Our Souls at Night (8 page)

Addie said, After Connie’s death Carl wasn’t himself. He seemed all right on the outside when he was with other people away from home and at his office, but it changed him. He loved our daughter. More than me. More than Gene. He didn’t pay as much attention to Gene after that and when he did it was often critical, to correct him. Many times I talked to him about it and he said he would try to do better. But it was never the same and it affected Gene. I know it did. I tried to make up for that but that didn’t work either.

What about you and him? That must have changed too.

We stopped making love for a year after Connie’s death. He wasn’t interested. Then when he was interested again it wasn’t much good. It was more just physical than anything loving and emotional. After a year or so we stopped altogether.

When was that?

Ten years before he died.

Did you miss it?

Of course. I missed the closeness more. We weren’t at all close anymore. We were cordial and sort of formally pleasant and polite, but that was all.

I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t notice.

No, but how would you have noticed? In public we were kind, even affectionate. And we didn’t see you very much even if we were neighbors. But nobody knew really. I didn’t tell anyone and I’m sure Carl didn’t. Gene knew but he may have come to think that that’s the way it goes, how life is. That married people were that way to each other.

That seems pretty miserable to me.

Oh, it was bad. I tried talking but he wouldn’t talk. I tried coming to bed naked. Put on perfume. I even ordered skimpy little nightgowns from a catalog. He thought it was disgusting. He got rough, kind of mean, when we did make love, the few times we did. Of course it wasn’t love at all. He made me feel worse. I quit trying to fix things and we settled into our long polite and quiet life. I took Gene to Denver to concerts and plays and tried to give him more than just this house and its secrets, to get him out of Holt, and show him a larger world. I can’t say that worked well
either. Gene stayed closed up like his father. He got more so in high school, then he went off to college and we didn’t see him even as much as we did before. So I began to go to Denver myself to plays and concerts. I treated myself. I felt I deserved it. I stayed at the Brown Palace Hotel and went out alone for expensive dinners. I bought a few dresses that I wore only in Denver. I didn’t want to show myself in Holt in those clothes. I didn’t want people to know. I expect people knew something anyway. Your wife may have.

If she did she never said anything about it to me.

I always liked that about Diane. I thought she was someone you could trust not to gossip or talk meanly.

But you still slept together all those years. You didn’t want separate beds.

I suppose that sounds strange. But somehow that was what little we kept. We never touched each other. You learn how to stay strictly on your side and not to touch even by accident in the night. You take care of each other when you’re sick and in the daytime you each do what you think of as your job. Carl would bring me flowers to make up and people in town would think, How nice. But all the time there’d be this secret of silence.

Then he died, Louis said.

Yes. I took care of him all along. I wanted to do that.
I needed to. He was sick off and on before he died that Sunday morning in the church. So yes, I took care of him. I don’t know what else I would have done. We had that long time of joined life, even if it wasn’t good for either one of us. That was our history.

At midweek they packed Louis’s pickup and drove west up out of the plains toward the mountains, watching the mountains rise up higher as they got closer to the Front Range, the dark forested lower foothills and farther back the white peaks above tree line still with patches of snow even in July, and drove onto U.S. Highway 50 and went on through the few towns. They stopped in one of the towns for hamburgers and then drove up the highway through the Arkansas River canyon, the beautiful fast water, steep red jagged cliffs on each side, there were Rocky Mountain sheep along the road, all ewes with short sharp horns, and went on and then turned off toward North Fork Campground on County Road 240 and entered the national forest. There were not many people or campers in the campground. They got out and began to unload the pickup at a site near the creek. They could hear it running and
rushing. The clear icy water, with brook trout holed up in the hollows below the rocks. There were tall fir trees and big ponderosas and aspen along the creek and back in the hillside. Tent and camper sites were marked off by timbers and there were picnic tables and firepit rings nearby.

We’ll look around after we get camp set up, Louis said.

The boy helped set up the tent where Louis said was a good flat smooth place that wasn’t too close to the fire ring. Louis showed him how to position the tent poles and stretch the guide ropes tight and peg them in the ground and how to fold back the window coverings and the door flap. They put their blowup mattresses and sleeping bags inside, Jamie and Bonny to sleep on one side, Addie and Louis on the other. Addie unzipped one of the bags and spread it out for herself and Louis and unzipped the other and laid it over the first sleeping bag, so they could have a wide comfortable bed together, and spread out another bag for Jamie.

Then the camp was set up and they went over to the creek and waded in the icy waters.

It’s too cold, Grandma.

It comes straight out of a snowbank, honey.

By now it was getting dark, long past suppertime. Louis and the boy hauled wood from the pickup since
cutting any limbs or trees wasn’t permitted in the national forest. Jamie gathered up twigs and little dry branches from the ground and they laid a small fire inside the circle of rocks and propped a grate over it and Addie and the boy cooked hot dogs and canned beans in an iron frying pan and got out some raw carrots and chips. When the food was hot they sat down at the picnic table and ate and watched the fire.

You want to get some more wood? Louis said.

Jamie and the dog went out of the firelight to the pickup and the boy brought an armload of wood back.

Go ahead and lay some of it on, Louis said.

He put a piece of the wood on the fire, his arm stretched out, his eyes watering and blinking in the smoke. Then he sat down again. The air was cool and fresh, a mountain breeze blowing up. They didn’t talk but looked at the fire and at the stars just above the mountains. They could see the bare peak of Mount Shavano shining in the night sky to the north.

Then Louis took Jamie down along the creek and cut three green willow shoots and sharpened the ends and went back to the campfire. Your grandma has a surprise for you.

What is it?

Addie got out a bag of marshmallows and poked one over the sharp end of each of the sticks.

Hold it near the fire. Let it brown up and get soft.

He held it out and it flamed up at once.

Blow on it.

Addie showed him how to brown it slowly by turning the stick. They ate two or three each. Jamie’s mouth and hands got sticky with the sweet insides and blackened with marshmallow ash.

When they finished eating they put the food in the pickup cab for the night so it wouldn’t attract bears. Then Louis took Jamie to the campground toilet and went in with him with a flashlight.

Just do your business and come out, Louis said. We don’t have to linger in here. You want me to stay with you?

It stinks in here.

Louis pointed the flashlight down into the gaping dark hole of the tank.

Go ahead. I’m not leaving you.

Louis turned away and the boy pulled down his pants and sat on the seat with the open tank under him. He was afraid of it. When he was done Louis used the toilet and they went outside where the dog was waiting. They breathed again in the fresh air. They walked over and washed their hands and faces at the pump and went back to the tent.

It stinked in there, Grandma.

I know.

She got Jamie ready for bed in the sleeping bag with Bonny lying on the pillow beside him.

Where will you be?

We’ll be sleeping here, right next to you.

All night?

Yes.

He went to sleep and Louis and Addie came into the tent after an hour and got undressed and lay down and held hands and looked at the stars up through the mesh window of the tent. There was the sharp pine smell of the trees.

Isn’t it nice like this, Addie said.

In the morning they had pancakes and eggs and bacon and then tidied up the camp and put the food and cooking pans in the cooler in the back of the pickup and drove up farther in the mountains on the highway to Monarch Pass and stopped and got out at the Continental Divide and looked out over the western slope and if their eyes had been good enough and if they could have seen over the curvature of the earth they could have seen the Pacific Ocean a thousand miles away across the mountains. At noon they drove back to their camp and ate cheese sandwiches and apples and drank cold water from the old-fashioned well, pumping it out with the green pump handle, and then
took a hike up to the waterfalls on North Fork Creek and sat and watched the water crash down into the clear green pool below. When they hiked down to the bottom, the air was cooler near the falls, the air misted on their faces.

They returned to camp and Addie and Louis set up folding camp chairs in the shade by the creek and read their books. The boy and the dog wandered around in the surrounding trees.

Can we take a walk somewhere, Jamie said.

You can follow the creek, Louis said. Which way do you think it’s running?

Down there.

Why is that?

I don’t know.

Because it’s going downhill. Water always wants to flow to a lower place. Where do you want to go?

That way.

That’s downhill. Down-river. To get back here to camp what would you do?

Turn around.

Smart boy. Follow the creek up-river and come back to our tent. Your grandma and I’ll be waiting for you. Try it once. Go a little ways and then come back. Take Bonny with you. But don’t cross the creek anywhere. Stay on this side.

The boy and the dog went down away from the campground and came back and then went farther down and poked around in the rocks and examined the shining mica and climbed on the big boulders and lay looking down into the water. Then they moved back up the creek.

What did you see? Louis said.

We didn’t see any bears. But there was a deer.

What did Bonny do?

She barked at it. We just turned around. That’s all we did.

In the evening they made another small fire and Addie cut up onions and peppers and put them in butter in the iron skillet and put in the ground-up hamburger and tomato sauce and a spoonful of sugar and Worcestershire sauce and a quarter cup of ketchup and salt and pepper, a sauce she’d made before they left home, and now stirred it all together and laid a lid on the pan. Louis and Jamie got out the hamburger buns and the leftover chips from the day before and set everything ready on the table, all the plates and unbreakable cups. Jamie took the dog and the empty jug down to the pump and came back with sweet fresh water, and the three of them ate sitting by the fire as the night came down. The boy gave Bonny some of his
sloppy joe and looked at Louis to see what he thought. Louis winked and looked off into the trees.

Will we see any bears tonight? Jamie said.

I doubt it, Louis said. If we do it’ll be a black bear. But they won’t hurt us unless they get scared. Bonny would warn us anyway.

I’d like to see one from the pickup. From inside.

That’d be the way all right.

Are you worried about it? Addie said.

I just would like to see one.

They poured water on the fire, and the wood steamed and smoked, and the red coals blinked out, and then Louis took Jamie out into the trees with the flashlight shining ahead. He stopped.

You can pee here, he said. We don’t have to go to the toilet when it’s dark like this.

I’m not supposed to do it outside.

It’s all right this time. Nobody will see us. He turned the light off. The animals pee out here. I guess we can this once.

They both peed on the ground and afterward Louis turned the flashlight on and let Jamie carry it. The light flickered and looped up and down on the trees and underbrush. They walked back to the tent.

The next day they drove down out of the mountains
back onto the plains. Other people were coming up now for the weekend towing big campers that looked out of place in the forest.

When they got down on the plains the air was hot and dry and the country seemed flatter than it had been and more bare and treeless. They reached home after dark and were tired, they showered and went to bed right away in their two separate rooms.

In early August Gene came out from Grand Junction to visit and Addie and Jamie met him at the door.

I don’t see the dog you’ve been telling me about, he said.

She’s at Louis’s house, Jamie said.

You call him Louis?

Yes. He said to.

They went in and Gene took his bags upstairs to the back bedroom where Jamie and the dog slept and put the bags on the bed.

I’ll stay in here with you in my old room.

What about Bonny?

She can’t sleep in here with both of us.

She always sleeps with me.

We’ll see how it goes.

They went back downstairs and in the late afternoon Louis came over to say hello and he brought the
dog along. Jamie knelt down in front of her and petted her and took her outside to play in the yard.

Stay out of the street, Gene said.

We do this all the time, Dad. They went on out.

Gene looked at Louis. I hear you stay here with my mother too.

Some nights I do.

What’s that about?

Friendship. For one thing.

What are you doing? Addie said. You know about this.

What am I doing? My mother’s sleeping with an old neighbor man while my son’s in the other room and I’m not supposed to ask about it.

That’s right. How can this be any of your business?

It’s my business if my son is here.

There’s nothing to see, Louis said. I don’t think it’s hurting him. I wouldn’t be here if I thought so.

I don’t think you’re the one to judge. You’re getting what you want. Why would you care about a boy that belongs to somebody else?

But I do care about him.

Well, you can stop. I don’t want him to be affected by this. I know about you. When I was a kid I heard about you.

What about me?

How you left your wife and daughter for some other woman.

That was over forty years ago.

It still happened.

And I’m sorry it did. But I can’t go back and fix it now. Louis watched him for a moment. I think I’ll leave. This isn’t helping anything.

I’ll call you later, Addie told him.

He stood and went out.

Why are you being this way? Addie said. What’s wrong with you?

I don’t want my son to be hurt.

You don’t think he’s already been hurt by his father and mother this summer?

Yes, I do think so. And now it’s getting worse.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s far better now than when you left him here. And if you want to know the truth Louis has been good for him.

Because he’s after your money too, isn’t he?

Whatever are you talking about now?

If you married him he’d get half of everything, wouldn’t he? I couldn’t stop him.

We’re not getting married. And he’s not interested in my money. My God, what little you must think of me.

He looked away. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve got to start over.

You know I’ll help you.

For how long?

As long as it takes. As long as I can.

You’re getting tired of it already. You must be.

Well, I’m still doing it. You’re my son. Jamie’s my grandson.

The next two nights the dog stayed with Louis at his house and the boy slept upstairs in the back room with his father and on the second night, Sunday night, he had a bad dream and woke up crying and would not be consoled until Addie came in and held him and took him back into her bed. On Monday Gene told them good-bye and drove home.

When his father was gone the boy went to Louis’s house and put on the dog’s leash and the protective tube on her paw and came out with her and walked around the block and up the alley to Addie’s backyard and played with her there while she and Louis watched him.

It was bad last night, Addie said. It was like when he first got here. Having those bad dreams. He was upset again. Now Gene tells me Beverly is coming back home in a couple of weeks.

What’s going to happen then?

I don’t know. They’re going to try again, I guess. She’ll move back in. And Jamie will start school.

He could take the dog with him when he goes. If they’d agree.

I don’t know if they would.

Why don’t you ask. It’d make some difference anyway.

They looked out at Jamie and Bonny in the backyard.

Should I come over tonight? Louis said.

You’d better, you dirty old man.

He didn’t say I was dirty.

But I know, she said.