Page 429 - A Little Life: A Novel

watching Jude sleep. How easy would it be, he thought, to simply climb
into bed next to him and fall asleep himself? There was something about it
that seemed almost preordained, and the absurdity was not in the fact of it

but in his resistance to the fact of it.
They had taken the car to Cambridge, and Jude drove them home so he
could sleep. “Willem,” Jude said as they were about to enter the city, “I
want to ask you about something.” He looked at him. “Are you okay? Is
something on your mind?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve seemed really—pensive, I guess,” Jude said. He was quiet. “You

know, it’s been a huge gift having you live with me. And not just live with
me, but—everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.
But I know it must be draining for you. And I just want you to know: if you
want to move back home, I’ll be fine. I promise. I’m not going to hurt
myself.” He had been staring at the road as he spoke, but now he turned to
him. “I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he said.

He didn’t know what to say for a while. “Do you want me to move
home?” he asked.
Jude was silent. “Of course not,” he said, very quietly. “But I want you to
be happy, and you haven’t seemed very happy recently.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been distracted, you’re right. But
it’s certainly not because I’m living with you. I love living with you.” He
tried to think of the right, the perfect next thing to add, but he couldn’t. “I’m

sorry,” he said again.
“Don’t be,” Jude said. “But if you want to talk about any of it, ever, you
always can.”
“I know,” he said. “Thanks.” They were quiet the rest of the way home.
And then it was December. His run finished. They went to India on
holiday, the four of them: the first trip they’d taken as a unit in years. In

February, he began filming Uncle Vanya. The set was the kind he treasured
and sought but only rarely found—he had worked with everyone before,
and they all liked and respected one another, and the director was shaggy
and mild and gentle, and the adaptation, which had been done by a novelist
Jude admired, was beautiful and simple, and the dialogue was a pleasure to
get to speak.
When Willem was young, he had been in a play called The House on

Thistle Lane, which had been about a family that was packing up and