Page 222 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Don’t you fucking shout at me,” he shouted. “You’re just mad, Andy,
because he’s your patient and you can’t fucking figure out a way to make
him better and so you’re blaming me.”

He regretted it the moment he said it, and in that instant they were both
silent, panting into their phones. “Andy,” he began.
“Nope,” said Andy. “You’re right, Willem. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He was abruptly miserable, thinking of Jude
in the ugly Lispenard Street bathroom. Before he had left, he had looked
everywhere for Jude’s razors—beneath the toilet tank lid; in the back of the
medicine cabinet; even under the drawers in the cupboard, taking each out

and examining them from all angles—but couldn’t find them. But Andy
was right—it was his responsibility. He should have done a better job. And
he hadn’t, so really, he had failed.
“No,” said Andy. “I’m really sorry, Willem; it’s totally inexcusable. And
you’re right—I don’t know what to do.” He sounded tired. “It’s just that
he’s had—he’s had such a shitty life, Willem. And he trusts you.”

“I know,” he mumbled. “I know he does.”
So they’d worked out a plan, and when he got back home, he’d
monitored Jude more closely than he had before, a process that had proved
singularly unrevealing. Indeed, in the month or so after the adoption, Jude
was different than he’d seen him before. He couldn’t exactly define how:
except on rare occasions, he wasn’t ever able to determine the days Jude
was unhappy and the days he wasn’t. It wasn’t as if he normally moped

around and was unemotive and then, suddenly, wasn’t—his fundamental
behavior and rhythms and gestures were the same as before. But something
had changed, and for a brief period, he had the strange sensation that the
Jude he knew had been replaced by another Jude, and that this other Jude,
this changeling, was someone of whom he could ask anything, who might
have funny stories about pets and friends and scrapes from childhood, who

wore long sleeves only because he was cold and not because he was trying
to hide something. He was determined to take Jude at his word as often and
as much as he could: after all, he wasn’t his doctor. He was his friend. His
job was to treat him as he wanted to be treated, not as a subject to be spied
on.
And so, after a certain point, his vigilance diminished, and eventually,
that other Jude departed, back to the land of fairies and enchantments, and

the Jude he knew reclaimed his space. But then, every once in a while, there