Our Souls at Night (11 page)

After the talk with Gene, Addie and Louis still saw each other. He came to her house at night but it was different now. It was not the same lighthearted pleasure and discovery. And gradually there were nights when he stayed home, nights when she read for hours alone, not wanting him to be there in bed with her. She stopped waiting for him, naked. They still held each other in the night when he did come over but it was more out of habit and desolation and anticipated loneliness and disheartenment, as if they were trying to store up these moments together against what was coming. They lay awake side by side silently now and never made love anymore.

Then the day came when Addie tried to talk to her grandson on the phone. She could hear the boy crying in the background but his father wouldn’t let him talk.

Why are you doing this? she said.

You know why. If I have to do this I will.

Oh you’re just mean. This is cruel. I didn’t think you’d go so far.

You can change it.

She called her grandson one afternoon when she thought he would be at home by himself. But he wouldn’t talk to her.

They’ll be mad, he said. He began to cry. They’ll take Bonny away. They’ll take my phone.

Oh God, Addie said. All right, honey.

When Louis came to her house in the middle of that week she led him out to the kitchen and gave him a beer and poured herself a glass of wine.

I want to talk. Out here in the light.

Something more has changed, he said.

I can’t do this anymore, she said. I can’t go on this way. I thought something like this was coming. I have to have contact, and some kind of life with my grandson. He’s the only one left to me. My son and his wife mean little now. That’s all broken, I don’t think they or I will ever get over it. But I still want my grandson. This summer made that clear.

He loves you.

He does. He’s the only one of my family who does. He’ll outlive me. He’ll be with me as I die. I don’t want the others. I don’t care about the others. They’ve
killed that. I don’t trust Gene. I can’t guess what else he might do.

So you want me to go home.

Not tonight. One more night. Will you do that?

I thought you were the brave one of us.

I can’t be brave anymore.

Maybe Jamie will fight it and call you on his own.

Not yet he won’t. He can’t, he’s only six years old. Maybe when he’s sixteen. But I can’t wait that long. I might already be dead. I can’t miss these years with him.

So this is our last night.

Yes.

They went upstairs. In bed in the dark they talked a little more. Addie was crying. He put his arm around her and held her.

We’ve had a good time, Louis said. You’ve made a great difference for me. I’m grateful. I appreciate it.

You’re being cynical now.

I don’t mean to be. I mean what I’ve said. You have been good for me. What more could anyone ask for? I’m a better person than I was before we got together. That’s your doing.

Oh, you’re still kind to me. Thank you, Louis.

They lay awake listening to the wind outside the house. At two in the morning Louis got up and went
to the bathroom. When he came back to bed he said, You’re still awake.

I can’t sleep, she said.

At four he got up again and dressed and put his pajamas and toothbrush in the paper bag.

Are you leaving?

I thought I would.

It’s still night for a few more hours.

I can’t see any point in putting this off.

She started to weep again.

He walked downstairs and went home past the old trees and the houses all dark and strange at this hour. The sky was still dark and nothing was moving. No cars in the streets. In his own house, he lay in bed watching the east window for the first sign of daylight.

As the weather held that fall Louis often walked out at night past her house and looked at the light shining upstairs in her bedroom, her bedside lamp that he knew and the room with its big bed and dark wooden dresser and the bathroom located down the hall, and remembered everything about the room and the nights lying in the dark talking and the closeness of it all. Then one night he noticed her face appear at the window and he stopped, she made no gesture nor any sign that she was looking at him. But when he was home again she called him on the phone. You can’t do that anymore.

Do what?

Walk past my house. I can’t have it.

So it’s come to that now. You’re going to tell me what I can do and can’t do. Even in my own neighborhood.

I can’t have you walking by and my thinking that
you are. Or wondering if you are. I can’t be imagining you’re out in front of the house. I have to be physically shut off from you now.

I thought we were.

Not if you walk by the house at night.

So he never passed her familiar house again, in the night. Walking past in the day didn’t matter. And the few times they happened to meet at the grocery store or on the street, they looked at each other and said hello but that was all.

On a bright day just after noon when she was downtown by herself, Addie slipped on the curb on Main Street and fell and reached out to catch herself but there was nothing to catch on to, and she lay in the street until some women and a couple of men came to help her.

Don’t lift me, she said. Something’s broken.

The one woman knelt beside her and one of the men folded his coat under her head. They stayed there with her until she was taken away. At the hospital they said that she had broken a hip and she asked them to call Gene. He came that same day and it was decided that she would do better at a hospital in Denver. So she left Holt in an ambulance with Gene following in his car.

Three days later Louis was at the bakery with the group of men he met occasionally. Dorlan Becker said, I guess you know about her.

What are you talking about?

I’m talking about Addie Moore.

What about Addie Moore?

She broke her hip. They took her to Denver.

Where in Denver?

I don’t know. One of the hospitals.

Louis went home and called the hospitals until he located the one she’d been admitted to and he drove the following day to Denver and got there in the early evening. At the information desk they told him her room number and he took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down the hall and found her room and then stood in the doorway. Gene and Jamie were sitting there talking to her.

When Addie saw Louis her eyes teared up.

Can I come in? he said.

No, don’t you come in here, Gene said. You’re not wanted here.

Please, Gene, just to say hello.

For five minutes, he said. No more.

Louis entered the room and stopped at the foot of the bed and Jamie came around and hugged him and Louis held him close.

How’s old Bonny?

She can catch a ball now. She jumps up and catches it.

Good for her.

Let’s go, Gene said. We’re leaving. Mom, five minutes. That’s it.

He and Jamie left the room.

Will you sit down? she said.

Louis moved one of the chairs closer and sat beside her, then took her hand and kissed it.

Don’t do that, she said. She drew her hand back. This is just for now. Just for a moment. That’s all we have. She looked at his face. Who told you I was here?

The guy at the bakery. Can you imagine his turning out to be a help to me. Are you all right?

I will be.

Will you let me help you?

No. Please. You have to leave. You can’t stay long. Nothing’s changed.

But you need help.

I’ve already started physical therapy.

But you’ll need help at home.

I’m not coming home.

What do you mean?

Gene has it all figured out. I’ll move to Grand Junction into assisted living.

So you won’t come back at all.

No.

Christ, Addie. I don’t accept any of this. It’s not like you.

I can’t help it. I have to keep to my family.

Let me be your family.

But what happens when you die?

Then you can go live with Gene and Jamie.

No. I have to do this while I’m still able to make the adjustment. I can’t wait until I’m too old. I won’t be able to change then or I might not even have the option. You have to leave now. And please don’t come back. It’s too hard.

He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth and kissed her eyes and then went out of the room and down the hallway to the elevator. There was a woman on the elevator, she looked at his face once and looked away.

One night she called him on her cell phone. She was sitting in a chair at her apartment. Will you talk to me?

There was a long silence.

Louis, are you there? she said.

I thought we weren’t going to talk anymore.

I have to. I can’t go on like this. It’s worse than before we ever started.

What about Gene?

He doesn’t have to know. We can talk on the phone at night.

Then this seems like sneaking. Like he said. Being secretive.

I don’t care. I’m too lonely. I miss you too much. Won’t you talk to me?

I miss you too, he said.

Where are you?

You mean where in the house?

Are you in your bedroom?

Yes, I’ve been reading. Is this some kind of phone sex?

It’s just two old people talking in the dark, Addie said.

Addie said, Is this a good time?

Yes. I just came upstairs.

Well, I was just thinking about you. I was just wanting so much to talk to you.

Are you all right?

Jamie came over again today after he got out of school and we went around the block. Bonny was here too.

Did he have her on a leash?

He didn’t need to, she said. Jamie said his father and mother have been arguing and yelling. I said, What do you do then? He said, I go to my bedroom.

Well. I can be glad for him that you’re there, Louis said.

Addie said, What have you been doing today?

Nothing. I shoveled snow. I made a path up in your block.

Why?

I felt like it. The people renting your house came out to talk to me. They seem all right. But it’s still your house. Ruth’s house is still hers too.

I feel that way about it too.

Well. Things have changed.

I’m in bed, she said, here in my room. Did I say that already?

No. But I assumed you were.

You know that play in Denver will be coming up. Why don’t you use the tickets and go.

I won’t go without you.

You could take Holly.

I don’t want to do that. Why don’t you use them?

I won’t go without you either, she said.

Then some strangers will sit there in our seats. They won’t know anything about us.

Or why the seats became available.

And you still don’t want me to call you. You don’t want me to initiate these calls.

I’m afraid someone will be here in the room with me. I wouldn’t be able to cover up.

It’s like when we started. Like we’re started out new again. With you being the one to begin it again. Except that we’re careful now.

But we’re continuing too. Aren’t we, she said. We’re
still talking. For as long as we can. For as long as it lasts.

What do you want to talk about tonight?

She looked out the window. She could see her reflection in the glass. And the dark behind it.

Dear, is it cold there tonight?

The author wishes to thank Gary Fisketjon, Nancy Stauffer, Gabrielle Brooks, Ruthie Reisner, Carol Carson, Sue Betz, Mark Spragg, Jerry Mitchell, Laura Hendrie, Peter Carey, Rodney Jones, Peter Brown, Betsy Burton, Mark and Kathy Haruf, Sorel, Mayla, Whitney, Charlene, Chaney, Michael, Amy, Justin, Charlie, Joel, Lilly, Jennifer, Henry, Destiny, CJ, Jason, Rachael, Sam, Jessica, Ethan, Caitlin, Hannah, Fred Rasmussen, Tom Thomas, Jim Elmore, Alberta Skaggs, Greg Schwipps, Mike Rosenwald, Jim Gill, Joey Hale, Brian Coley, Troy Gorman and most especially Cathy Haruf.