Talk Before Sleep (16 page)

“Do you?”

He shrugged. “I went to the library and did a lot of reading about this disease.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course, the books are all old by now. No book could keep up with the progress that’s being made.”

“What progress is that?”

“Well, you know, I mean things happen every day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They do!”

“Yeah, all right.”

He looks away, crumples his cup in his hand, then looks back at me. He doesn’t have to tell me what he believes will happen to Ruth. “The biggest mistake I ever made was walking away from her,” he said. “Major fuck-up. She was perfect for me. I think we could have …” He stops, swallows, looks over at her.

“She never told me a thing about you,” I say.

I don’t know why I’ve said this.

He smiles. “I never forgot her. I never did.”

“Well,” I say. “Who could?”

Sarah walks by us with a camera. “Smile,” she says, and Joel and I put our arms around each other.

“Get ready,” she says.

Together we say, “We are.”

I
don’t see Ruth for three days. When I call, she is cheerful and unwilling to admit to any discomfort, if she’s having any. Joel is always there. I ask if he doesn’t have to go to work sometimes, and Ruth laughs and says, “He’s an artist, remember? He’s working. He paints when I sleep.”

H
e’s staying there all the time,” I tell L.D. on the phone.

“I know. The fucker.”

“Well … I guess she wants him to, right?”

“I suppose.”

“I guess it’s good, right?”

L.D. sighs. “It’s not that. It’s not that I begrudge her any happiness. It’s just that I miss her. All of a sudden I don’t know what’s happening anymore. I’m jealous.”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s it. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’re welcome.”

“Okay.”

W
ednesday morning, Ruth calls me after Meggie’s gone to school, asks me to come over. When I get there, I see that she is alone, and I feel a sniffy kind of self-righteousness. I sit on the bed beside her, take off my coat, kiss her. “It’s about time you called me.”

“Ummm, your face is cold,” she says. “It feels good.”

“Are you hot?” I say. “Do you have a fever?”

She smiles. “No. No.”

“So how are you?” I ask, and the tone is careful and ignorant.

She looks at me, tears in her eyes. “He’s been here way too much, hasn’t he?”

I look down, shrug.

“Do you feel like I’ve rejected you?”

“No, of course not!”

“Do you feel like I’ve rejected you?”

“Look,” I say, “it’s good that he showed up.”

“Do you feel—”

“I don’t know!” I say. “I mean, I miss you, that’s all. I got used to being here.”

“I told him to leave.”

“Why?”

Ruth smiles, shrugs. “Oh … you know. What’s
the point? It’s too late. God. Did you ever hear of worse timing?”

“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”

She looks at me as though she is trying to memorize me. I don’t say anything. I’m afraid to.

“Did I ever tell you that I sort of … broke in on Jani and Eric?” Ruth asks.

“No. What do you mean?”

“It was right after I found out about her. Before I went into the nuthouse. I’d been out to dinner with Michael, and then dropped him off at a friend’s house to sleep over. And then I went to Eric’s. I wanted to talk to him again, about … I wanted him to let me come home. I thought if he saw me again, he’d change his mind. I walked up to the door, and I heard this music coming from inside. Thelonious Monk. And you know, Eric hardly ever listens to music. Especially good jazz. Clearly this was a courtship thing.”

She stops talking, holds up a hand. “Wait.” She rests for a moment, then says, “So I went up to the window to look in, and all I saw were these shoes by the sofa, his and hers, you know. Obviously, they were in the bedroom. So I went in.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. I went in, really quietly.”

“Oh, Ruth.”

“I started up the stairs to the bedroom and then I heard their voices, they were sort of panicked, they must have heard me. I was just going to open the door when Eric opened it. He was in his bathrobe and his glasses were off and his hair was all messed up and it just … I was just enraged! I bought him that bathrobe! I
pushed past him into the bedroom and there she was, lying there with her hair all messed up, too.”

“I can’t believe you did that,” I said. “And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me when you did!”

“It gets worse,” Ruth says. “I went up to her and said I’d heard so much about her and it was so nice to meet her and I put out my hand for her to shake. And I meant it to be really mean and sarcastic and everything, but all of a sudden I had this thought:
Wait. We’re both women, here. Let’s talk
. Of course, she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to shake hands, either. And I just stood there for the longest time, my hand reaching out to her.”

She stops talking, looks at me. I say nothing.

“So she says,” here Ruth adopted a whiny, nasal tone, “‘Well, I don’t think this is very respectful. This isn’t very nice.’”

“Are you kidding?”

She holds up her right hand. “The God’s truth. That is exactly what she said. Anyway, after that, Eric sort of threw me out.”

“Well … ”

“I know, I know I was wrong. But I’d thought … oh, I don’t know, I thought he’d never
really
prefer anyone to me. In spite of all that had happened between us, I was surprised to see him that way. I’d wanted him to let me come home. I wanted to go home. But I saw pretty clearly then that it wasn’t going to happen. Anyway, the next day I called him and apologized and told him to apologize to her, too.”

“You did?”

“Yes. And the day after that I called you and told you I wanted to die.”

“Yes, I remember that day. We were eating fried chicken. You were eating sleeping pills.”

She smiles, looks around her room, then at me. “That’s why I wanted Joel around. So I could have some things back. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“I’d been feeling better. I was happy again. And I can’t help it, I like men to like me.”

“I know. We all do, goddamn it.”

“I actually started to think I was going to make it, too. I thought if I just believed I was going to live, if I acted like it, I would. But I’m not going to make it, Ann. I know that.”

“No you don’t.”

“I know that and you do too, and so does everyone but L.D.”

I swallow, feel like crying, but I won’t.

“I feel like shit, Ann. I really feel terrible.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t tell you because I was feeling great. Really! But then yesterday, the same stuff started happening. I can’t breathe, my back hurts so bad, especially at night. And I feel like … I feel so … sort of … vague, you know? It’s not just weakness, it’s vagueness.”

“Did you take—”

“Yes, I did everything. I called the doctor, I took the pills. I think it’s just my time, now.”

“Well …” I look around the room helplessly,
wonder what to do. I don’t know what to do. “Have you told anyone else?”

“You do that.”

“You want me to tell people?”

“Yes. Okay? I want to feel … free.” She leans back against the pillows, closes her eyes.

I look at the top of her head. It is rosy pink, delicate flesh. I put my hand there and feel the heat of her life, I feel life. “Don’t go,” I say, a quiet, involuntary request, and she smiles, a tiny thing, full of fatigue and empty of hope.

“Ruth.”

She opens her eyes, hands me an envelope lying next to her. It is full of the pictures Sarah took at the party. Looking at them, I see now that we are all too bright, all desperate and pretending, but with our fear betraying us anyway. The last photo is a double exposure, showing Ruth as being in two places at once. She looks see-through, sitting squarely before her easel, but also floating slightly above herself, looking off to the side and reaching out toward something. She sees me looking at it, takes it from me and looks at it again herself.

“It’s a double exposure,” I say. “That’s all.”

She smiles bitterly. “Come on. You know better than that.”

T
hat night after dinner, I pack a suitcase. Meggie is sitting on the bed watching me. One of her sneakers is untied, and I bend down to tie it for her. Ruth helped me pick those sneakers out. I put my face in my hands, then I feel Meggie’s hand on the top of my head. “It’s okay,” she says. And then, again, “It’s okay, Mommy.”

I look up at her, attempt a smile.

“When are you coming home?” she asks.

“In not too long, I think, Meggie.”

“In two days?”

“I don’t know, honey. Maybe. I don’t know. But Daddy will be here. He’s going to go to the office just while you’re at school. Then he’ll work from home in the afternoons, so he’ll be here with you. That’ll be kind of fun, huh?”

She nods.

“And I’ll call you every day. And you can call me if you need to. Whenever you want.”

“Okay.”

I get up from the floor, sit beside her on the bed. “I’ll miss you, but I really need to be with Ruth now, okay?”

Another nod. “Is she going to die now?”

“I think so.”

“When will you?”

“Not for a long, long time. Not until I’m a very old lady. Not until you’re an old lady yourself.”

“Oh. How do you know?”

“Well,” I say. “I just do.”

She is visibly relieved. And in her acceptance of my false assuredness, I find relief, too. Ruth once told me, “I think one of the reasons we have children is to believe everything all over again. And I’m not talking Santa, here, either.”