Page 621 - A Little Life: A Novel

secret letter containing a long-held confession. How thankful he would have
been for an excuse to hate Willem, to resent him, for a mystery to solve that
might occupy years of his life. But there was nothing. Willem’s life was

over. He was as clean in death as he had been in life.
He thought he was doing well, or well enough anyway. One day Harold
called and asked what he wanted to do for Thanksgiving, and for a moment
he couldn’t understand what Harold was talking about, what the very word
—Thanksgiving—meant. “I don’t know,” he said.
“It’s next week,” Harold said, in the new quiet voice everyone now used
around him. “Do you want to come here, or we can come over, or we can go

somewhere else?”
“I don’t think I can,” he said. “I have too much work, Harold.”
But Harold had insisted. “Anywhere, Jude,” he’d said. “With whomever
you want. Or no one. But we need to see you.”
“You’re not going to have a good time with me,” he finally said.
“We won’t have a good time without you,” Harold said. “Or any kind of

time. Please, Jude. Anywhere.”
So they went to London. They stayed in the flat. He was relieved to be
out of the country, where there would have been scenes of families on the
television, and his colleagues happily grousing about their children and
wives and husbands and in-laws. In London, the day was just another day.
They took walks, the three of them. Harold cooked ambitious, disastrous
meals, which he ate. He slept and slept. Then they went home.

And then one Sunday in December he had woken and had known:
Willem was gone. He was gone from him forever. He was never coming
back. He would never see him again. He would never hear Willem’s voice
again, he would never smell him again, he would never feel Willem’s arms
around him. He would never again be able to unburden himself of one of
his memories, sobbing with shame as he did, would never again jerk awake

from one of his dreams, blind with terror, to feel Willem’s hand on his face,
to hear Willem’s voice above him: “You’re safe, Judy, you’re safe. It’s over;
it’s over; it’s over.” And then he had cried, really cried, cried for the first
time since the accident. He had cried for Willem, for how frightened he
must have been, for how he must have suffered, for his poor short life. But
mostly he had cried for himself. How was he going to keep living without
Willem? His entire life—his life after Brother Luke, his life after Dr.

Traylor, his life after the monastery and the motel rooms and the home and