Page 134 - A Little Life: A Novel

He had started to laugh, but then his coughing had begun again and Andy
had thumped him on the back. “Maybe if someone recommended a real
internist to me, I wouldn’t have to keep going to a chiropractor for all my

medical needs,” he said.
“Mmm,” Andy said. “You know, maybe you should start seeing an
internist. God knows it’d save me a lot of time, and a shitload of headaches
as well.” But he would never go to see anyone but Andy, and he thought—
although they had never discussed it—that Andy wouldn’t want him to,
either.
For all Andy knew about him, he knew relatively little about Andy. He

knew that he and Andy had gone to the same college, and that Andy was a
decade older than he, and that Andy’s father was Gujarati and his mother
was Welsh, and that he had grown up in Ohio. Three years ago, Andy had
gotten married, and he had been surprised to be invited to the wedding,
which was small and held at Andy’s in-laws’ house on the Upper West Side.
He had made Willem come with him, and was even more surprised when

Andy’s new wife, Jane, had thrown her arms around him when they were
introduced and said, “The famous Jude St. Francis! I’ve heard so much
about you!”
“Oh, really,” he’d said, his mind filling with fear, like a flock of flapping
bats.
“Nothing like that,” Jane had said, smiling (she was a doctor as well: a
gynecologist). “But he adores you, Jude; I’m so glad you came.” He had

met Andy’s parents as well, and at the end of the evening, Andy had slung
an arm around his neck and given him a hard, awkward kiss on the cheek,
which he now did every time they saw each other. Andy always looked
uncomfortable doing it, but also seemed compelled to keep doing it, which
he found both funny and touching.
He appreciated Andy in many ways, but he appreciated most his

unflappability. After they had met, after Andy had made it difficult not to
continue seeing him by showing up at Hood, banging on their door after he
had missed two follow-up appointments (he hadn’t forgotten; he had just
decided not to go) and ignored three phone calls and four e-mails, he had
resigned himself to the fact that it might not be bad to have a doctor—it
seemed, after all, inevitable—and that Andy might be someone he could
trust. The third time they met, Andy took his history, or what he would