Page 585 - A Little Life: A Novel

“I’m going to do it,” he says, and he thinks that they are like two actors
on a stage, talking to each other across a great distance, and he wheels
himself close to him. “I’m going to do it,” he repeats, and Willem nods, and

then they lean their foreheads into each other’s, and both of them start
crying. “I’m sorry,” he tells Willem, and Willem shakes his head, his
forehead rubbing against his.
“I’m sorry,” Willem tells him back. “I’m sorry, Jude. I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he says, and he does.
The next day he calls Andy, who is relieved but also muted, as if out of
respect to him. Things move briskly after that. They pick a date: the first

date Andy proposes is Willem’s birthday, and even though he and Willem
have agreed that they’ll celebrate Willem’s fiftieth birthday once he’s better,
he doesn’t want to have the surgery on the actual day. So instead he’ll have
it at the end of August, the week before Labor Day, the week before they
usually go to Truro. In the next management committee meeting, he makes
a brief announcement, explaining that this is a voluntary operation, that

he’ll only be out of the office for a week, ten days at the most, that it isn’t a
big deal, that he’ll be fine. Then he announces it to his department; he
normally wouldn’t, he tells them, but he doesn’t want their clients to worry,
he doesn’t want them to think that it’s something more serious than it is, he
doesn’t want to be the subject of rumors and chatter (although he knows he
will be). He reveals so little about himself at work that whenever he does,
he can see people sit up and lean forward in their seats, can almost see their

ears lift a little higher. He has met all of their wives and husbands and
girlfriends and boyfriends, but they have never met Willem. He has never
invited Willem to one of the company’s retreats, to their annual holiday
parties, to their annual summer picnics. “You’d hate them,” he tells Willem,
although he knows that isn’t really the case: Willem can have a good time
anywhere. “Believe me.” And Willem has always shrugged. “I’d love to

come,” he has always said, but he has never let him. He has always told
himself that he is protecting Willem from a series of events that he would
surely find tedious, but he has never considered that Willem might be hurt
by his refusal to include him, might actually want to be a part of his life
beyond Greene Street and their friends. He flushes now, realizing this.
“Any questions?” he asks, not really expecting any, when he sees one of
the younger partners, a callous but scarily effective man named Gabe

Freston, raise his hand. “Freston?” he says.