The Pull of the Moon_ A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,20

weird kind of pity, a reluctant, confused kind; and she said no, she felt a full-blown pity, nothing confused about it, she felt a terrible sadness about the whole damn thing. “I’d go down there and take care of her if she asked me to,” she said. “It’s for sure he ain’t gonna do it right. She’ll see that, if she hasn’t already. ‘Where’s my dinner?’ he’ll be saying. ‘What, you can’t even make dinner?’”

We went shopping, drove over to a huge mall. I told her I wanted to buy her something. She said all right. We looked at all kinds of things, and she settled on a turquoise nightgown and matching robe, on sale, and a new potato peeler. That was all she’d let me get her. I got a few books, a new pair of shoes—she’d got me going with that talk about Joan and Davids. I liked her so much, everything about her, and at one point I asked if she’d like to come along for a while, that I’d pay her way back home from any place we got to. She said well where was I going? I said nowhere. Anywhere. I was just going around, seeing. She thought about it, then said, hell, she couldn’t leave, she’d lose her damn job. I said oh, you can get another one, jobs like that are easy to get. And she cooled then, looked me in the eye, said, you don’t know a thing about it, Nan.

I took her home, then drove another fifty miles in the dark, thinking oh well, it probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway, thinking that the purpose of this trip was to spend a lot of time alone, not to start insulating myself from all I might see. The radio was playing a lot of old songs, Frank Sinatra when he was skinny, Tony Bennett, Patti Page. It’s good to be in a car, the dark around you, when songs like that are on. I’m getting used to driving so much. Seems like it’s part of me, now. I wake up and think, Go.

I know my own luck. I know how rare it is for a person to be able to do this. And I know more and more what I’m doing it for. I feel a kind of strength starting to happen that is wholly legitimate, that is not some trapping I wear until it falls off. It is as though the thing has roots, and seeks the sun with its face turned toward it. And I know I never would have found it without leaving.

Once I took a job on the community newspaper, writing a weekly column. “Nan’s Notes on Life,” it was called, silly. Well, no it was not. The editor there, a nice woman, told me I had real talent. I told Martin and he said, “Who said that?” I told him, and he said, “Oh.” And the bottom fell out. What I am seeing now is that it never was up to him. He could have been more generous. He could have been more sensitive. But how I felt, that was not up to him. I only let it be. No more. Perhaps it will be a relief for him not to have to decide for me how I feel. I should think it would be.

For now, the pleasure of heavy blankets and cream-colored sheets, a room-service menu that I intend to study for the best choice in breakfasts. Tomorrow I will make the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

I am so much farther away than I thought I’d go.

Dear Ruthie,

I don’t think I’ll be able to express just how much our conversation tonight meant to me. You have no idea how frightened I was to call you, how ready I was for accusations, protestations, questions that I could not answer with any grace or even any legitimacy. But you were so—well, I don’t even know the word for it. Calm. Unsurprised. Supportive. Interested. Thank you, Ruthie.

I’m glad you’re checking in on Dad. He pretends to not need much, but he does. Don’t worry about him eating the same thing every night. This is what he does when I go away. When I went to Aunt Bernice’s funeral and stayed with Grandma for a week, I found a stack of Hungry Man frozen-dinner cartons in the garbage when I got home. He’d eaten the same kind every night, I think he likes the Salisbury steak, in fact