Page 107 - A Little Life: A Novel
P. 107

touched,  or,  most  important,  what  had  happened  to  his  legs  or  back:  she
                knew  already.  Around  her  he  had  felt  none  of  the  constant  anxiety,  nor
                watchfulness, that he seemed condemned to feel around everyone else; the

                vigilance was exhausting, but it eventually became simply a part of life, a
                habit  like  good  posture.  Once,  she  had  reached  out  to  (he  later  realized)
                embrace him, but he had reflexively brought his hands up over his head to
                protect himself, and although he had been embarrassed, she  hadn’t made
                him feel silly or overreactive. “I’m an idiot, Jude,” she’d said instead. “I’m
                sorry. No more sudden movements, I promise.”
                   But now she was gone, and no one knew him. His records were sealed.

                His first Christmas, Leslie had sent him a card, addressed to him through
                the student affairs office, and he had kept it for days, his last link to Ana,
                before finally throwing it away. He never wrote back, and he never heard
                from Leslie again. It was a new life. He was determined not to ruin it for
                himself.
                   Still, sometimes, he thought back to their final conversations, mouthing

                them  aloud.  This  was  at  night,  when  his  roommates—in  various
                configurations, depending on who was in the room at the time—slept above
                and next to him. “Don’t let this silence become a habit,” she’d warned him
                shortly before she died. And: “It’s all right to be angry, Jude; you don’t have
                to hide it.” She had been wrong about him, he always thought; he wasn’t
                what she thought he was. “You’re destined for greatness, kid,” she’d said
                once, and he wanted to believe her, even though he couldn’t. But she was

                right about one thing: it did get harder and harder. He did blame himself.
                And although he tried every day to remember the promise he’d made to her,
                every day it became more and more remote, until it was just a memory, and
                so was she, a beloved character from a book he’d read long ago.




                   “The world has two kinds of people,” Judge Sullivan used to say. “Those
                who  are  inclined  to  believe,  and  those  who  aren’t.  In  my  courtroom,  we
                value belief. Belief in all things.”

                   He  made  this  proclamation  often,  and  after  doing  so,  he  would  groan
                himself to his feet—he was very fat—and toddle out of the room. This was
                usually  at  the  end  of  the  day—Sullivan’s  day,  at  least—when  he  left  his
                chambers and came over to speak to his law clerks, sitting on the edge of
                one  of  their  desks  and  delivering  often  opaque  lectures  that  were
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