Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

“Thirteen,” said Willem, suddenly.

“Why thirteen?”

“Because — Jude’ll be living with us, too.”

“Oh, will I?” he asked lightly, but pleased, and relieved, to be included in Willem’s vision of old age.

“Of course. You’ll have the guest cottage, and every morning Buster will bring you your buckwheat waffles because you’ll be too sick of us to join us at the main table, and then after breakfast I’ll come hang out with you and hide from Oberon and Miranda, who’re going to want me to make intelligent and supportive comments about their latest endeavors.” Willem grinned at him, and he smiled back, though he could see that Philippa herself wasn’t smiling any longer, but staring at the table. Then she looked up, and their eyes met for half a second, and she looked away, quickly.

It was shortly after that, he thought, that Philippa’s attitude toward him changed. It wasn’t obvious to anyone but him — perhaps not even to her — but where he used to come into the apartment and see her sketching at the table and the two of them were able to talk, companionably, as he drank a glass of water and looked at her drawings, she would now just nod at him and say, “Willem’s at the store,” or “He’s coming back soon,” even though he hadn’t asked (she was always welcome at Lispenard Street, whether Willem was there or not), and he would linger a bit until it was clear she didn’t want to speak, and then retreat to his room to work.

He understood why Philippa might resent him: Willem invited him everywhere with them, included him in everything, even in their retirement, even in Philippa’s daydream of their old age. After that, he was careful to always decline Willem’s invitations, even if it was to things that didn’t involve his and Philippa’s couplehood — if they were going to a party at Malcolm’s to which he was also invited, he’d leave separately, and at Thanksgiving, he made sure to ask Philippa to Boston as well, though she hadn’t come in the end. He had even tried to talk to Willem about what he sensed, to awaken him to what he was certain she was feeling.

“Do you not like her?” Willem had asked him, concerned.

“You know I like Philippa,” he’d replied. “But I think — I think you should just hang out with her more alone, Willem, with just the two of you. It must get annoying for her to always have me around.”

“Did she say that to you?”

“No, Willem, of course not. I’m just guessing. From my vast experience with women, you know.”

Later, when Willem and Philippa broke up, he would feel as guilty as if he had been solely to blame. But even before that, he had wondered whether Willem, too, had come to realize that no serious girlfriend would tolerate his constant presence in Willem’s life; he wondered whether Willem was trying to make alternative plans for him, so he didn’t end up living in a cottage on the property he’d someday have with his wife, so he wouldn’t be Willem’s sad bachelor friend, a useless reminder of his forsaken, childish life. I will be alone , he decided. He wouldn’t be the one to ruin Willem’s chances for happiness: he wanted Willem to have the orchard and the termite-nibbled house and the grandchildren and the wife who was jealous of his company and attention. He wanted Willem to have everything he deserved, everything he desired. He wanted every day of his to be free of worries and obligations and responsibilities — even if that worry and obligation and responsibility was him.

The following week, Richard’s father — a tall, smiling, pleasant man he’d met at Richard’s first show, three years ago — sent him the contract, which he had a law school classmate, a real estate lawyer, review in tandem with him, and the building’s engineering report, which he gave to Malcolm. The price had almost nauseated him, but his classmate said he had to do it: “This is an unbelievable deal, Jude. You will never, never, never find something that size in that neighborhood for this amount of money.” And after reviewing the report, and then the space, Malcolm told him the same thing: Buy it.

So he did. And although he and the Goldfarbs had worked out a leisurely ten-year payment schedule, an interest-free rent-to-own plan, he was determined to pay the apartment off as soon as he could. Every two weeks, he allotted half of his paycheck to the apartment, and the other half to his savings and living expenses. He told Harold he had moved during their weekly phone call (“Thank Christ ,” Harold said: he had never liked Lispenard Street), but didn’t tell him he had bought a place, because he didn’t want Harold to feel obligated to offer him money for it. From Lispenard Street he brought only his mattress and lamp and the table and a chair, all of which he arranged into one corner of the space. At nights, he would sometimes look up from his work and think what a ludicrous decision this had been: How could he ever fill so much room? How would it ever feel like his? He was reminded of Boston, of Hereford Street, and how there, he had dreamed only of a bedroom, of a door he might someday close. Even when he was in Washington, clerking for Sullivan, he had slept in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment he shared with a legislative assistant whom he rarely saw — Lispenard Street had been the first time in his life that he’d had a room, a real room with a real window, wholly to himself. But a year after he moved into Greene Street, Malcolm installed the walls, and the place began to feel a little more comfortable, and the year after that, Willem moved in, and it felt more comfortable still. He saw less of Richard than he thought he might — they were both traveling frequently — but on Sunday evenings, he would sometimes go down to his studio and help him with one of his projects, polishing a bunch of small branches smooth with a leaf of sandpaper, or snipping the rachis off the vane from a fluff of peacock feathers. Richard’s studio was the sort of place he would have loved as a child — everywhere were containers and bowls of marvelous things: twigs and stones and dried beetles and feathers and tiny, bright-hued taxidermied birds and blocks in various shapes made of some soft pale wood — and at times he wished he could be allowed to abandon his work and simply sit on the floor and play, which he had usually been too busy to do as a boy.

By the end of the third year, he had paid for the apartment, and had immediately begun saving for the renovation. This took less time than he’d thought it would, in part because of something that had happened with Andy. He’d gone uptown one day for his appointment, and Andy had walked in, looking grim and yet oddly triumphant.

“What?” he’d asked, and Andy had silently handed him a magazine article he’d sliced out of a journal. He read it: it was an academic report about how a recently developed semi-experimental laser surgery that had held great promise as a solution for damageless keloid removal was now proven to have adverse medium-term effects: although the keloids were eliminated, patients instead developed raw, burn-like wounds, and the skin beneath the scars became significantly more fragile, more susceptible to splitting and cracking, which resulted in blisters and infection.

“This is what you’re thinking of doing, isn’t it?” Andy asked him, as he sat holding the pages in his hand, unable to speak. “I know you, Judy. And I know you made an appointment at that quack Thompson’s office. Don’t deny it; they called for your chart. I didn’t send it. Please don’t do this, Jude. I’m serious. The last thing you need are open wounds on your back as well as your legs.” And then, when he didn’t say anything, “Talk to me.”