He knows Willem had never kept a journal, and yet when he looks through the “Boston” file, he thinks for some reason he might find something. But there is nothing. Instead there are more pictures, all of which he has seen before: of Willem, so shiningly handsome; of Malcolm, looking suspicious and slightly feral, with the stringy, unsuccessful Afro he had tried to cultivate throughout college; of JB, looking essentially the same as he does now, merry and fat-cheeked; of him, looking scared and drowned and very skinny, in his awful too-big clothes and with his awful too-long hair, in his braces that imprisoned his legs in their black, foamy embrace. He stops at a picture of the two of them sitting on the sofa in their suite in Hood, Willem leaning into him and looking at him, smiling, clearly saying something, and him, laughing with his hand over his mouth, which he had learned to do after the counselors at the home told him he had an ugly smile. They look like two different creatures, not just two different people, and he has to quickly refile the picture before he tears it in half.
Now it is becoming difficult to breathe, but he keeps going. In the “Boston” file, in the “New Haven” file, are reviews from the college newspapers of plays Willem had been in; there is the story about JB’s Lee Lozano–inspired performance art piece. There is, touchingly, the one calculus exam on which Willem had made a B, an exam he had coached him on for months.
And then he reaches into the drawer again, most of which is occupied not by a hanging file but by a large, accordion-shaped one, the kind they use at the firm. He hefts it out and sees that it is marked only with his name, and slowly opens it.
Inside it is everything: every letter he had ever written Willem, every substantial e-mail printed out. There are birthday cards he’d given Willem. There are photographs of him, some of which he has never seen. There is the Artforum issue with Jude with Cigarette on the cover. There is a card from Harold written shortly after the adoption, thanking Willem for coming and for the gift. There is an article about him winning a prize in law school, which he certainly hadn’t sent Willem but someone clearly had. He hadn’t needed to catalog his life after all—Willem had been doing it for him all along.
But why had Willem cared about him so much? Why had he wanted to spend so much time around him? He had never been able to understand this, and now he never will.
I sometimes think I care more about your being alive than you do, he remembers Willem saying, and he takes a long, shuddering breath.
On and on it goes, this detailing of his life, and when he looks in the sixth drawer, there is another accordion file, the same as the first, marked “Jude II,” and behind it, “Jude III” and “Jude IV.” But by this point he can no longer look. He gently replaces the files, closes the drawers, relocks the cabinets. He puts Willem’s and his parents’ letters into an envelope, and then another envelope, for protection. He removes the plum branches, wraps their cut ends in a plastic bag, dumps the water from their vase into the sink, locks up the house, and drives home, the branches on the seat next to him. Before he goes up to his apartment, he lets himself into Richard’s studio, fills one of the empty coffee cans with water and inserts the branches, leaves it on his worktable for him to find in the morning.
Then it is the end of March; he is at the office. A Friday night, or rather, a Saturday morning. He turns away from his computer and looks out the window. He has a clear view to the Hudson, and above the river he can see the sky turning white. For a long time he stands and stares at the dirty gray river, at the wheeling flocks of birds. He returns to his work. He can feel, these past few months, that he has changed, that people are frightened of him. He has never been a jolly presence in the office, but now he can tell he is mirthless. He can feel he has become more ruthless. He can feel he has become chillier. He and Sanjay used to have lunch together, the two of them griping about their colleagues, but now he cannot talk to anyone. He brings in business. He does his job, he does more than he needs to—but he can tell no one enjoys being around him. He needs Rosen Pritchard; he would be lost without his work. But he no longer derives any pleasure from it. That’s all right, he tries to tell himself. Work is not for pleasure, not for most people. But it had been for him, once, and now it no longer is.
Two years ago, when he was healing from his surgery and so tired, so tired that Willem had to lift him in and out of bed, he and Willem had been talking one morning. It must have been cold outside, because he remembers feeling warm and safe, and hearing himself say, “I wish I could just lie here forever.”
“Then do,” Willem had said. (This was one of their regular exchanges: his alarm would sound and he would get up. “Don’t go,” Willem would always say. “Why do you need to get up anyway? Where are you always rushing off to?”)
“I can’t,” he said, smiling.
“Listen,” Willem had said, “why don’t you just quit your job?”
He had laughed. “I can’t quit my job,” he said.
“Why not?” Willem had asked. “Besides total lack of intellectual stimulation and the prospect of having me as your sole company, give me one good reason.”
He had smiled again. “Then there is no good reason,” he said. “Because I think I’d like having you as my sole company. But what would I do all day, as a kept man?”
“Cook,” Willem said. “Read. Play the piano. Volunteer. Travel around with me. Listen to me complain about other actors I hate. Get facials. Sing to me. Feed me a constant stream of approbations.”
He had laughed, and Willem had laughed with him. But now he thinks: Why didn’t I quit? Why did I let Willem go away from me for all those months, for all those years, when I could have been traveling with him? Why have I spent more hours at Rosen Pritchard than I spent with Willem? But now the choice has been made for him, and Rosen Pritchard is all he has.
Then he thinks: Why did I never give Willem what I should have? Why did I make him go elsewhere for sex? Why couldn’t I have been braver? Why couldn’t I have done my duty? Why did he stay with me anyway?