Page 180 - A Little Life: A Novel

and that for a moment, they had forgotten he was there at all. But then
Harold was quiet again, trying to say what he’d say next.
“Jude, I’ve—we’ve—known you for almost a decade now,” Harold said

at last, and he watched as Harold’s eyes moved to him and then moved
away, to somewhere above Julia’s head. “And over those years, you’ve
grown very dear to us; both of us. You’re our friend, of course, but we think
of you as more than a friend to us; as someone more special than that.” He
looked at Julia, and she nodded at him once more. “So I hope you won’t
think this is too—presumptuous, I suppose—but we’ve been wondering if
you might consider letting us, well, adopt you.” Now he turned to him

again, and smiled. “You’d be our legal son, and our legal heir, and someday
all this”—he tossed his free arm into the air in a parodic gesture of
expansiveness—“will be yours, if you want it.”
He was silent. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t react; he couldn’t even feel
his face, couldn’t sense what his expression might be, and Julia hurried in.
“Jude,” she said, “if you don’t want to, for whatever reason, we understand

completely. It’s a lot to ask. If you say no, it won’t change how we feel
about you, right, Harold? You’ll always, always be welcome here, and we
hope you’ll always be part of our lives. Honestly, Jude—we won’t be angry,
and you shouldn’t feel bad.” She looked at him. “Do you want some time to
think about it?”
And then he could feel the numbness receding, although as if in
compensation, his hands began shaking, and he grabbed one of the throw

pillows and wrapped his arms around it to hide them. It took him a few tries
before he was able to speak, but when he did, he couldn’t look at either of
them. “I don’t need to think about it,” he said, and his voice sounded
strange and thin to him. “Harold, Julia—are you kidding? There’s nothing
—nothing—I’ve ever wanted more. My whole life. I just never thought—”
He stopped; he was speaking in fragments. For a minute they were all quiet,

and he was finally able to look at both of them. “I thought you were going
to tell me you didn’t want to be friends anymore.”
“Oh, Jude,” said Julia, and Harold looked perplexed. “Why would you
ever think that?” he asked.
But he shook his head, unable to explain it to them.
They were silent again, and then all of them were smiling—Julia at
Harold, Harold at him, he into the pillow—unsure how to end the moment,