Page 651 - A Little Life: A Novel

when they met. And yet for all these years, Harold has remained in his
perceptions stubbornly forty-five; the only thing that has changed is his
perception of how old, exactly, forty-five is. It is embarrassing to admit this

to himself, but it is only recently that he has begun considering that there is
a possibility, even a probability, that he will outlive Harold. He has already
lived beyond his imaginings; isn’t it likely he will live longer still?
He remembers a conversation they’d had when he turned thirty-five. “I’m
middle-aged,” he’d said, and Harold had laughed.
“You’re young,” he’d said. “You’re so young, Jude. You’re only middle-
aged if you plan on dying at seventy. And you’d better not. I’m really not

going to be in the mood to attend your funeral.”
“You’re going to be ninety-five,” he said. “Are you really planning on
still being alive then?”
“Alive, and frisky, and being attended to by an assortment of buxom
young nurses, and not in any mood to go to some long-winded service.”
He had finally smiled. “And who’s paying for this fleet of buxom young

nurses?”
“You, of course,” said Harold. “You and your big-pharma spoils.”
But now he worries that this won’t happen after all. Don’t leave me,
Harold, he thinks, but it is a dull, spiritless request, one he doesn’t expect
will be answered, made more from rote than from real hope. Don’t leave
me.
“You’re not saying anything,” Harold says now, and he refocuses

himself.
“I’m sorry, Harold,” he says. “I was drifting a little.”
“I can see that,” Harold says. “I was saying: Julia and I were thinking of
spending some more time here, in the city, of living uptown full-time.”
He blinks. “You mean, moving here?”
“Well, we’ll keep the place in Cambridge,” Harold says, “but yes. I’m

considering teaching a seminar at Columbia next fall, and we like spending
time here.” He looks at him. “We thought it’d be nice to be closer to you,
too.”
He isn’t sure what he thinks about this. “But what about your lives up
there?” he asks. He is discomfited by this news; Harold and Julia love
Cambridge—he has never thought they would leave. “What about Laurence
and Gillian?”