Page 678 - A Little Life: A Novel

he wants him to never stop. “My baby.” And he cries and cries, cries for
everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old
hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting

to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the
privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of
tendernesses, of fondnesses, of being served a meal and being made to eat
it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, of
believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and
hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.
It ends with Julia finally going to the kitchen and making another

sandwich; it ends with him eating it, truly hungry for the first time in
months; it ends with him spending the night in the extra bedroom, with
Harold and Julia kissing him good night; it ends with him wondering if
maybe time really is going to loop back upon itself after all, except in this
rendering, he will have Julia and Harold as parents from the beginning, and
who knows what he will be, only that he will be better, that he will be

healthier, that he will be kinder, that he won’t feel the need to struggle so
hard against his own life. He has a vision of himself as a fifteen-year-old,
running into the house in Cambridge, shouting words—“Mom! Dad!”—he
has never said before, and although he can’t imagine what would have
made this dream self so excited (for all his study of normal children, their
interests and behaviors, he knows few specifics), he understands that he is
happy. Maybe he is wearing a soccer uniform, his arms and legs bare;

maybe he is accompanied by a friend, by a girlfriend. He has probably
never had sex before; he is probably trying at every opportunity to do so.
He would think sometimes of who he would be as an adult, but it would
never occur to him that he might not have someone to love, sex, his own
feet running across a field of grass as soft as carpet. All those hours, all
those hours he has spent cutting, and hiding the cutting, and beating back

his memories, what would he do instead with all those hours? He would be
a better person, he knows. He would be a more loving one.
But maybe, he thinks, maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe he can pretend one
more time, and this last bout of pretending will change things for him, will
make him into the person he might have been. He is fifty-one; he is old. But
maybe he still has time. Maybe he can still be repaired.
He is still thinking this on Monday when he goes to see Dr. Loehmann, to

whom he apologizes for his awful behavior the week before—and the