The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg Page B

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 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