Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg. In the beginning of Talk Before Sleep, at a party, Ann Stanley tells her husband, “I hate that woman.” She points to a “raven-haired, blue-eyed, neatly petite” woman. Her husband asks, “How do you know her?” Ann answers, “I don’t. But I know about her. Can’t stand her.” And then Ann meets The Woman, Ruth, in the tiny downstairs bathroom and everything changes. “I knew we had a lot to talk about. I could forgive her good looks. She was capable of a scary kind of honesty I was ready for, although until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.” And so, they become best friends. Ann, a former nurse, takes care of Ruth, navigating her last days through the maze of cancer. Elizabeth Berg : “I lost a very…