Our Souls at Night

  5

  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.

  6

  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.

  7

  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.

  8

  I was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, she said. We lived out on the northeast side of town. We had a nice two-story clapboard house. My father was a businessman and did well and my mother was a very good housekeeper and a good cook. It was a middle-class sort of neighborhood, a working-class neighborhood. I had one sister. We didn’t get along. She was more active and more outgoing, with a kind of gregarious nature that I didn’t have. I was quiet,
bookish. After high school I went to the university and lived at home and took the bus downtown to my classes. I started off studying French but switched to elementary school education.

  Then I met Carl in my sophomore year and we started dating and by the time I turned twenty I was pregnant.

  Were you scared?

  Not of the baby. No. Not of having one. But I didn’t know how we would manage. Carl still had a year and a half to get his degree. On Christmas Day he joined me at my parents’ house—he lived in Omaha—and together we both told my parents after dinner, all of us sitting in the living room. My mother just started crying. My father was angry. I thought you knew better. He stared at Carl. What in hell’s wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong with him, I said. It just happened. Well it didn’t by God just happen. He made it happen. There were two of us involved, Daddy. Well my God, he said.

  We got married in January and moved into a tiny dark apartment in downtown Lincoln and I got a temporary job clerking in a department store and we waited. The baby came one night in May. They wouldn’t let Carl in the room. Then we took the baby home and were happy and very poor.

  Didn’t your parents help you?

  Not much. Carl didn’t want their help. Well, I didn’t either.

  That was your daughter, then. I didn’t think she was that old.

  Yes, that was Connie.

  I only remember her vaguely. I know how she died.

  Yes. Addie stopped talking and moved in the bed. I’ll talk about that some other time. I’ll just tell you now that when Carl graduated we both wanted to come to Colorado. We’d gone to Estes Park once for a short vacation and liked the mountains and needed to get out of Lincoln and away from everything. And start up somewhere new. Carl got a job selling insurance in Longmont and we lived there for a couple of years, then old Mr. Gorland here in Holt decided to retire and so we borrowed money and moved here and Carl took over his insurance office and his clients. And we’ve been here ever since. That was in 1970.

  How was it that you got pregnant?

  What do you mean? How does anybody get pregnant?

  Well, my memory is we were all pretty careful and nervous back then.

  But we were young too. Carl and I were in love. It’s the old story. It was all new and exciting.

  It must have been.

  She let go of his hand and moved farther away and lay straight in bed. He turned and looked at her in the dim light.

  Why are you acting like this? she said. What’s the matter?

  I don’t know.

  Are you asking about the circumstances?

  I guess.

  About the sex?

  I’m being more stupid than usual. I just feel sort of jealous and I don’t know what.

  Out in the country on a dirt road in the back seat in the dark. Is that what you want to know?

  I’d appreciate it if you would just call me a goddamn son of a bitch, Louis said. A man too foolish for words.

  All right. You’re a foolish son of a bitch.

  Thank you, he said.

  You’re welcome. But you could ruin this. You know that. Is there anything else?

  Did your parents ever get over it?

  It turned out they actually liked Carl. My mother always thought of him as a dark-haired good-looking man. And my father could see that Carl was a hard worker and that he would take care of us. And of course he did. We had some hard times. But mostly as far as being financially comfortable after the first seven or eight years we were fine. Carl was a good provider.

  Then sometime in there you had a little boy to go with the girl.

  Gene. Connie was six then.

  9

  Addie drove her car into the alley behind her neighbor Ruth’s house, got out and went up to the back door. The old lady was waiting, sitting in a chair on the porch. She was eighty-two years old. She stood up when Addie arrived and the two women came slowly down the steps, Ruth holding on to Addie’s arm, and came out to the car and Addie helped her in and waited for her to arrange her thin legs and feet and then she fastened the seatbelt and shut the door. They drove to the grocery store on the highway at the southeast side of town. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, a slow summer’s midmorning. They went in and Ruth held on to the shopping cart and they moved slowly through the aisles, looking, taking their time. She didn’t want or need much, just cans or cartons of food, and a loaf of bread and a bag of little Hershey bars in foil. Aren’t you going to get anything? she said.

  No, Addie said. I shopped the other day. I’ll just get some milk.

  I shouldn’t eat this chocolate but what difference does it make now. I’m going to eat whatever I want to.

  She put canned soup and stew in her cart and boxes of frozen dinners and a couple of boxes of dry cereal and a quart of milk and some strawberry preserves.

  Is that everything?

  I believe so.

  Don’t you want some fruit?

  I don’t want fresh fruit. It’ll just spoil. They went around to the canned fruit and she took down two cans of peaches in their sweet syrup and some canned pears, then a box of oatmeal cookies with raisins. At the cash register the clerk looked at the old lady and said, Did you find everything, Mrs. Joyce? Everything you wanted?

  I didn’t find me a good man. I didn’t see one of them on the shelf. No, I couldn’t find any good man back there.

  Couldn’t you? Well, sometimes they’re closer to home than you think. She glanced quickly at Addie standing next to the old lady.

  How much is it? Ruth said.

  The clerk told her.

  Your blouse has a spot on it, Ruth said. It’s not clean. You shouldn’t come to work dressed like that.

  The clerk looked down. I don’t see anything.

  It’s there.

  She took her money from her old soft leather purse and slowly counted out the money in her hand and laid the bills and coins on the counter in neat order.

  Then they went out to the car and Addie put the groceries in the back seat and got in.

  Ruth was looking straight ahead at the highway, where the cars and cattle trucks and grain trucks were going by. Sometimes I hate this place, she said. Sometimes I wish I had gotten out of here when I could. These small-town small-minded pissants, she said.

  You’re talking about that clerk.

  Her, yes, and everybody like her.

  Do you know her?

  She’s one of the Coxes. Her mother was just the same. Thought she knew everybody’s business. Had a mouth like this one. She makes me want to give her a good slap.

  So you know about Louis and me, Addie said.

  I get up early every morning. I can’t sleep. And I sit out in the front room watching the sun come up over the houses across the street. I see Louis in the morning going home.

  I knew somebody would see him. It doesn’t matter.

  I hope you’re having a good time.

  He’s a good man. Don’t you think?

  I think so. But the returns aren’t all in yet, either. He’s always been kind to me, though, she said. He mows my lawn and shovels the snow on my walks in the winter. He started that before Diane died. But he’s no saint. He’s caused his share of pain. I could tell you about that. His wife could’ve told you.

  I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Addie said.

  That was a long time ago anyway, Ruth said. Years ago. I think his wife mostly got over it. People do.

  10

  Addie said, Tell me about the other woman.

  Who do you mean?

  The one you had an affair with.

  You know about that?

  Everybody does.

  She was married, Louis said. Tamara. That was her name. It still is if she’s still alive. Her husband was a nurse, working nights at the hospital here in town. It was unusual for a man to be a nurse back then. People didn’t know what to make of it. They had a little girl about four years old, a year older than Holly. A little tough thin blond gir
l. Her father, Tamara’s husband, was a big sort of heavyset blond guy. He was a good guy, really. He wanted to write stories. I guess he wrote some at night at the hospital. They’d had some trouble before and she’d had an affair with somebody back in Ohio. She was a teacher in the high school like I was. I’d been there only two years when she got hired.

  What did she teach?

  She was one of the English teachers too. The freshmen and sophomore classes. Basic stuff.

  You taught the upper-level courses.

  Yes, I’d been there longer. Well, so she was unhappy at home and Diane and I weren’t doing so well either.

  Why not?

  Because of me, mostly. But both of us too. We couldn’t talk. We’d get in a fight or an argument and she’d start crying and leave the room and wouldn’t finish what we were talking or fighting about. That made it worse.

  Then at school one of you made some kind of a move, some gesture, Addie said.

  Yes. She put her hand on my arm when we were alone in the teachers’ break room. Are you going to say something to me? she said. Like what? I said. Like do you want to go out for a drink or something? I don’t know, I said. Do you want me to? What do you think? That was in April, the middle of April. I was doing our taxes for the year and on the fifteenth, after supper I took the tax returns to the post office to get them mailed on time, and I drove by her house and I could see her sitting at the dining-room table grading papers, and so I parked down the street and came up on her porch and knocked and she came to the door. She was already in her bathrobe. Are you alone? I said.

  Pamela’s here but she’s in bed already. Why don’t you come in?

  So I went in.

  That’s how it started?

  Yes, on tax day. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it.

  I don’t know. These things happen in all kinds of ways.

  You know something about this.

  I know something about how these things happen in people’s lives.

  Will you tell me?

  Maybe. Someday. So what did you do?

  I left Diane and Holly and moved in with her. Her husband moved out, stayed with a friend. And well, we got along for a couple of weeks. She was a beautiful hard wild woman, with long brown hair and brown eyes that were kind of like an animal’s eyes in bed, and she had lovely skin, like satin. Her body was pretty thin.