Page 343 - A Little Life: A Novel

earlier. After all, I had been an adult with a parent, and I had turned to my
father constantly.
I called Julia, who was in Santa Fe at a conference about new diseases,

and told her what had happened, and she gave a long, sad sigh. “Harold,”
she began, and then stopped. We’d had conversations about what his life
had been before us, and although both of us were wrong, her guesses would
turn out to be more accurate than mine, although at the time I had thought
them ridiculous, impossible.
“I know,” I said.
“You have to call him.”

But I had been. I called and called and the phone rang and rang.
That night I lay awake alternately worrying and having the kinds of
fantasies men have: guns, hit men, vengeance. I had waking dreams in
which I called Gillian’s cousin, who was a detective in New York, and had
Caleb Porter arrested. I had dreams in which I called you, and you and
Andy and I staked out his apartment and killed him.

The next morning I left early, before eight, and bought bagels and orange
juice and went down to Greene Street. It was a gray day, soggy and humid,
and I rang the buzzer three times, each for several seconds, before stepping
back toward the curb, squinting up at the sixth floor.
I was about to buzz again when I heard his voice coming over the
speaker: “Hello?”
“It’s me,” I said. “Can I come up?” There was no response. “I want to

apologize,” I said. “I need to see you. I brought bagels.”
There was another silence. “Hello?” I asked.
“Harold,” he said, and I noticed his voice sounded funny. Muffled, as if
his mouth had grown an extra set of teeth and he was speaking around
them. “If I let you up, do you promise you won’t get angry and start
yelling?”

I was quiet then, myself. I didn’t know what this meant. “Yes,” I said,
and after a second or two, the door clicked open.
I stepped off the elevator, and for a minute, I saw nothing, just that lovely
apartment with its walls of light. And then I heard my name and looked
down and saw him.
I nearly dropped the bagels. I felt my limbs turn to stone. He was sitting
on the ground, but leaning on his right hand for support, and as I knelt