What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Summary | Detailed Summary

"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is a short story of two married couples, Mel and Terri and Nick and Laura, who engage in a conversation one evening about the meaning of real love.

As the story opens, Mel is talking as Nick, from whose perspective the story takes place, provides some description of the scene in Mel's kitchen. Mel, his wife, Terri, Nick, and his wife, Laura, are seated at the kitchen table at Mel and Terri's home. The late afternoon sunlight filters into the room as the couples repeatedly pass the bottles of gin and tonic and an ice bucket.

The geographic location of the story is Albuquerque, but as Nick notes "we were all from someplace else." Mel is a cardiologist who spent five years in a seminary before going to medical school and thinks the years at the seminary were the most important years of his life for what he learned about spiritual love.

Terri states that her most dramatic encounter with love was a relationship with a man named Ed, with whom she lived before she met and fell in love with Mel. Ed used to beat Terri because he could not possess her totally. He even tried to kill her because he loved her so much.

Mel counters that abusive behavior is not love, but Terri contends that it was love albeit an atypical form. Mel is incredulous that Terri can believe that there was even a trace of true love in such a relationship, but Terri tells him that every person is different. She says that Ed loved so intensely that he was driven to the point of distraction and violence.

Eventually, Ed threatened to kill Mel for entering into Terri's life, but he soon after drank rat poison as a suicide attempt. Ed lived for a while, but his face was severely deformed from the poison, and he eventually shot himself. Mel was in the hospital when Ed was brought in. Ed lived for three more days, his head having swelled to a preposterous size. Mel comments that Ed was so inept that he couldn't even kill himself properly.

Nick takes Laura's hand in his as if to say that nothing like this strange story will ever enter their lives or their love for each other.

Terri recalls that period of her and Mel's life as being fraught with tension, and that they lived like fugitives in fear of what Ed might do to them. Terri shakes the empty gin bottle at Mel who retrieves another one from the cabinet and returns to the table.

Laura comments that she and Nick know what love is as she bumps Nick's knee under the table as if to prompt him to affirm her statement. Nick raises Laura's hand to his mouth and kisses it as a sign of his romantic love for his wife. Terri chides Nick and Laura, saying they are acting as if they are still on their honeymoon even though they have been married for a year and a half already.

The afternoon sun continues to shine into the warm kitchen, and Nick feels as if the friends at the table are enchanted as the drinks continue to flow. Mel offers up the fact that he knows what true love really is and has an example to share. Mel is distracted from his story by fixing another drink and asks out loud what any of them really know about love because everyone is really just a beginner.

Mel thought he had loved his first wife, and Terri must have loved her first husband. With those relationships completely dead, Mel wonders about where the initial love goes. Mel comments on Nick and Laura's relatively new love and how it must compare and contrast with others that they have experienced before. Mel also thinks that if something were to happen to any of the friends at the table, the partner would grieve for a while and then go out in search of another love.

Terri gently chastises Mel for being insensitive and for drinking too much, but Mel replies that since he is not on call today he feels like drinking a little. Laura tries to make Mel feel more at ease, and Mel tells Laura that if anything ever happened to his wife and her husband, he would come after her because she is so sweet.

The gin bottle passes around the table again as Mel begins his story about the example of true love he witnessed not too long ago. Mel had been on call one night and the phone rang just as he and Terri sat down to dinner. The hospital emergency room reported an auto accident where a teenager's car hit the car of an elderly couple. When Mel arrived at the hospital, the teenager had died and the elderly couple is barely clinging to life.

After many hours of surgery, the elderly people live, though they have multiple injuries. The woman is in more serious condition than her husband. The couple is moved to the Intensive Care Unit and ultimately to regular rooms. Mel stops his story and encourages the others at the table to have another drink and then they can all go to dinner at a new restaurant that he and Terri have wanted to try.

Mel continues to say that he would have liked to be a chef and if he had been born in medieval times, he would have loved to be a knight so he could have worn all that armor. Nick informs Mel of the inherent dangers of simply wearing all that metal armor, so it's probably for the best that Mel is a cardiologist.

Laura asks Mel to continue the story about the old couple, and Mel relates that he used to visit the old man and woman every day to check on their progress. Both of the elderly people are encased in casts and bandages with just small holes for their eyes, noses and mouths. The old man seemed to be especially depressed even though he knew that both he and his wife would be fine. The old man eventually revealed the cause of his depression was that he could not see his wife through the small eyeholes in his cast. Mel is in awe of this type of love where the man is despondent just because he cannot turn his head and look at his wife.

No one sitting at the kitchen table says a word, and Nick notices that the afternoon sunshine is waning in the room, but no one moves to turn on a light. Mel breaks the silence by encouraging his guests to finish the gin so that they all can go to dinner.

Terri senses that Mel is depressed and encourages him to take a pill. Mel simply wants to talk to his children, but he knows that if he phones their house there is a chance he will have to speak to his ex-wife, Marjorie. Terri shares Mel's hope that Marjorie will remarry or die because she is draining Mel financially and emotionally. Mel comments that Marjorie is allergic to bees, so he hopes that she will get stung by a huge swarm of bees.

Mel decides that calling the children may not be a good idea and suggests that the four of them go to dinner now. Laura says that she is very hungry and asks if there is anything in the house to nibble on before they leave. Terri says she will put out some cheese and crackers, but she does not move from her seat.

Mel overturns his glass on the kitchen table spilling the remnants of gin and tonic, declaring that the gin is gone. Terri wants to know what they will do now. Nick can hear his heartbeat and the heartbeats of all sitting at the table, yet no one moves or turns on a light when the sun retreats.