don’t think so.” She sounds so tired today.

“I made this new recipe last night,” I say. “You use a whole bunch of mustard on chicken. It sounds terrible, but it’s really good.”

“Have you seen Helen?” she asks. “L.D.?”

“No. But I will.”

“Promise me, okay?”

“I promise.”

O
ur conversations are silly—about nothing, really, less and less consequential. But they are comforting to both of us, I know. They remind me of what we talk about before we go to sleep, any of us, the lazy, low-voiced assurances we offer each other:
Did you turn out the lights? Put the chain locks on? Is the cat in? Are the kids covered?
Always, we’re just checking to see that we’re safe. I’ve always thought that was the funniest thing, given the vastness of the dark we lie down in.

A
fter two more days, she can’t come to the phone anymore. Talking takes too much energy, too much breath. I talk to Andrew instead. I make brief, awkward inquiries, and he offers brief, awkward responses. Helen says she hates him, he won’t tell her anything, but there is nothing to say. “Should we go there?” we all ask each other, in our different combinations. I don’t know, I don’t know, we all say. And we wait. I make brownies, look up from the mixer, burst into tears, wipe my face with my apron, and finish. “Hello?” I say, too anxiously, every time the phone rings.

W
ould you please buy her a bouquet for me?” I ask Andrew. “I’ll send you a check. But I want you to go pick it out yourself to make sure the flowers are good. She’ll have a fit if they’re not good flowers.”

“To tell you the truth,” he says. “She’s not really too interested in anything now.”

“All purples and pinks and whites,” I say. “No carnations. A really big one. Plenty of freesia, so it smells good.”

“Ann, you’d really be wasting your money.”

“She always likes to have fresh flowers. She needs them.”

“All right. When the nurse comes today, I’ll go get her some. How much do you want me to spend?”

“What does the nurse come for?” I ask.

“Oh, just … She bathes her, helps with medication, with the oxygen.”

“She’s using oxygen?”

“Yes, it’s been pretty hard for her to breathe. Especially at night, for some reason.”

I remember her doctor saying, “It will most likely be respiratory, Ruth. A lot of people like to go into the hospital at that point because the feeling of not being able to breathe … well. Anyway, at the hospital we can give you enough medication to make you comfortable.”

Ruth said, “You mean you can kill me that way, instead,” and her doctor said, well yes, that was one way to look at it.

She looked at me then, popped her bubble gum, raised her eyebrows up and down. And when we got in my car outside, she said, “‘A lot of people
like to go to the hospital
.’ Did you hear that?”

“Yeah. I thought that was a pretty poor choice of words myself.”

“Well, I guess so,” she said. “You know how I felt, hearing him say that?”

“How?”

“Look,” she said, and when I did, she slowly pulled her wig up off her head, saying, “Eeeeeyikes!”

“Put some baby orchids in that bouquet, too,” I tell Andrew now.

“All right. And you wanted to spend …”

“I’m sending you a check for a hundred dollars.”

“That’s way too much!”

“Find a way to spend it,” I tell him. “Use long stems.”

M
ichael comes home, goes to stay with his dad.

Ruth’s request. It must be getting very close.

“Is she scared?” I ask Andrew.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

“You haven’t asked her?”

“No.”

“Well, Jesus, Andrew, go ask her, and then come back to the phone and tell me what she said.”

He puts the phone down, and I hear him saying my name and then some other things. Then he comes back to the phone. “She wrote no. Then she wrote that she loves you.”

“Thank you,” I say, and hang up.

She “wrote.” What else will be taken from her before she leaves?

I
go to the grocery store. I go to the post office. I fold the towels, stack them in the linen closet. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and weep, and then I clean it with Soft Scrub.

T
ell her that I will always talk to her. Remind her.”

“She’s pretty much sleeping all the time now, Ann.”

Tell her when she’s sleeping.

I
open the mail. I roll the socks up, put them away. I read articles in magazines. I watch
Seinfeld
and
Nightline
with Joe. I’ve begun taking antacids for the regular grabbing pain in my stomach.