Page 619 - A Little Life: A Novel

Irvine grabbing him and shaking him and then hugging him so tightly he
was smothered, hugging him and sobbing against him, until someone—
Harold, presumably—said something and he was released.

He knew there had been some sort of service for Willem, something
small; he knew Willem had been cremated. But he doesn’t remember
anything from it. He doesn’t know who organized it. He doesn’t even know
if he attended it, and he is too frightened to ask. He remembers Harold
telling him at one point that it was okay that he wasn’t giving a eulogy, that
he could have a memorial for Willem later, whenever he was ready. He
remembers nodding, remembers thinking: But I won’t ever be ready.

At some point he went back to work: the end of September, he thought.
By this point, he knew what had happened. He did. But he was trying not
to, and back then, it was still easy. He didn’t read the papers; he didn’t
watch the news. Two weeks after Willem died, he and Harold had been
walking down the street and they had passed a newspaper kiosk and there,
before him, was a magazine with Willem’s face on it, and two dates, and he

realized that the first date was the year Willem had been born, and the
second was the year he had died. He had stood there, staring, and Harold
had taken his arm. “Come on, Jude,” he’d said, gently. “Don’t look. Come
with me,” and he had followed, obediently.
Before he returned to the office, he had instructed Sanjay: “I don’t want
anyone offering me their condolences. I don’t want anyone mentioning it. I
don’t want anyone saying his name, ever.”

“Okay, Jude,” Sanjay had said, quietly, looking scared. “I understand.”
And they had obeyed him. No one said they were sorry. No one said
Willem’s name. No one ever says Willem’s name. And now he wishes they
would say it. He cannot say it himself. But he wishes someone would.
Sometimes, on the street, he hears someone say something that sounds like
his name—“William!”: a mother, calling to her son—and he turns, greedily,

in the direction of her voice.
In those first months, there were practicalities, which gave him
something to do, which gave his days anger, which in turn gave them shape.
He sued the car manufacturer, the seat-belt manufacturer, the air-bag
manufacturer, the rental-car company. He sued the truck driver, the
company the driver worked for. The driver, he heard through the driver’s
lawyer, had a chronically ill child; a lawsuit would ruin the family. But he

didn’t care. Once he would have; not now. He felt raw and merciless. Let