Our Souls at Night (2 page)

I think I’ll just use the bathroom, she said.

While she was out of the room he looked at the pictures on her dresser and the ones hanging on the walls. Family pictures with Carl on their wedding day, on the church steps somewhere. The two of them in the mountains beside a creek. A little black and white dog. He knew Carl a little bit, a decent man, pretty calm, he sold crop insurance and other kinds of insurance to people all over Holt County twenty years ago, had been elected mayor of the town for two terms. Louis never knew him well. He was glad now that he hadn’t. There were pictures of their son. Gene didn’t look like either of them. A tall thin boy, very serious. And two pictures of their daughter as a young girl.

When she came back he said, I think I’ll use the bathroom too. He went in and used the toilet and washed his hands scrupulously and squeezed out a
little dollop of her toothpaste and brushed his teeth and then took off his shoes and clothes and got into his pajamas. He folded his clothes over his shoes and left them in the corner behind the door and went back to the bedroom. She had gotten into a nightgown and was in bed now, the bedside lamp alight on her side and the ceiling light switched off and the window open a few inches. There was a cool soft breeze. He stood beside the bed. She folded back the sheet and blanket.

Aren’t you getting in?

I’m considering it.

He got into bed, staying on his side, and pulled the blanket up and lay back. He didn’t say anything yet.

What are you thinking? she said. You’re awfully quiet.

How strange this is. How new it is to be here. How uncertain I feel, and sort of nervous. I don’t know what I’m thinking. A mess of things.

It is new, isn’t it, she said. It’s a good kind of new, I’d say. Would you?

I would.

What do you do before you sleep?

Oh, I watch the ten o’clock news and come to bed and read till I’m asleep. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I’m too keyed up.

I’m going to shut off the light, she said. We can still
talk. She turned in the bed and he looked at her bare smooth shoulders and her bright hair under the light.

Then it was dark with just the light from the street showing faintly in the room. They talked about trivial matters, getting acquainted a little, the minor routine events of town, the health of the old lady Ruth who lived in between their houses, the paving of Birch Street. Then they were quiet.

After a while he said, Are you still awake?

Yes.

You asked what I was thinking. One thing I was thinking: I’m glad I didn’t know Carl very well.

Why?

I wouldn’t feel as good as I do being here, if I did.

But I knew Diane pretty well.

An hour later she was asleep and breathing quietly. He was still awake. He had been watching her. He could see her face in the dim light. They hadn’t touched once. At three in the morning he got up and went to the bathroom and came back and shut the window. A wind had come up.

At daybreak he rose and got dressed in the bathroom and looked again at Addie Moore in bed. She was awake now. I’ll see you, he said.

Will you?

Yes.

He went out and walked home on the sidewalk past the neighboring houses and went inside and made coffee and ate some toast and eggs and went out and worked in his garden for a couple of hours and returned to the kitchen and ate an early lunch and slept heavily for two hours in the afternoon.

When he woke that afternoon he realized he was sick. He got up and drank some water and felt hot. He thought for a while and then decided to call her. On the phone he said, I just got up from a nap and I don’t feel good, a pain in my stomach of some kind and also in my back. I’m sorry. I won’t be coming over tonight.

I see, she said, and hung up.

He called his doctor’s office and made an appointment for the next morning. He went to bed early and was sweaty in the night and couldn’t sleep and in the morning he didn’t feel like eating and at ten he went to see the doctor and was sent to the hospital for blood and urine tests. He waited there in the lobby until the lab had the results and then they admitted him with a urinary tract infection.

They gave him antibiotics and he slept most of the afternoon and again was awake much of the night.
In the morning he felt better and they told him he’d probably be released the next day. He ate breakfast and lunch and took a short nap and when he woke up around three she was sitting in the chair beside his bed. He looked at her.

You weren’t kidding, she said.

Did you think I was?

I thought you were just saying you were sick. That you decided you didn’t want to be with me at night.

I was afraid you were thinking that.

I thought it wasn’t going to happen, she said.

I’ve been thinking of you all yesterday and last night and all day today, he said.

What were you thinking?

How you’d misinterpret my call. And how I could explain that I still want to come at night and be together. How I was feeling more interested in this than I’d felt about anything for a long time.

Why didn’t you call me then? To tell me?

I thought it might even be worse, that it would sound all the more like I was making this up.

I wish you’d tried.

I should have. How did you find out I was in the hospital?

I was talking to Ruth next door this morning and she said, Did you hear about Louis? I said, What about
him? He’s in the hospital. What’s wrong with him? They say he’s got some kind of infection. Then I knew, she said.

I’m not going to lie to you, he said.

All right. Neither of us will. So will you come again?

As soon as I feel well and am sure I’m over this. It’s good to see you, he said.

Thank you. You look pretty ragged right now.

I haven’t had time to put on my face yet.

She laughed. I don’t care, she said. That’s not what I mean. I was just making a comment, an observation.

Well, you look pretty good to me, he said.

Did you call your daughter?

I told her not to worry. That I’d be out in a day and this was nothing to be concerned about. She won’t have to take off work. I don’t need her to come see me now. She lives in Colorado Springs.

I know.

She’s a teacher like I was. Then he stopped talking. Do you want something to drink? I could call the nurse.

No. I’m going home now.

I’ll call you after I’m home again and feeling all right.

Good, she said. I already bought some beer.

She left and he watched her walk out of the room
and he lay in the bed waiting to go back to sleep, but they brought his supper and he looked at the news while he ate and afterward shut off the TV and looked out the window and watched it turn dark outside out over the wide plain west of town.

The next afternoon he was released from the hospital. But he must have been sicker than they thought, and it took him almost a full week to feel himself again, to feel well enough to call and ask her if it was all right to come over that night.

Were you still sick?

Yes. I don’t know what took me so long to get over it.

He showered and shaved and put on aftershave and at dark took the paper sack with his pajamas and toothbrush and went out front past the neighbors’ houses and knocked at the door.

Addie came right away. Well. You’re looking better. Come in. Her hair was brushed back from her face and she looked pretty.

They sat as before at the kitchen table and drank and talked a little. Then she said, I’m ready to go up, are you?

Yes.

She set their glasses in the sink and he followed her upstairs. He went to the bathroom and got into his pajamas and folded his clothes in the corner. She was in bed in her nightgown when he entered the bedroom. She drew back the covers and he lay down.

You didn’t leave your pajamas here last time. That was another reason I didn’t think you were coming back.

I thought it would look presumptuous. Like I was taking this for granted. We hadn’t really even said much yet.

Well, you can leave your pajamas and toothbrush here from now on, she said.

It’ll save wear and tear on paper sacks, he said.

Yes. Exactly. Do you have something in mind you want to talk about? she said. Not anything urgent. Just to start talking.

I’m full of questions, mostly.

I have some too, she said. But what are yours?

I wondered why you picked me. We don’t really know each other very well.

Did you think I would just pick anyone? That I just want anybody to keep me warm at night? Just any old person to talk to?

I didn’t think that. But I don’t know why you picked me.

Are you sorry I did?

No. It’s not that at all. I’m just curious. I wondered.

Because I think you’re a good man. A kind man.

I hope I am.

I think you are. And I’ve always sort of thought of you as someone I might be able to like and to talk to. How have you thought of me, if you ever have?

I’ve thought of you, he said.

In what way?

As a good-looking woman. Someone with substance. Character.

Why would you say that?

Because of how you live. How you managed your life after Carl died. That was a hard time for you, he said. That’s what I mean. I know what it was like for me after my wife died, and I could see that you were doing better than I did. I admired that.

You never came over or made a point of saying anything, she said.

I didn’t want to seem intrusive.

You wouldn’t have. I was very lonely.

I assumed that. But still didn’t do anything.

What else do you want to know?

Where you came from. Where you grew up. What you were like as a girl. What your parents were like. If you have brothers or sisters. How you met Carl. What’s your relationship with your son. Why you moved to Holt. Who your friends are. What you believe. What party you vote for.

We’re going to have a lot of fun talking, aren’t we? she said. I want to know all that about you too.

We don’t have to rush it, he said.

No, let’s take our time.

She turned in bed and shut off the lamp and again he looked at her bright hair in the light and her bare shoulders, and then in the dark she took his hand and said goodnight and soon she was asleep. It was surprising to him, how quickly she could fall asleep.

The next day he worked in the yard in the morning and mowed the lawn and ate lunch and took a short nap and then went down to the bakery and drank coffee with a group of men he met with every other week. One of them a man he didn’t particularly like. The man said, I wish I had your energy.

How’s that?

To stay out all night and then still have enough left over to function the day after.

Louis looked at him for a while.

You know, he said, one of the things I always hear is how any story is safe with you. It goes right in your ears and out your mouth. I wouldn’t want to get the name of a liar and a prevaricator in a little town the size of this one. A reputation like that would just about follow you everywhere.

The man stared at Louis. He looked around at the
other men sitting at the table. They were looking anywhere but at him. He stood and walked out of the bakery onto Main Street.

I don’t believe he paid for his coffee, one of the men said.

I’ll take care of it, Louis said. I’ll see you boys later. He went up to the counter and paid for the other’s coffee and his own and walked outside and over to Cedar Street.

At home he went out to the garden and hoed for an hour, hard, almost violently, and then went inside and fried a hamburger and drank a glass of milk and afterward showered and shaved. At dark he went back to Addie’s.

During the day she had cleaned her house thoroughly and had clean sheets on the bed upstairs and had bathed and eaten a sandwich for supper. As the day faded, she sat in the living room, quiet, motionless, thinking, waiting till Louis should come to the door and knock as it turned dark.

Finally he came and she let him in. She could see something was different. What’s wrong? she said.

I’ll tell you in a minute. Can we have a drink first?

Of course.

They went to the kitchen and she gave him a bottle of beer and poured wine for herself. She looked at him, waiting.

We’re no secret anymore, he said. If we ever were.

How do you know? What happened?

You know Dorlan Becker.

He used to own the men’s store.

Yes. He sold it and stayed in town. Everybody thought he’d move somewhere else. He never seemed to like it here. He goes down to Arizona for the winters.

What’s that have to do with our secret being out?

He’s one of the people I meet with at the bakery a couple times a month. Today he wanted to know how I had so much energy. Being out all night and then to do what I normally do in the daytime.

What did you say?

I told him he was getting the reputation of a gossip and a liar. I got mad. I didn’t handle it right. I’m still mad about it.

I can tell.

I should’ve just ignored it and defused it. But I didn’t. I didn’t want them thinking anything bad about you.

Let it go, Louis. We knew from the start that people would find out. We talked about it.

Yes, but I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want them making up a story about us. About you.

I appreciate that. But they can’t hurt me. I’m going to enjoy our nights together. For as long as they last.

He looked at her. Why do you say it that way? You sound like I did the other day. Don’t you think they’ll last? For a good while?

I hope so, she said. I told you I don’t want to live like that anymore—for other people, what they think,
what they believe. I don’t think it’s the way to live. It isn’t for me anyway.

All right. I wish I had your good sense. You’re right, of course.

Are you over it now?

I’m getting there.

Do you want another beer?

No. But if you want more wine I’ll sit here with you while you drink it. I’ll just watch you.