Hanya Yanagihara

Eventually, he made some rules for himself. First, he would never refuse Willem, ever. If this was what Willem wanted, he could have it, and he would never turn him away. Willem had sacrificed so much to be with him, and had brought him such peace, that he was determined to try to thank him however he could. Second, he would try—as Brother Luke had once asked him—to show a little life, a little enthusiasm.

If he spoke, he would cry, and so he didn’t speak.

I sometimes think I care more about your being alive than you do

“He loves seeing you, Jude,” Meredith always says, but he doesn’t think this is true, really. He sometimes thinks he continues to come more for Meredith’s sake than for Lucien’s, and he realizes that this is the way it is, the way it must be: you don’t visit the lost, you visit the people who search for the lost.

I missed watching you two together; I missed watching you watch him, and him watch you; I missed how thoughtful you were with each other, missed how thoughtlessly, sincerely affectionate you were with him; missed watching you listen to each other, the way you both did so intently.

Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor’s house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor’s leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn’t only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.

Their friend Lionel used to say that Willem must have been a fisherman in a past life, because he couldn’t help but attract pussy.

friend Lionel used to say that Willem must have been a fisherman in a past life, because he couldn’t help but attract pussy.

He was fatherless, and he knew that fatherless children mourned the absence in their lives.

Of course, they both craved beauty, but that would have to wait. Or rather, they would have to wait for it.