Our Souls at Night

  Where are you taking us? Ruth said.

  I thought we should watch some softball.

  Oh, now I haven’t done that for thirty years, she said.

  It’s time then, Louis said. He ordered four floats and he drove to the ballpark out behind the high school and stopped under the high bright field lights, parking with the car pointed toward home plate from the fence in the outfield.

  I think Jamie and I’ll go watch from the bleachers for a while.

  Then I’ll get up in front with Ruth, Addie said. We can visit and still see the game.

  Louis and the boy took their floats and walked in front of the other cars and along the chain-link fence and climbed up into the wooden bleachers behind home plate. People said hello to Louis and asked who the boy was. This is Addie Moore’s grandson, he told them. We’re getting acquainted. They sat down behind some high school boys. The women were playing a team from the next town over and wore red T-shirts and white shorts. They looked pretty out under the bright lights on the green grass. Their arms and legs were all tanned. The local team was ahead by four runs. The boy didn’t seem to know anything about the game so Louis explained as much as he thought he could take in.

  Don’t you ever play ball? Louis said.

  No.

  Do you have a glove?

  I don’t know.

  Do you know what a softball glove is?

  No.

  You see what those girls have on their hands. That’s a softball glove.

  They watched for a while. The local women scored three more runs, people in the stands yelled and hollered, Louis yelled to one of the players and she looked up in the stands and saw him and waved.

  Who’s that?

  One of the girls I used to teach. Dee Roberts, a smart girl.

  —

  Out in the car Addie and Ruth had rolled the windows down. Do you need to go to the grocery yet? Addie said.

  No. I don’t need anything.

  You’ll let me know.

  I always do.

  I’m afraid you don’t.

  I just don’t eat much anymore. But I’m not hungry so it doesn’t matter.

  They watched the game and Addie honked the horn whenever the local team scored.

  I know Louis still comes over, Ruth said. I see him going home in the mornings.

  We decided it was all right even with Jamie here.

  Yes. Children can accept and adjust to almost anything, if it’s done right.

  I don’t think we’re hurting him. We don’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.

  No. I didn’t mean that.

  We don’t anyway. We haven’t.

  You better get to going. You don’t want to be as old as me.

  —

  Louis and Jamie climbed down and dumped the cups in the trash barrel and went back to the car. Addie got in the rear seat and they drove back to Cedar Street. Louis helped Ruth up to her front door and went home, and later he went over to Addie’s house. Jamie was already asleep in the middle of her bed.

  Thanks for this evening, Addie said.

  Did you know he’s never played catch before?

  No. But his father was never much of an athlete.

  I think every boy ought to have a chance to play catch.

  I’m tired, she said. I’m getting into bed. You can talk to me about it there, in the dark. I’m worn out. All this excitement for one night.

  20

  The next day Louis took Jamie to the old Holt hardware store on Main Street and bought him a leather glove and one for himself and another for Addie and also three hard rubber balls and a small bat. At the counter he asked Jamie which of the caps on the display rack he wanted and the boy chose one in purple and black and the little stooped man at the register adjusted the back of the cap for him and the boy pulled it down and looked up at them with a serious look on his face.

  Looks okay to me, Louis said.

  That cap’ll keep you from getting burned up out here in this sun, the little man said. Rudy was his name, Louis knew him from years ago. It was a wonder he was still working, a wonder that he was still alive. The other manager, a tall man named Bob, had died years ago. And the woman who owned the store had gone back to Denver after her mother died.

  They returned to Louis’s house and Louis showed him how to turn his glove in the right way to catch a ball and they played catch in the shade between Addie’s house and Ruth’s. The boy wasn’t any good at first but got a little better after a while and then he wanted to try hitting with the bat. He finally hit one and Louis praised him extravagantly and they hit some more and then played catch again and the boy was improving now.

  Addie came out from the house and watched. Can you stop now? I’ve got lunch ready. What have you got there? A baseball glove?

  And I got this new cap.

  I see you have. Did you thank Louis?

  No.

  You’d better, don’t you think?

  Thank you, Louis.

  You’re welcome.

  We got a glove for you too, Jamie said.

  Oh, I don’t know how.

  You have to learn, Grandma. I did.

  —

  That night in bed after Jamie was asleep between them Louis said, This boy needs a dog.

  What makes you say that?

  He needs someone or something to play with besides his phone and an old man and an old woman doddering around.

  Thank you very much, Addie said.

  But I’m serious, he does need a dog. What if we drive over to Phillips tomorrow and look at the humane shelter.

  I don’t want a puppy around here. I don’t have the energy for a puppy.

  No, a full-grown dog. One that’s house-trained already. A nice small older dog.

  I don’t know. I don’t know if I want the bother.

  I’ll keep it at my house. Jamie can come over and they can play there.

  Do you want a dog around all the time? You surprise me.

  I don’t mind. It’s been too long since I’ve had a dog.

  I guess it’s up to you. I wouldn’t have thought of it myself.

  —

  After breakfast they drove out north of Holt on the narrow blacktop state highway past the fields of irrigated corn and the dryland wheat and turned west at Red Willow and went on past the country school in the next county and then north again down into the Platte River valley and the town of Phillips. The humane shelter was on the edge of town. They told the woman at the front desk that they wanted a grown mature dog.

  Well, we have more of that kind than anything else, she said. Did you have something specific in mind?

  No. Just a dog that’s not too wild or crazy or doesn’t yap and bark all day long.

  You want one for this boy to play with. Well, let’s see what we’ve got.

  She stood up heavily and led them back across the office. As soon as she opened the door the dogs in the cages and pens put up a frantic racket so that you could hardly hear what anyone said. They went in and she shut the door behind them. There were cages along either side of the middle walkway, with one or two dogs in each cage, with a bad smell in the room, cement floors in the cages and water bowls and pieces of carpet and rugs for the dogs to lie on.

  I’ll just let you look at the dogs yourselves. If you want to try one let me know.

  Can we take any outside?

  Yes, but you’ll need a leash for that. Here’s one hanging on the door here.

  She left and they walked back past all the pens and looked in at each of them. There were all kinds and colors of dogs. The boy was afraid of the loud barking and kept close to Louis on the walkway. They turned and looked again at all the dogs.

  Did you see any you liked?

  I don’t know.

  What about this one? Addie said. It was a black and white border collie mix with something on its right front foot, a kind of bandage or plastic tube. She seems nice, Addie said.

  What’s on her foot? Jamie said.


  I don’t know. We can ask. It seems to be something to protect her.

  Louis put his fingers through the mesh and the dog sniffed his fingers and licked at them. Let’s take her outside. He opened the cage and went in and put the leash on her collar and blocked the other dog from coming out. He led her out easily, without trouble, and they went back into the office.

  You found one, the woman said.

  Maybe, Louis said. We want to take her outside to see how she is away from these other dogs.

  You have to just stay here in the parking lot.

  They went outside and across the lot past the parked cars and over to the weeds and dirt at the side. The dog immediately squatted. Good dog, Louis said. She waited until we got outside and over to the dirt. You want to lead her, Jamie?

  Let’s touch her first, Addie said.

  They all bent down over her and she sat down on her haunches. The boy patted her head and she looked up at him.

  You want to try now? I’ll be right here with you.

  Do you think she’s all right? What about her foot?

  We’ll ask the woman inside. She limps a little when she walks but she doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain.

  Jamie took the leash and the dog stood up and followed along beside him. Louis and the boy and the dog made a circle around the cars on the paved lot. Louis said, You want to try it by yourself? The boy and the dog took another little circle. They could see he liked her. They went back inside. She went in limping, favoring her right paw. The woman told them the dog had gotten her foot frozen in the winter when someone left her outside all night tied up on the back concrete patio. The veterinarian had had to amputate the toes on that foot. She had a white plastic tube she wore now that fastened with Velcro. If she was in the house they could take it off during the day and just have it put on only when she went out. The woman showed them how to take the tube off and how to put it on.

  How old is she? Louis said.

  About five, I’d guess.

  I think we’ll try her, Louis said. If it doesn’t work out we can bring her back.

  Well, we want people to make a good try, not to give up too soon.

  We’ll do that. But I want to know we can come back if we have to.

  Yes, you can.

  Louis paid the fee and collected her papers, the record of her inoculations, and they went out to the car. Jamie got in back and Louis put the dog in the seat beside him and they started out of town on the state highway toward home. After a while the dog laid her head on the boy’s leg and shut her eyes and the boy patted her. Addie nodded for Louis to look in back, and he adjusted the mirror. They were both asleep now. In Holt, Louis dropped Addie off and at home he helped Jamie make a bed for the dog in the kitchen. You want to show her around the house? he said.

  I’ve never been in the other rooms myself, Jamie told him.

  That’s right. He led the two of them through the house and at the stairs the dog loped up ahead of them, on three legs, holding her one paw up, and then they went back down to the kitchen. Let’s see if your grandmother has any lunch for us.

  What about our dog?

  I think we’d better take her with us. She’s just new. We don’t want to leave her alone yet.

  The boy took the leash and they went across the street and back through the alley to Addie’s and knocked and went in.

  In the kitchen Addie said, Have you decided on a name? She has to have a name. Didn’t the woman call her something at the shelter?

  Tippy, Louis said. But I don’t like that very much.

  What about Bonny? the boy said.

  Where’d you get that name?

  A girl in my class.

  Someone you like?

  Sort of.

  All right. Bonny it is.

  I think it suits her, Addie said.

  —

  Jamie and Louis left the dog on her rug at Louis’s house out in the kitchen and went over to eat supper at Addie’s. After supper they all went to check on her and she was whining and crying. They could hear her from a distance.

  Why don’t you just bring her over to my house for now? Addie said. I don’t think Ruth and the other neighbors need this.

  Then what?

  Then we’ll have to see.

  They got the dog and brought her back to Addie’s. Addie gave her an old throw rug to lie on and she settled down and watched them, looking one to the other. The boy went upstairs to play with his phone and took the dog with him. When Louis and Addie went up they told him the dog would have to stay in the kitchen. But after they took her downstairs, she began to cry again until Addie said, Oh, go ahead. I know what you want.

  Louis said, Well, we don’t want to hear that all night, do we?

  I said go ahead.

  He brought her to the front bedroom. Jamie looked over the side of the bed at her and reached down and petted her.

  I’ve got another idea, Louis said. How about you and Bonny go into your bedroom? You can keep her with you.

  I don’t know.

  She’ll be right there with you in your room. You won’t be alone.

  When the boy got into bed the dog jumped up immediately.

  Is this okay?

  We’ll try it. Unless your grandmother says not to.

  But still leave the light on.

  I will.

  And the door open?

  Now see if you can sleep. Bonny will be here with you.

  Then Louis went back to the bed with Addie and slid in under the sheet.

  Tell me something, she said.

  What.

  Did you have this in mind all along?

  I wish I were that smart, Louis said. At least we can stretch out now without tangling up with a little boy’s feet.

  Addie turned off the light. Where’s your hand?

  Right here beside you where it always is.

  She took his hand. Now we can talk again, she said.

  What do you want to talk about?

  I want to know what you’re thinking.

  About what?

  About being over here. How it feels by now. Staying here at night.

  I’ve gotten so I can stand it, he said. It feels normal now.

  Just normal?

  I’m trying to have some fun with you.

  I know you are. Tell me the truth.

  The truth is I like it. I like it a lot. I’d miss it if I didn’t have it. What about you?

  I love it, she said. It’s better than I had hoped for. It’s a kind of mystery. I like the friendship of it. I like the time together. Being here in the dark of night. The talking. Hearing you breathe next to me if I wake up.

  I like all that too.

  So talk to me, she said.

  Is there anything specific?

  Something more about yourself.

  Aren’t you tired of that?

  Not yet. I’ll tell you when I am.

  Let me think a minute. You know that dog is on the bed with him.

  I expected that.

  She’s going to get your bed dirty.

  It’ll wash. Now talk to me. Tell me something I haven’t heard yet.

  21

  I wanted to be a poet. I don’t think anyone but Diane ever knew that. I was studying literature in college and getting a teaching certificate at the same time. But I was crazy about poetry. All the standard poets that we read then. T. S. Eliot. Dylan Thomas. e.e. cummings. Robert Frost. Walt Whitman. Emily Dickinson. Individual poems by Housman and Matthew Arnold and John Donne. Shakespeare’s sonnets. Browning. Tennyson. I memorized some of them.

  Can you still recall them?

  He said the opening lines of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” A few lines of “Fern Hill” and some of the lines of “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.”

  What happened?

  You mean why didn’t I pursue it?

  You still seem interested.

  I am. But not like I was. I started teaching and Holly came alo
ng and I got busy. I went to work in the summers painting houses. We needed the money. Or at least I thought we did.

  I remember you painting houses. With a couple of other teachers.

  Diane didn’t want to work and I agreed it was important for Holly to have someone at home with her. So I wrote a little in the evening and a little maybe on the weekends. I got a couple of poems accepted by journals and quarterlies, but most of what I sent out got rejected, got returned without a note. If I ever got anything from an editor, some word or phrase, I took that as encouragement and practically lived on it for months. It’s not surprising looking back on it. They were awful little things. Imitative. Unnecessarily complicated. I remember one poem had a line in it using the phrase iris blue, which is all right, but I divided the word up into the i of ris blue.

  What does it mean?

  Who knows. Or cares. I showed that particular poem, one of the early ones, to one of my professors at college and he looked at it and looked at me for a while and said, Well, that’s interesting. Keep working. Oh, it was pitiful stuff really.

  But you might have gotten better if you’d kept at it.

  Maybe. But it didn’t work out. I just didn’t have it in me. And Diane didn’t like it.

  Why not?

  I don’t know. Maybe it was a threat to her of some kind. I think she was jealous of my feeling about it and about the time it took me away to myself, being isolated and private.

  She didn’t support your wanting to do this.

  She didn’t have anything she wanted to do herself. Except take care of Holly. And later she was confirmed in her feelings and thoughts by the group of women she met with, like I told you.

  Well, I wish you’d take it up again.

  I think it’s past my time for that. I’ve got you now. I feel pretty passionate about us, you know. But what about you? You’ve never said what you wanted to do.

  I wanted to be a teacher. I started a course in college in Lincoln but I got pregnant with Connie and quit school. Later on I took a short course in bookkeeping so I could help Carl, and as I said I became his part-time receptionist and did the books. When Gene started school I took a clerk’s job in the Holt town offices, as you know, and stayed there a long time. Too long.