Authors: Elizabeth Berg
Talk Before Sleep
TALK BEFORE SLEEP
“An eloquent testimonial to the power of women’s friendships … Berg captures the way women think—and especially the way they talk to other women—as well as any writer I can think of. You’ll want to give a copy to every good woman friend you have.”
—The Charlotte Observer
“Berg’s sensitive writing and thorough understanding of the emotions of true friendship make this sad story one to treasure.”
—Baltimore Sun
“There’s something funny about this exquisitely sad novel…. Elizabeth Berg balances the heart-wrenches with belly laughs.”
—The Hartford Courant
“A celebration of intimate friendship as well as a cry of grief … rendered with clarity, authority and feeling.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Elizabeth Berg [is] a gifted storyteller with a fine sense of pace and phrasing, as well as a splendid ear for dialogue.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe
“As wickedly funny as it is sob-making sad … It’s incredibly accurate in revealing what women talk about when they know each other well and are running out of time.”
—Star Tribune
(Minneapolis)
“Elizabeth Berg understands women and how they talk and eat and live with each other. She is a tender, funny, grown-up writer who talks with us as much as to us.”
—AMY BLOOM
,
author of
Come to Me
and
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
“No reader could walk away from this book without learning something about life.”
—Portsmouth Herald
(New Hampshire)
The Handmaid and the Carpenter
We Are All Welcome Here
The Year of Pleasures
The Art of Mending
Say When
True to Form
Ordinary Life: Stories
Never Change
Open House
Escaping into the Open:
The Art of Writing True
Until the Real Thing Comes Along
What We Keep
Joy School
The Pull of the Moon
Range of Motion
Durable Goods
Family Traditions:
Celebrations for Holidays and Everyday
A Conversation With Elizabeth Berg
Reader’s Guide Questions and Topics for Discussion
For women with cancer
who have found their fire,
and for those who are
still searching.
Not long ago, I lost a very important friend to breast cancer. I wanted to write about my experience in a fictional way, to create characters and events that, although imagined, would testify to the emotional truth of all that happened. My purpose was twofold: I wanted to demonstrate the strength and salvation of women’s friendships; and I wanted to personalize the devastating effects of losing someone to this disease, which continues to claim lives daily. It is important to say that this is a work of fiction and both the characters and the events in the novel are products of my imagination. The only truth is that the fight against breast cancer has gone on for too many for too long; and the burden is on all of us to change that.
If we look at the path, we do not
see the sky. We are earth people
on a spiritual journey to the stars.
Our quest, our earth walk, is to look
within, to know who we are, to see that
we are connected to all things,
that there is no separation,
only in the mind.
—Native American, source unknown
T
his morning, before I came to Ruth’s house, I made yet another casserole for my husband and my daughter. Meggie likes casseroles while Joe only endures them, but they are all I can manage right now. I put the dish in the refrigerator, with a note taped on it telling how long to cook it, and at what temperature, and that they should have a salad, too.
Next I did a little laundry—washed Meggie’s favorite skirt, then laid it on top of the dryer and pressed the pleats in with the flat of my hand. I love doing this because I love the smell of laundry soap and the memory it brings of lying outside on warm days, watching my mother peg huge white bedsheets onto the clothesline. Those sheets glowed with the light blue color white clothes radiate when they are extremely clean. My mother seemed to be fighting with them sometimes, muttering at them as best she could through the wooden clothespins she held in her mouth, insisting that they stay anchored in one place while they pulled and yanked to be free, their wet snapping sounds a protest. I always thought maybe we should let them go. Maybe they had a mission. Maybe the sheets were really people who had started all over again, come back on some low rung and now were ready to fly up to heaven for a promotion—say to a paramecium. I viewed all things on the earth as equal, in terms of the Grand Scheme. Vice presidents and river rocks had nothing up on each other. So the cotton fibers of a bedsheet could easily return as a simple
pie form of water life, or, for that matter, as a movie star who drove white motorcycles through the glamorous hills of Hollywood.
I also like doing laundry for the feeling of connection it brings me, especially now, when I see my family too little, when most of my time is taken up with things they have no part of. With my hand on Meggie’s skirt, I can see her small, keyhole-shaped knees, the sliding-down socks she wears, the nearly worn-out sneakers she won’t let me replace. I see her schoolgirl blouses and the half-heart necklace she likes to wear every day lately, advertising the fact that she is someone’s best friend. And then, saving the best for last, I see her face, her still slightly rounded cheeks, her stick-out ears, her gorgeous red hair and matching freckles. She has just learned to make her own ponytail, and she stands softly grunting at the mirror in the morning until the lumps are gone—or nearly so. I can’t attend to these small things now—sometimes I sleep at Ruth’s and am not there in the morning and Meggie goes to school with messy hair; and with questionable color combinations, no doubt. She’s lucky she’s only nine; it doesn’t really matter yet. Her bangs need cutting, her toenails too, probably—Joe can’t keep up with these everyday details and still work the number of hours he’s required to. I know that eventually all will return to normal at my house, and then we will feel better—and worse, too, of course.
For now, I roll out piecrust, let myself be soothed by the sound of low-voiced interviews or oldies on the radio. I have learned so much lately about the salvation
to be found in caretaking, whatever form that caring takes.
Today, while I was rushing around the kitchen making dinner at seven-thirty in the morning, Meggie asked, “Is Ruth your only best friend?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised at the evenness of my tone.
“Oh.” She sighed softly. “I’m sorry for you, Mommy.”
“I know you are.”
“Was she always your best friend?”
“No.”
“Did you have one before her?”
“I guess so,” I told her, then sent her off to school. And then I thought about Carol Conroy. The first time I made a promise with my whole heart, it was to Carol Conroy, and it required me to take care of her rabbit, Ecclesiastes. Carol, who liked very much the sound of words she found in the Bible, was leaving our small New England town to visit Disneyland for ten entire days. My jealousy was mitigated somewhat by the importance of the task she had assigned me. “You have to feed this rabbit and change his water every day,” Carol told me solemnly. “And on every
third
day, you have to clean up his poops. It’s not too bad unless he gets sick. But you have to do it even if he gets sick! Now, promise.” I stood up straight and promised with my whole heart—I could feel it straining with earnestness—because I loved Carol Conroy in the way that ten-year-old girls do love each other, with a fierce,
raggedy flame destined to go out. I vowed to do everything she said unless I died.
Ecclesiastes did get sick—maybe because of some licorice I fed him—and I ended up having to clean his cage several times a day for four days straight. The rabbit’s illness only endeared him to me. I didn’t resent him; I wanted to help him; and I felt gilded when he recovered. Years later, I would say it was Ecclesiastes that prompted me to become a nurse. And now, years after becoming a nurse—in fact, years after having left the profession to take care of my family, I have again made a promise with my whole heart, again out of love for my best friend. Only this time my friend’s name is Ruth. And this time the flame is steady, in no danger of going out. I would say it is of the eternal variety.
