Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

light of the bedside lamp. He stood looking at her.
    Don’t stand there, she said. You make me nervous.
    Don’t be, he said. You look lovely.
    I’m too heavy around the hips and stomach. This old body. I’m an old woman now.
    Well, old woman Moore. You’ve won me completely. You’re just right. You’re how you’re supposed to look. You’re not supposed to be some thirteen-year-old girl without any breasts and hips.
    Well, I’m not that now if I ever was.
    Look how I’ve turned out, he said. I’ve got this gut on me. My arms and legs are thin old man’s arms and legs.
    You look good to me, she said. But you keep standing there. Aren’t you going to lie down? Are you just going to stand there all night?
    Louis got out of his pajamas and slid into bed and she moved over closer to him and took his hand and kissed him and he turned on his side and kissed her and touched her shoulder and touched her breasts.
    It’s been a long time since anyone did that, she said.
    It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like this.
    He kissed her again and touched her and then she pulled him closer and he lifted in the bed and lay kissing her face and neck and shoulders and moved over and started to move and then stopped after a short while.
    What’s wrong?
    I can’t stay hard. I’ve got the old man’s complaint.
    Have you had this trouble before?
    No. But I haven’t tried this for years either. The limp time has come, as the poet says. I’m just an old son of a bitch now.
    He lay back and settled beside her in the dark.
    Do you feel bad? she said.
    Yeah, a little. But more than anything I feel I’ve disappointed you.
    You haven’t. It’s just the first time. We have all the time ahead of us.
    Maybe I ought to try some of those pills they advertise on TV.
    Oh, I think it’ll be all right. Let’s try again another night.

37
    After dark one night they walked over to the grade school playground and Louis pushed Addie on the big chain swing and she rode up and back in the cool fresh night air of late summer with the hem of her skirt fluttering over her knees. Afterward they went back to bed in her upstairs front room and lay beside each other naked in the summer air coming in from the open windows.
    And once they stayed overnight in Denver as she had before at the great old beautiful Brown Palace Hotel with its open court and lobby and the piano player who played all afternoon and evening. Their room was on the third floor and they could look over the railing down to the open courtyard below and see the piano player and people sitting at tables taking tea and drinking cocktails and the waiters moving back and forth from the bar and as night approached the guests goinginto the bar or into the restaurant with its white tablecloths and gleaming glasses and silverware. They went down and ate in the restaurant and then came back upstairs and Addie put on one of the expensive dresses she’d bought years ago just to wear in Denver. Then they went out onto the sidewalk to the 16th Street Mall and rode the shuttle bus to Curtis Street and walked over to the Denver Center and through the lobby and off to the left to the theater. A woman showed them to their seats, the theater a great large auditorium, and they looked all about at the other people coming in and talking and then the play began, the men on stage singing on their mission in their black pants and ties and white shirts, the audience amused by some of it. They held hands and at intermission went out to the restrooms. The women queued up in a long line. Louis went back to their seats and Addie returned just in time for the second half of the play.
    Don’t say anything, she said.
    I’m not.
    Why can’t they figure it out that women take more time and need more stalls?
    You know why, he said.
    Because men are the ones who design these things, that’s why.
    They watched the second half and then went outonto the street in the bright lights in front of the theater