The Pull of the Moon_ A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,21

I think he eats two of them at a time. He’s all right in that department. What he needs is a kind of reassurance. We are what he checks himself against, you and I. So if you call every few days and just let him talk, that would be nice. He’ll tell you about his job and so on, just let him go and then tell him you’ll be calling back soon. He’ll be fine. He has a bit of a relationship with the neighbors, he likes to go out and inspect his lawn and chat with them for a bit while he has his evening coffee, oftentimes he likes to drive to the Dunkin’ Donuts to get it, they know him there, and he takes a particular kind of pride in that. “Don’t even say my order,” he says. “I walk in and they pour it up.” And of course he has his television shows. I’m writing him every day, as he told you. I’m glad he’s saving the letters.

I’ll be in Minnesota tomorrow. We’ve never been there. I hear the people are very friendly. I’ll let you know. I will let you know everything I can, Ruthie. Isn’t it funny, the two of us thinking so much the same thing all this time, and neither of us saying much about it.

All your life, Ruthie, when I thought about you, I thought, oh, this is her best time. But then I kept changing my mind, thinking, no, now is her best time. And here it is, happening again.

You are always in my thoughts. When you were little, I knew your whereabouts at any given moment. Now that you are a young woman and off on your own, I still always know where you are, because I keep you in my heart. Don’t give me your don’t-be-so-mushy lecture. It won’t do a bit of good.

When I come home, let’s make everything we love and eat it all at once. It will be even better than that pie party we had. I still remember that, do you? You were six, and you and I stood at the head of a long, long table we’d rented that was just covered with pies. My God, it was an extraordinary sight. It was beautiful. Forty-seven guests, all showing up with their favorites, some people with two kinds, they couldn’t decide what to make. Theresa Zinz made the best lemon meringue pie I ever tasted, nothing I’ve had since has ever come close, people were buzzing around her like bees, but she wouldn’t part with the recipe, which frankly I thought was small-minded. But poor Ida Young, nobody wanted her rum raisin but her. I remember thinking, what a fabulous idea you’d had, just … pie. You should hold that close, Ruthie. You should never lose that, that sense that an impulse can become a real thing.

Watch Nightline with Dad if you decide to come home for a visit. You won’t hear a word Ted Koppel says, because Dad will be talking over him the whole time, setting him straight. But it’s a comfort to your father to have someone listen to him, suggesting by their silence that what he says is true.

I’m buying souvenirs for both of you. I got Dad a pair of moccasins with Corvettes beaded onto the fronts. Very attractive. They’ll go well with the Dopey T-shirt you brought him back from Disneyland. He wears that shirt every time it’s clean, wears it to bed, did you know?

I’ll call you again, soon. It’s nice to know you’re there, Ruthie. Always has been.

Love,

Mom

Dear Martin,

Today as I drove, a patch of sun lay against my throat. At first it felt warm and comforting; then it began to feel too hot. There was no way for me to adjust the visor to block the light, so I put my hand there, and it got hot, too. And I thought of Sam Kearny, you remember how he had to get radiation to his throat? and I wondered if it burned him and then I thought, I hope I don’t have to get that. Sometimes when I wake up at night it’s to do an inventory of what might happen, how I might go. This is not just a function of my age, I know; it used to happen with some regularity when I was in my mid-twenties, not too long after Ruthie was born. I’d wake up and think, “But wait. This won’t last. I’ll