Nights in Rodanthe - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,57

to keep him in the home until April, but after that, she would be at a loss as to what to do. Like the swallows to Capistrano, she always came back to this worry, though she did her best to hide her fears from him.

On most days when she arrived, the television would be blaring, as if the morning nurses believed that noise would somehow clear the fogginess in his mind. The first thing Adrienne did was turn it off. She was her father’s only regular visitor besides the nurses. While she understood her children’s reluctance to come, she wished they would do so anyway. Not only for her father, who wanted to see them, but for their own good as well. She had always believed it important to spend time with family in good times and in difficult ones, for the lessons it could teach.

Her father had lost the ability to speak, but she knew he could understand those who talked to him. With the right side of his face paralyzed, his smile had a crooked shape that she found endearing. It took maturity and patience to look past the exterior and see the man they had once known; though her kids had sometimes surprised her by demonstrating those qualities, they were usually uncomfortable when she’d made them visit. It was as if they looked at their grandfather and saw a future they couldn’t imagine facing and were frightened by the thought that they, too, might end up that way.

She would plump his pillows before sitting beside the bed, then take his hand and talk. Most of the time she filled him in on recent events, or family, or how the children were doing, and he would stare at her, his eyes never leaving her face, silently communicating in the only way he could. Sitting beside him, she would inevitably remember her childhood—the smell of Aqua Velva on his face, pitching hay in the horse stall, the brush of stubble as he’d kissed her good night, the tender words he’d always spoken since she was a little girl.

On the day before Halloween, she went to visit him, knowing what she had to do, thinking it was time he finally knew.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she began. Then, as simply as possible, she told him about Paul and how much he meant to her.

When she finished, she remembered wondering what he thought about what she’d just said. His hair was white and thinning: His eyebrows reminded her of puffs of cotton.

He smiled then, his crooked smile, and though he made no sound, when he moved his lips, she knew what he was trying to say.

The back of her throat tightened, and she leaned across the bed, resting her head on his chest. His good hand went to her back, moving weakly, soft and light. Beneath her, she could feel his ribs, brittle and frail now, and the gentle beating of his heart.

“Oh, Daddy,” she whispered, “I’m proud of you, too.”

In the living room, Adrienne went to the window and pushed aside the curtains. The street was empty, and the streetlights were circled with glowing halos. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked a warning to a real or imagined intruder.

Amanda was still in the kitchen, though Adrienne knew she would eventually come to find her. It had been a long night for both of them, and Adrienne brought her finger to the glass.

What had they been to each other, she and Paul? Even now, she still wasn’t sure. There wasn’t an easy definition. He hadn’t been her husband or fiancé; calling him a boyfriend made it sound as if he were a teenage infatuation; lover captured only a small part of what they had shared. He was the only person in her life, she thought, who seemed to defy description, and she wondered how many others could say the same thing about someone in their life.

Above her, a ringed moon was surrounded by indigo clouds, rolling east in the breeze. By tomorrow morning, it would be raining at the coast, and Adrienne knew she’d been right to hold back the other letters from Amanda.

What could Amanda have learned by reading them? The details of Paul’s life at the clinic and how he spent his days, perhaps? Or his relationship with Mark and how it had progressed? All of that was clearly spelled out in the letters, as were his thoughts and hopes and fears, but none of that