Our Souls at Night

by Kent Haruf

I’m talking about getting through the night. And lying warm in bed, companionably. Lying down in bed together and you staying the night. The nights are the worst. Don’t you think? Yes. I think so.

But I think I could sleep again if there were someone else in bed with me. Someone nice. The closeness of that. Talking in the night, in the dark.

But I’m not sure I can be equal to you. What are you talking about? How do you mean that? In courage, he said. Willingness to risk. Yes, but you’re here. That’s right. I am.

I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That’s a sin.

Getting to know somebody well at this age. And finding out you like her and discovering you’re not just all dried up after all.

It’s some kind of decision to be free. Even at our ages.

But we didn’t know anything in our twenties when we were first married. It was all just instinct and the patterns we’d grown up with.

Good old dark, Louis said. All comfortable and good, nothing to worry anybody, nothing to be afraid of.

So life hasn’t turned out right for either of us, not the way we expected, he said.

Not like I was. I’ve come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We’re just in this physical body till we go back to spirit. I don’t know if I believe that, Addie said. Maybe you’re right. I hope you are.

It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.