Page 186 - A Little Life: A Novel

So he was surprised—as surprised as the counselors—when he learned
that night that he was one of the children chosen by a couple: the Learys.
Had he noticed a woman and man looking at him, maybe even smiling at

him? Maybe. But the afternoon had passed, as most did, in a haze, and even
on the bus ride home, he had begun the work of forgetting it.
He would spend a probationary weekend—the weekend before
Thanksgiving—with the Learys, so they could see how they liked each
other. That Thursday he was driven to their house by a counselor named
Boyd, who taught shop and plumbing and whom he didn’t know very well.
He knew Boyd knew what some of the other counselors did to him, and

although he never stopped them, he never participated, either.
But as he was getting out of the car in the Learys’ driveway—a one-story
brick house, surrounded on all sides by fallow, dark fields—Boyd snatched
his forearm and pulled him close, startling him into alertness.
“Don’t fuck this up, St. Francis,” he said. “This is your chance, do you
hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” he’d said.
“Go on, then,” said Boyd, and released him, and he walked toward Mrs.
Leary, who was standing in the doorway.
Mrs. Leary was fat, but her husband was simply big, with large red hands
that looked like weaponry. They had two daughters, both in their twenties
and both married, and they thought it might be nice to have a boy in the
house, someone who could help Mr. Leary—who repaired large-scale farm

machinery and also farmed himself—with the field work. They chose him,
they said, because he seemed quiet, and polite, and they didn’t want
someone rowdy; they wanted someone hardworking, someone who would
appreciate what having a home and a house meant. They had read in the
binder that he knew how to work, and how to clean, and that he did well on
the home’s farm.

“Now, your name, that’s an unusual name,” Mrs. Leary said.
He had never thought it unusual, but “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“What would you think of maybe going by a different name?” Mrs.
Leary asked. “Like, Cody, maybe? I’ve always liked the name Cody. It’s a
little less—well, it’s a little more us, really.”
“I like Cody,” he said, although he didn’t really have an opinion about it:
Jude, Cody, it didn’t matter to him what he was called.

“Well, good,” said Mrs. Leary.