Free Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg Page A

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.”

R uth 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