Page 132 - A Little Life: A Novel

against the floor; he knew this was the last thing Jacob had made Harold
before he got sick. Above him, he could hear only Harold’s breathing.
“Harold, please forgive me,” he repeated, cupping the pieces in his

palms. “I think I can fix this, though—I can make it better.” He couldn’t
look up from the mug, its shiny buttered glaze.
He felt Harold crouch beside him. “Jude,” Harold said, “it’s all right. It
was an accident.” His voice was very quiet. “Give me the pieces,” he said,
but he was gentle, and he didn’t sound angry.
He did. “I can leave,” he offered.
“Of course you’re not going to leave,” Harold said. “It’s okay, Jude.”

“But it was Jacob’s,” he heard himself say.
“Yes,” said Harold. “And it still is.” He stood. “Look at me, Jude,” he
said, and he finally did. “It’s okay. Come on,” and Harold held out his hand,
and he took it, and let Harold pull him to his feet. He wanted to howl, then,
that after everything Harold had given him, he had repaid him by destroying
something precious created by someone who had been most precious.

Harold went upstairs to his study with the mug in his hands, and he
finished his cleaning in silence, the lovely day graying around him. When
Julia came home, he waited for Harold to tell her how stupid and clumsy
he’d been, but he didn’t. That night at dinner, Harold was the same as he
always was, but when he returned to Lispenard Street, he wrote Harold a
real, proper letter, apologizing properly, and sent it to him.
And a few days later, he got a reply, also in the form of a real letter,

which he would keep for the rest of his life.
“Dear Jude,” Harold wrote, “thank you for your beautiful (if
unnecessary) note. I appreciate everything in it. You’re right; that mug
means a lot to me. But you mean more. So please stop torturing yourself.
“If I were a different kind of person, I might say that this whole incident
is a metaphor for life in general: things get broken, and sometimes they get

repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged,
life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.
“Actually—maybe I am that kind of person after all.
“Love, Harold.”

It was not so many years ago—despite the fact that he knew otherwise,
despite what Andy had been telling him since he was seventeen—that he