what we talk about when we talk about love by raymond carver

Mel calls Ed ‘dangerous’ but Terri still has sympathy for him, though she concedes how Ed made Mel’s life very difficult with his constant threats. Mel says how Terri stayed up with Ed in the hospital beside his deathbed. Even this fatal attempt proved flimsy as Ed did not die immediately, suffering for some days before succumbing to his injury. And then one day Ed shot himself in the head. Unsuccessful at this suicide attempt, Ed took to threatening Mel.

For one, Ed drank rat poison when Terri left him. Mel then goes on to enumerate the ways Ed caused problems in Terri’s and his lives. At this point in the story, it becomes clear how dearly Nick and Laura love each other. Also, Nick and Laura hold that the definition of love cannot be absolute. Nick and Laura both reply that it is hard for them to pronounce any sort of judgments regarding this matter since they know very little about the incidents, and more importantly, they have not lived in Ed’s or Terri’s, and Mel’s shoes. Mel and Terri debate this point for a while and then ask Nick and Laura for their perspectives. However, Terri insists that Ed loved her in ‘his own way’.

Terri asks, sincerely, “What do you do with love like that?” Mel, however, replies, “My God, don’t be silly. Terri says how Ed beat her up one night, dragging her around the living room by her ankles, saying how he loved her. Mel is a cardiologist whose second wife, Terri, was in an abusive relationship with a man named Ed.

What we talk about when we talk about love by raymond carver