Page 578 - A Little Life: A Novel

hears Harold take out his phone, hears him try to call Willem, but the forest
is so dense that the reception is poor, and Harold curses. “Jude,” he hears
Harold say, but his voice is very faint, “I’m going to have to go back to the

house and get your wheelchair. I’m so sorry. I’m going to be right back.”
He nods, barely, and feels Harold button his coat closed, feels him push his
hands into his coat’s pockets, feels him wrap something around his legs—
Harold’s own coat, he realizes. “I’ll be right back,” Harold says. “I’ll be
right back.” He hears Harold’s feet running away from him, the crunch of
the sticks and leaves as they snap and crumple beneath him.
He turns his head to the side and the ground beneath him shifts,

dangerously, and he vomits, coughing up everything he has eaten that day,
feels it slide off of his lips and drool down his cheek. Then he feels a bit
better, and he leans his head against the tree again. He is reminded of his
time in the forest when he was running away from the home, how he had
hoped the trees might protect him, and now he hopes for it again. He takes
his hand out of his pocket, feels for his cane, and squeezes it as hard as he

can. Behind his eyelids, bright spangled drops of light burst into confetti,
and then blink out into oily smears. He concentrates on the sound of his
breath, and on his legs, which he imagines as large lumpen shards of wood
into which have been drilled dozens of long metal screws, each as thick as a
thumb. He pictures the screws being drawn out in reverse, each one rotating
slowly out of him and landing with a ringing clang on a cement floor. He
vomits again. He is so cold. He can feel himself begin to spasm.

And then he hears someone running toward him, and he can smell it is
Willem—his sweet sandalwood scent—before he hears his voice. Willem
gathers him, and when he lifts him, everything sways again, and he thinks
he is going to be sick, but he isn’t, and he puts his right arm around
Willem’s neck and turns his vomity face into his shoulder and lets himself
be carried. He can hear Willem panting—he may weigh less than Willem,

but they are still the same height, and he knows how unwieldy he must be,
his cane, still in his hand, banging against Willem’s thighs, his calves
knocking against Willem’s rib cage—and is grateful when he feels himself
being lowered into his chair, hears Willem’s and Harold’s voices above him.
He bends over, resting his forehead on his knees, and is pushed back out of
the forest and up the hill to the house, and once inside, he is lifted into bed.
Someone takes off his shoes, and he screams out and is apologized to;

someones wipes his face; someone wraps his hands around a hot-water