Page 249 - A Little Life: A Novel

And so he has watched as, with each new revised blueprint for Greene
Street, hallways have materialized and then vanished, and the kitchen has
grown larger and then smaller, and bookcases have gone from stretching

along the northern wall, which has no windows, to the southern wall, which
does, and then back again. One of the renderings eliminated walls
altogether—“It’s a loft, Judy, and you should respect its integrity,” Malcolm
had argued with him, but he had been firm: he needed a bedroom; he
needed a door he could close and lock—and in another, Malcolm had tried
to block up the southern-facing windows entirely, which had been the
reason he had chosen the sixth-floor unit to begin with, and which Malcolm

later admitted had been an idiotic idea. But he enjoys watching Malcolm
work, is touched that he has spent so much time—more than he himself has
—thinking about how he might live. And now it is going to happen. Now
he has enough saved for Malcolm to indulge even his most outlandish
design fantasies. Now he has enough for every piece of furniture Malcolm
has ever suggested he might get, for every carpet and vase.

These days, he argues with Malcolm about his most recent plans. The last
time they reviewed the sketches, three months ago, he had noticed an
element around the toilet in the master bathroom that he couldn’t identify.
“What’s that?” he’d asked Malcolm.
“Grab bars,” Malcolm said, briskly, as if by saying it quickly it would
become less significant. “Judy, I know what you’re going to say, but—” But
he was already examining the blueprints more closely, peering at Malcolm’s

tiny notations in the bathroom, where he’d added steel bars in the shower
and around the bathtub as well, and in the kitchen, where he’d lowered the
height of some of the countertops.
“But I’m not even in a wheelchair,” he’d said, dismayed.
“But Jude,” Malcolm had begun, and then stopped. He knew what
Malcolm wanted to say: But you have been. And you will be again. But he

didn’t. “These are standard ADA guidelines,” he said instead.
“Mal,” he’d said, chagrined by how upset he was. “I understand. But I
don’t want this to be some cripple’s apartment.”
“It won’t be, Jude. It’ll be yours. But don’t you think, maybe, just as a
precaution—”
“No, Malcolm. Get rid of them. I mean it.”
“But don’t you think, just as a matter of practicality—”