Page 577 - A Little Life: A Novel

where the beauty was so uncomplicated, so undeniable that it seemed at
times an illusion.
He and Harold set off toward the forest, where the rough walkway means

that it is easier for him to navigate than it had been when construction
began. Even so, he has to concentrate, for the path is only cleared once a
season, and in the months between it becomes cluttered with saplings and
ferns and twigs and tree matter.
They aren’t quite halfway to the first bench when he knows he has made
a mistake. His legs began throbbing as soon as they finished walking down
the lawn, and now his feet are throbbing as well, and each step is agonizing.

But he doesn’t say anything, just grips his cane more tightly, trying to re-
center the discomfort, and pushes forward, clenching his teeth and squaring
his jaw. By the time they reach the bench—really, a dark-gray limestone
boulder—he is dizzy, and they sit for a long time, talking and looking out
onto the lake, which is silvery in the cold air.
“It’s chilly,” Harold says eventually, and it is; he can feel the cool of the

stone through his pants. “We should get you back to the house.”
“Okay,” he swallows, and stands, and immediately, he feels a hot stake of
pain being thrust upward through his feet and gasps, but Harold doesn’t
notice.
They are only thirty steps into the forest when he stops Harold. “Harold,”
he says, “I need—I need—” But he can’t finish.
“Jude,” Harold says, and he can tell Harold is worried. He takes his left

arm, slings it around his neck, and holds his hand in his own. “Lean on me
as much as you can,” Harold says, putting his other arm around his waist,
and he nods. “Ready?” He nods again.
He’s able to take twenty more steps—such slow steps, his feet tangling in
the mulch—before he simply can’t move any more. “I can’t, Harold,” he
says, and by this time he can barely speak, the pain is so extreme, so unlike

anything he has felt in such a long time. Not since he was in the hospital in
Philadelphia have his legs, his back, his feet hurt so profoundly, and he lets
go of Harold and falls to the forest floor.
“Oh god, Jude,” Harold says, and bends over him, helping him to sit up
against a tree, and he thinks how stupid, how selfish, he is. Harold is
seventy-two. He should not be asking a seventy-two-year-old man, even an
admirably healthy seventy-two-year-old man, for physical assistance. He

cannot open his eyes because the world is torquing itself around him, but he