Our Souls at Night

26

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 cem; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; text-align: ir about his handloseness 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 Ge funeral and t