Page 683 - A Little Life: A Novel

The next morning there he was at breakfast, reading the paper, pale but
smiling at us, and we didn’t ask him what he’d done the day before and he
didn’t volunteer it. That day we just walked around the city, the three of us

an unwieldy little pack—too wide for the sidewalks, we strolled in single
file, each of us taking the position of the leader in turn—but just to familiar
places, well-trafficked places, places that would have no secret memories,
that held no intimacies. Near Via Condotti Julia looked into the tiny
window of a tiny jewelry store, and we went inside, the three of us filling
the space, and each held the earrings she had admired in the window. They
were exquisite: solid gold, dense and heavy and shaped like birds, with

small round rubies for eyes and little gold branches in their beaks, and he
bought them for her, and she was embarrassed and delighted—Julia had
never worn much jewelry—but he looked happy to be able to, and I was
happy that he was happy, and that she was happy, too. That night we met JB
and Richard for a final dinner, and the next morning we left to go north, to
Florence, and he to go home.

“I’ll see you in five days,” I told him, and he nodded.
“Have a good time,” he said. “Have a wonderful time. I’ll see you soon.”
He waved as we were driven away in the car; we turned in our seats to
wave back at him. I remember hoping my wave was somehow telegraphing
what I couldn’t say: Don’t you dare. The night before, as he and Julia were
talking to JB, I asked Richard if he would feel comfortable sending me
updates while we were away, and Richard said he would. He had gained

almost all the weight Andy wanted, but he’d had two setbacks—one in
May, one in July—and so we were all still watching him.
It sometimes felt as if we were living our relationship in reverse, and
instead of worrying for him less, I worried for him more; with each year I
became more aware of his fragility, less convinced of my competence.
When Jacob was a baby, I would find myself feeling more assured with

each month he lived, as if the longer he stayed in this world, the more
deeply he would become anchored to it, as if by being alive, he was staking
claim to life itself. It was a preposterous notion, of course, and it was
proven wrong in the most horrible way. But I couldn’t stop thinking this:
that life tethered life. And yet at some point in his life—after Caleb, if I had
to date it—I had the sense that he was in a hot-air balloon, one that was
staked to the earth with a long twisted rope, but each year the balloon

strained and strained against its cords, tugging itself away, trying to drift