THE
NOTEBOOK
THE
NOTEBOOK
Nicholas Sparks
WANER BOOKS A Time
Warner Company
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either theproduct of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©1996 by Nicholas Sparks All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
A Time Warner Company
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: October 1996
10 9 8 7 6 $ 4 3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sparks,Nicholas.
The notebook / Nicholas Sparks. p.
cm.
ISBN 0-446-52080-2
1. Man-woman relationships--North Carolina--Fiction. 2. Oral reading--Fiction. 3.
Aged--Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.P363N68 1996
813'.54--dc2096-33815CIP
Book design and composition by L & G McRee
This book is dedicated with love to Cathy, my wife and
my friend.
Acknowledgments
This story is what it is today because of two special people, and I would like tothank them for everything they've done.
To Theresa Park, the agent who plucked me from obscurity. Thank you for yourkindness,your patience, and the many hours you have spent working with me.
I will be forever grateful for everything you've done.
To Jamie Raab , my editor. Thank you for your wisdom , your humor , and yourgood-hearted nature. You made this a wonderful experience for me, and I'm gladto call you my Friend.
THE NOTEBOOK
Electronic Copy Is Edited By MAZ
Egypt - 2005
Miracles
Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?
The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of alife,,,. gone by. I'm a sight this morning: two shirts,heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twicearound my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirtybirthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go , and a smallerspace heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairy-tale dragon , and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a coldthat has been eighty years in the making.
Eighty years, I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it stillamazes me that I haven't been warm since George Bush was president.
I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age.
My life ? It isn't easy to explain . It has not been the rip‐roaring spectacular Ifancied it would be , but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers.
I suppose it has most resembled a blue‐chip stock: fairly stable , more upsthan downs , and gradually trending upward over time . A good buy , a luckyBuy , and I've learned that not everyone can say this about his life . But donot be misled . I am nothing special ; of this I am sure . I am a common manwith common thoughts , and I've led a common life . There are no monumentsDedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten,but I've loved anotherwith all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
The romantics would call this a love story , the cynics would call it a tragedy. Inmy mind it's a little bit of both , and no matter how you choose to view it in the end,it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the pathI've chosen to follow . I have no complaints about my path and the places it has taken
me; enough complaints to fill a circus tent about other things, maybe, but the pathI've chosen has always been the right one, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Time , unfortunately , doesn't make it easy to stay on course . The path is straightas ever , but now it is strewn with the rocks and gravel that accumulate over alifetime . Until three years ago it would have been easy to ignore , but it's impossiblenow . There is a sickness rolling through my body ; I'm neither strong nor healthy
, and my days are spent like an old party balloon: listless, spongy,and growing softerover time.
I cough, and through squinted eyes I check my watch . I realize it is time toGo. I stand from my seat by the window and shuffle across the room ,stopping at the Desk to pick up the notebook I have read a hundred times.
I do not glance through it.
Instead I slip it beneath my arm and continue on my way to the place I must go. Iwalk on tiled floors,white in color and speckled with gray. Like my hair and the hairof most people here , though I'm the only one in the hallway this morning. They arein their rooms , alone except for television , but they, like me , are used to it.
A person can get used to anything , if given enough time . I hear the muffledsounds of crying in the distance and know exactly who is making those sounds. Thenthe nurses see me and we smile at each other and exchange greetings.
They are my friends and we talk often, but I am sure they wonder about me and thethings that I go through every day. I listen as they begin to whisper amongthemselves as I pass . "There he goes again , " I hear , I hope it turns out well. " Butthey say nothing directly to me about it. I'm sure they think it would hurt me totalk about it so early in the morning , and knowing myself as I do , I think they'reprobably right.
A minute later, I reach the room. The door has been propped open for me , as itusually is. There are two others in the room, and they too smile at me as I enter. "Goodmorning," they say with cheery voices, and I take a moment to ask about the kids andthe schools and upcoming vacations. We talk above the crying for a minute or so .
They do not seem to notice ; they have become numb to it , but then again, so haveI.
