Page 348 - A Little Life: A Novel

there, holding this bag, and I knew what it was for, even though I had never
seen proof of it, and had indeed never seen anything like it. But I knew.
I went to the kitchen, and there he was, washing off a bowlful of

fingerlings, still happy. He was even humming something, very softly,
which he did only when he was very contented, like how a cat purrs to itself
when it’s alone in the sun. “You should’ve told me you needed help
installing the toilet,” he said, not looking up. “I could have done it for you
and saved you a bill.” He knew how to do all those things: plumbing,
electrical work, carpentry, gardening. We once went to Laurence’s so he
could explain to Laurence how, exactly, he could safely unearth the young

crabapple tree from one corner of his backyard and successfully move it to
another, one that got more sun.
For a while I stood there watching him. I felt so many things at once that
together, they combined to make nothing, a numbness, an absence of
feeling caused by a surplus of feeling. Finally I said his name, and he
looked up. “What’s this?” I asked him, and held the bag in front of him.

He went very still, one hand suspended above the bowl, and I remember
watching how little droplets of water beaded and dripped off the ends of his
fingertips, as if he had slashed himself with a knife and was bleeding water.
He opened his mouth, and shut it.
“I’m sorry, Harold,” he said, very softly. He lowered his hand, and dried
it, slowly, on the dish towel.
That made me angry. “I’m not asking you to apologize, Jude,” I told him.

“I’m asking you what this is. And don’t say ‘It’s a bag with razors in it.’
What is this? Why did you tape it beneath your sink?”
He stared at me for a long time with that look he had—I know you know
the one—where you can see him receding even as he looks at you, where
you can see the gates within him closing and locking themselves, the
bridges being cranked above the moat. “You know what it’s for,” he finally

said, still very quietly.
“I want to hear you say it,” I told him.
“I just need it,” he said.
“Tell me what you do with these,” I said, and watched him.
He looked down into the bowl of potatoes. “Sometimes I need to cut
myself,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry, Harold.”
And suddenly I was panicked, and my panic made me irrational. “What

the fuck does that mean?” I asked him—I may have even shouted it.