Page 690 - A Little Life: A Novel

years, at least he would be alive. That was what I thought: that I would
rather have him suffering and alive—than dead.
But in the end, it didn’t take him much time at all. It was February, about

a year after our intervention. If he could keep his weight on through May,
we’d stop monitoring him, and he’d be able to stop seeing Dr. Loehmann if
he wanted, although both Andy and I thought he should keep going. But it
would no longer be our decision. That Sunday, we had stayed in the city,
and after a cooking lesson at Greene Street (an asparagus-and-artichoke
terrine) we went out for our walk.
It was a chilly day, but windless, and we walked south on Greene until it

changed into Church, and then down and down, through TriBeCa, through
Wall Street, and almost to the very tip of the island, where we stood and
watched the river, its splashing gray water. And then we turned and walked
north, back up the same street: Trinity to Church, Church to Greene. He had
been quiet all day, still and silent, and I prattled on about a middle-aged
man I had met at the career placement center, a refugee from Tibet a year or

so older than he, a doctor, who was applying to American medical schools.
“That’s admirable,” he said. “It’s difficult to start over.”
“It is,” I said. “But you’ve started over too, Jude. You’re admirable, too.”
He glanced at me, then looked away. “I mean it,” I said. I was reminded of a
day a year or so after he had been discharged from the hospital after his
suicide attempt, and he was staying with us in Truro. We had taken a walk
then as well. “I want you to tell me three things you think you do better than

anyone else,” I had told him as we sat on the sand, and he made a weary
puffing noise, filling his cheeks with air and blowing it out through his
mouth.
“Not now, Harold,” he had said.
“Come on,” I said. “Three things. Three things you do better than
anyone, and then I’ll stop bothering you.” But he thought and thought and

still couldn’t think of anything, and hearing his silence, something in me
began to panic. “Three things you do well, then,” I revised. “Three things
you like about yourself.” By this time I was almost begging. “Anything,” I
told him. “Anything.”
“I’m tall,” he finally said. “Tallish, anyway.”
“Tall is good,” I said, although I had been hoping for something different,
something more qualitative. But I would accept it as an answer, I decided: it

had taken him so long to come up with even that. “Two more.” But he