Page 198 - A Little Life: A Novel

kidding me!,” which he was used to hearing when being confronted about
his cutting, or his amateurish bandaging skills, instead applied to his
opinions about movies, and the mayor, and books, and even paint colors.

Once he learned that Andy wouldn’t use their talks as an occasion to
reprimand him, or lecture him, he relaxed into them, and even managed to
learn some more things about Andy himself: Andy spoke of his twin,
Beckett, also a doctor, a heart surgeon, who lived in San Francisco and
whose boyfriend Andy hated and was scheming to get Beckett to dump; and
how Jane’s parents were giving them their house on Shelter Island; and how
Andy had been on the football team in high school, the very Americanness

of which had made his parents uneasy; and how he had spent his junior year
abroad in Siena, where he dated a girl from Lucca and gained twenty
pounds. It wasn’t that he and Andy never spoke of Andy’s personal life—
they did to some extent after every appointment—but on the phone he
talked more, and he was able to pretend that Andy was only his friend and
not his doctor, despite the fact that this illusion was belied by the call’s very

premise.
“Obviously, you shouldn’t feel obligated to come,” he added, hastily,
after inviting Andy to the court date.
“I’d love to come,” Andy said. “I was wondering when I’d be invited.”
Then he felt bad. “I just didn’t want you to feel you had to spend even
more time with your weird patient who already makes your life so
difficult,” he said.

“You’re not just my weird patient, Jude,” Andy said. “You’re also my
weird friend.” He paused. “Or at least, I hope you are.”
He smiled into the phone. “Of course I am,” he said. “I’m honored to be
your weird friend.”
And so Andy was coming as well: he’d fly back that afternoon, but
Malcolm and JB would spend the night, and they’d all leave together on

Saturday.
Upon arriving, he had been surprised, and then moved, to see how
thoroughly Harold and Julia had cleaned the house, and how proud they
were of the work they’d done. “Look!” one or the other kept saying,
triumphantly pointing at a surface—a table, a chair, a corner of floor—that
would normally have been obscured by stacks of books or journals, but
which was now clear of all clutter. There were flowers everywhere—winter

flowers: bunches of decorative cabbages and white-budded dogwood