Page 383 - A Little Life: A Novel

beard, the silvery bristles falling from him like splinters of metal. There
were baseball caps for both of them, although the inside of Brother Luke’s
was fitted with a yellowish wig, which covered his balding head

completely. There were pairs of glasses for both of them as well: his were
black and round and fitted with just glass, not real lenses, but Brother
Luke’s were square and large and brown and had the same thick lenses as
his real glasses, which he put into the bag. He could take them off when
they were safe, Brother Luke told him.
They were on their way to Texas, which is where they’d build their cabin.
He had always imagined Texas as flat land, just dust and sky and road,

which Brother Luke said was mostly true, but there were parts of the state
—like in east Texas, where he was from—that were forested with spruce
and cedars.
It took them nineteen hours to reach Texas. It would have been less time,
but at one point Brother Luke pulled off the side of the highway and said he
needed to nap for a while, and the two of them slept for several hours.

Brother Luke had packed them something to eat as well—peanut butter
sandwiches—and in Oklahoma they stopped again in the parking lot of a
rest stop to eat them.
The Texas of his mind had, with just a few descriptions from Brother
Luke, transformed from a landscape of tumbleweeds and sod into one of
pines, so tall and fragrant that they cottoned out all other sound, all other
life, so when Brother Luke announced that they were now, officially, in

Texas, he looked out the window, disappointed.
“Where are the forests?” he asked.
Brother Luke laughed. “Patience, Jude.”
They would need to stay in a motel for a few days, Brother Luke
explained, both to make sure the other brothers weren’t following them and
so he could begin scouting for the perfect place to build their cabin. The

motel was called The Golden Hand, and their room had two beds—real
beds—and Brother Luke let him choose which one he wanted. He took the
one near the bathroom, and Brother Luke took the one near the window,
with a view of their car. “Why don’t you take a shower, and I’m going to go
to the store and get us some supplies,” said the brother, and he was
suddenly frightened. “What’s wrong, Jude?”
“Are you going to come back?” he asked, hating how scared he sounded.