Nights in Rodanthe - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,3

first, then a little more often. She ventured out into the town a few times, took the kids roller-skating, and Adrienne gradually began pulling back from the duties she was shouldering. It was important, she knew, for Amanda to resume responsibility for her own life again. Comfort could be found in the steady routines of life, Adrienne had learned; she hoped that by decreasing her presence in her daughter’s life, Amanda would be forced to realize that, too.

But in August, on the day that would have been her seventh wedding anniversary, Amanda opened the closet door in the master bedroom, saw dust collecting on the shoulders of Brent’s suits, and suddenly stopped improving. She didn’t exactly regress—there were still moments when she seemed her old self—but for the most part, she seemed to be frozen somewhere in between. She was neither depressed nor happy, neither excited nor languid, neither interested nor bored by anything around her. To Adrienne, it seemed as if Amanda had become convinced that moving forward would somehow tarnish her memories of Brent, and she’d made the decision not to allow that to happen.

But it wasn’t fair to the children. They needed her guidance and her love, they needed her attention. They needed her to tell them that everything was going to be all right. They’d already lost one parent, and that was hard enough. But lately, it seemed to Adrienne that they’d lost their mother as well.

In the gentle hue of the soft-lit kitchen, Adrienne glanced at her watch. At her request, Dan had taken Max and Greg to the movies, so she could spend the evening with Amanda. Like Adrienne, both of her sons were worried about Amanda’s kids. Not only had they made extra efforts to stay active in the boys’ lives, but nearly all of their recent conversations with Adrienne had begun or ended with the same question: What do we do?

Today, when Dan had asked the same question again, Adrienne had reassured him that she’d talk to Amanda. Though Dan had been skeptical—hadn’t they tried that all along?—tonight, she knew, would be different.

Adrienne had few illusions about what her children thought of her. Yes, they loved her and respected her as a mother, but she knew they would never really know her. In the eyes of her children, she was kind but predictable, sweet and stable, a friendly soul from another era who’d made her way through life with her naive view of the world intact. She looked the part, of course—veins beginning to show on the tops of her hands, a figure more like a square than an hourglass, and glasses grown thicker over the years—but when she saw them staring at her with expressions meant to humor her, she sometimes had to stifle a laugh.

Part of their error, she knew, stemmed from their desire to see her in a certain way, a preformed image they found acceptable for a woman her age. It was easier—and frankly, more comfortable—to think their mom was more sedate than daring, more of a plodder than someone with experiences that would surprise them. And in keeping with the kind, predictable, sweet, and stable mother that she was, she’d had no desire to change their minds.

Knowing that Amanda would be arriving any minute, Adrienne went to the refrigerator and set a bottle of pinot grigio on the table. The house had cooled since the afternoon, so she turned up the thermostat on her way to the bedroom.

Once the room she’d shared with Jack, it was hers now, redecorated twice since the divorce. Adrienne made her way to the four-poster bed she’d wanted ever since she was young. Wedged against the wall beneath the bed was a small stationery box, and Adrienne set it on the pillow beside her.

Inside were those things she had saved: the note he’d left at the Inn, a snapshot of him that had been taken at the clinic, and the letter she’d received a few weeks before Christmas. Beneath those items were two bundled stacks, missives written between them, that sandwiched a conch they’d once found at the beach.

Adrienne set the note off to the side and pulled an envelope from one of the stacks, remembering how she’d felt when she’d first read it, then slid out the page. It had thinned and brittled, and though the ink had faded in the years since he’d first written it, his words were still clear.

Dear Adrienne,

I’ve never been good at writing letters, so I