Page 133 - A Little Life: A Novel

was still maintaining a sort of small, steady hope that he might get better.
On especially bad days, he would repeat the Philadelphia surgeon’s words
to himself—“the spine has wonderful reparative qualities”—almost like a

chant. A few years after meeting Andy, when he was in law school, he had
finally summoned the courage to suggest this to him, had said aloud the
prediction he had treasured and clung to, hoping that Andy might nod and
say, “That’s exactly right. It’ll just take time.”
But Andy had snorted. “He told you that?” he asked. “It’s not going to
get better, Jude; as you get older, it’ll get worse.” Andy had been looking
down at his ankle as he spoke, using tweezers to pick out shreds of dead

flesh from a wound he’d developed, when he suddenly froze, and even
without seeing Andy’s face, he could tell he was chagrined. “I’m sorry,
Jude,” he said, looking up, still cupping his foot in his hand. “I’m sorry I
can’t tell you differently.” And when he couldn’t answer, he sighed. “You’re
upset.”
He was, of course. “I’m fine,” he managed to say, but he couldn’t bring

himself to look at Andy.
“I’m sorry, Jude,” Andy repeated, quietly. He had two settings, even then:
brusque and gentle, and he had experienced both of them often, sometimes
in a single appointment.
“But one thing I promise,” he said, returning to the ankle, “I’ll always be
here to take care of you.”
And he had. Of all the people in his life, it was in some ways Andy who

knew the most about him: Andy was the only person he’d been naked in
front of as an adult, the only person who was familiar with every physical
dimension of his body. Andy had been a resident when they met, and he had
stayed in Boston for his fellowship, and his postfellowship, and then the
two of them had moved to New York within months of each other. He was
an orthopedic surgeon, but he treated him for everything, from chest colds

to his back and leg problems.
“Wow,” Andy said dryly, as he sat in his examining room one day
hacking up phlegm (this had been the previous spring, shortly before he had
turned twenty-nine, when a bout of bronchitis had been snaking its way
through the office), “I’m so glad I specialized in orthopedics. This is such
good practice for me. This is exactly what I thought I’d do with my
training.”