Page 666 - A Little Life: A Novel

convinced, it was somehow sustaining that someone else had seen him as a
worthwhile person, that someone had seen his as a meaningful life.
The spring before Willem died, they’d had some people over for dinner

—just the four of them and Richard and Asian Henry Young—and
Malcolm, in one of the occasional spikes of regret he had been experiencing
over his and Sophie’s decision not to have children, even though, as they all
reminded him, they hadn’t wanted children to begin with, had asked,
“Without them, I just wonder: What’s been the point of it all? Don’t you
guys ever worry about this? How do any of us know our lives are
meaningful?”

“Excuse me, Mal,” Richard had said, pouring him the last of the wine
from one bottle as Willem uncorked another, “but I find that offensive. Are
you saying our lives are less meaningful because we don’t have kids?”
“No,” Malcolm said. Then he thought. “Well, maybe.”
“I know my life’s meaningful,” Willem had said, suddenly, and Richard
had smiled at him.

“Of course your life’s meaningful,” JB had said. “You make things
people actually want to see, unlike me and Malcolm and Richard and Henry
here.”
“People want to see our stuff,” said Asian Henry Young, sounding
wounded.
“I meant people outside of New York and London and Tokyo and
Berlin.”

“Oh, them. But who cares about those people?”
“No,” Willem said, after they’d all stopped laughing. “I know my life’s
meaningful because”—and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent
for a moment before he continued—“because I’m a good friend. I love my
friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.”
The room became quiet, and for a few seconds, he and Willem had

looked at each other across the table, and the rest of the people, the
apartment itself, fell away: they were two people on two chairs, and around
them was nothingness. “To Willem,” he finally said, and raised his glass,
and so did everyone else. “To Willem!” they all echoed, and Willem smiled
back at him.
Later that evening, when everyone had left and they were in bed, he had
told Willem that he was right. “I’m glad you know your life has meaning,”