Nights in Rodanthe - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,58

was necessary for what she hoped to impart to Amanda. The items she had set aside would be enough.

Yet once Amanda was gone, she knew she would read all of the letters again, if only because of what she’d done tonight. In the yellow light of her bedside lamp, she would run her finger over the words, savoring each one, knowing they meant more to her than anything else she owned.

Tonight, despite the presence of her daughter, Adrienne was alone. She would always be alone. She knew this as she’d told her story in the kitchen earlier, she knew this as she stood at the window now. Sometimes she wondered who she would have been had Paul never come into her life. Perhaps she would have married again, and though she suspected she would have been a good wife, she often wondered whether she would have picked a good husband.

It wouldn’t have been easy. Some of her widowed or divorced friends had remarried. Most of these gentlemen they married seemed nice enough, but they were nothing like Paul. Jack, maybe, but not Paul. She believed that romance and passion were possible at any age, but she’d listened to enough of her friends to know that many relationships ended up being more trouble than they were worth. Adrienne didn’t want to settle for a husband like the ones her friends had, not when she had letters reminding her of what she was missing. Would a new husband, for instance, ever whisper the words that Paul had written in his third letter, words she’d memorized the first day she’d read them?

When I sleep, I dream of you, and when I wake, I long to hold you in my arms. If anything, our time apart has only made me more certain that I want to spend my nights by your side, and my days with your heart.

Or these, from the next letter?

When I write to you, I feel your breath; when you read them, I imagine you feel mine. Is it that way with you, too? These letters are part of us now, part of our history, a reminder forever that we made it through this time. Thank you for helping me survive this year, but more than that, thank you in advance for all the years to come.

Or even these, after he and Mark had an argument later in the summer, something that inevitably left him depressed.

There’s so much I wish for these days, but most of all, I wish you were here. It’s strange, but before I met you, I couldn’t remember the last time that I cried. Now, it seems that tears come easily to me… but you have a way of making my sorrows seem worthwhile, of explaining things in a way that lessens my ache. You are a treasure, a gift, and when we’re together again, I intend to hold you until my arms are weak and I can do it no longer. My thoughts of you are sometimes the only things that keep me going.

Staring at the distant face of the moon, Adrienne knew the answer. No, she thought, she wouldn’t find a man like Paul again, and as she leaned her head against the cool pane, she sensed Amanda’s presence behind her. Adrienne sighed, knowing it was time to finish this.

“He was going to be here for Christmas,” Adrienne said, her voice so soft that Amanda had to strain hear it. “I had it all worked out. I’d arranged for a hotel room,” she said, “so we could be together his first night back. I even bought a bottle of pinot grigio.” She paused. “There’s a letter from Mark in the box on the table that explains everything.”

“What happened?”

In the darkness, Adrienne finally turned. Her face was half in shadow, and at the expression on her mother’s face, Amanda felt a sudden chill.

It took a moment for Adrienne to answer, the words floating through the darkness.

“Don’t you know?” she whispered.

Seventeen

The letter, Amanda saw, had been written on the same notebook paper that Paul had used to write the note. Noticing that her hands were trembling slightly, Amanda laid them flat on the table.

Then, with a deep breath, she lowered her gaze.

Dear Adrienne,

As I sit here, I realize that I don’t even know how I’m supposed to begin a letter like this. After all, we’ve never met, and though I know of you through my father, it’s not the same. Part of me wishes I was able