Page 579 - A Little Life: A Novel

bottle; someone wraps his legs with blankets. Above him, he can hear
Willem being angry—“Why did you fucking go along with this? You know
he can’t fucking do this!”—and Harold’s apologetic, miserable replies: “I

know, Willem. I’m so sorry. It was moronic. But he wanted to go so badly.”
He tries to speak, to defend Harold, to tell Willem it was his fault, that he
made Harold come with him, but he can’t.
“Open your mouth,” Willem says, and he feels a pill, bitter as metal,
being placed on his tongue. He feels a glass of water being tipped toward
his lips. “Swallow,” Willem says, and he does, and soon after, the world
ceases to exist.

When he wakes, he turns and sees Willem in bed with him, staring at
him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, but Willem doesn’t say anything. He
reaches over and runs his hand through Willem’s hair. “Willem,” he says,
“it wasn’t Harold’s fault. I made him do it.”
Willem snorts. “Obviously,” he says. “But he still shouldn’t have agreed
to it.”

They are quiet for a long time, and he thinks of what he needs to say,
what he has always thought but never articulated. “I know this is going to
sound illogical to you,” he tells Willem, who looks back at him. “But even
all these years later, I still can’t think of myself as disabled. I mean—I
know I am. I know I am. I have been for twice as long as I haven’t been. It’s
the only way you’ve known me: as someone who—who needs help. But I
remember myself as someone who used to be able to walk whenever he

wanted to, as someone who used to be able to run.
“I think every person who becomes disabled thinks they were robbed of
something. But I suppose I’ve always felt that—that if I acknowledge that I
am disabled, then I’ll have conceded to Dr. Traylor, then I’ll have let Dr.
Traylor determine the shape of my life. And so I pretend I’m not; I pretend I
am who I was before I met him. And I know it’s not logical or practical. But

mostly, I’m sorry because—because I know it’s selfish. I know my
pretending has consequences for you. So—I’m going to stop.” He takes a
breath, closes and opens his eyes. “I’m disabled,” he says. “I’m
handicapped.” And as foolish as it is—he is forty-seven, after all; he has
had thirty-two years to admit this to himself—he feels himself about to cry.
“Oh, Jude,” says Willem, and pulls him toward him. “I know you’re
sorry. I know this is hard. I understand why you’ve never wanted to admit