Page 246 - A Little Life: A Novel

decision this had been: How could he ever fill so much room? How would
it ever feel like his? He was reminded of Boston, of Hereford Street, and
how there, he had dreamed only of a bedroom, of a door he might someday

close. Even when he was in Washington, clerking for Sullivan, he had slept
in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment he shared with a legislative
assistant whom he rarely saw—Lispenard Street had been the first time in
his life that he’d had a room, a real room with a real window, wholly to
himself. But a year after he moved into Greene Street, Malcolm installed
the walls, and the place began to feel a little more comfortable, and the year
after that, Willem moved in, and it felt more comfortable still. He saw less

of Richard than he thought he might—they were both traveling frequently
—but on Sunday evenings, he would sometimes go down to his studio and
help him with one of his projects, polishing a bunch of small branches
smooth with a leaf of sandpaper, or snipping the rachis off the vane from a
fluff of peacock feathers. Richard’s studio was the sort of place he would
have loved as a child—everywhere were containers and bowls of marvelous

things: twigs and stones and dried beetles and feathers and tiny, bright-hued
taxidermied birds and blocks in various shapes made of some soft pale
wood—and at times he wished he could be allowed to abandon his work
and simply sit on the floor and play, which he had usually been too busy to
do as a boy.
By the end of the third year, he had paid for the apartment, and had
immediately begun saving for the renovation. This took less time than he’d

thought it would, in part because of something that had happened with
Andy. He’d gone uptown one day for his appointment, and Andy had
walked in, looking grim and yet oddly triumphant.
“What?” he’d asked, and Andy had silently handed him a magazine
article he’d sliced out of a journal. He read it: it was an academic report
about how a recently developed semi-experimental laser surgery that had

held great promise as a solution for damageless keloid removal was now
proven to have adverse medium-term effects: although the keloids were
eliminated, patients instead developed raw, burn-like wounds, and the skin
beneath the scars became significantly more fragile, more susceptible to
splitting and cracking, which resulted in blisters and infection.
“This is what you’re thinking of doing, isn’t it?” Andy asked him, as he
sat holding the pages in his hand, unable to speak. “I know you, Judy. And I

know you made an appointment at that quack Thompson’s office. Don’t