Kent Haruf - Our Souls at Night

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 toothers. I don&

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 >Are you leavi 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 Jamiand hugged him and Louis held him close.

How’s old Bonny?

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

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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.

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.

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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 ing 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?