Nights in Rodanthe - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,61

tears, and mother and daughter stood in the kitchen, holding each other for a long, long time.

Eighteen

The air had chilled slightly, and Adrienne had lit a few candles around the kitchen to warm and light the space. Sitting at the table, she had put Mark’s letter back in the box with the note and the photograph. Amanda watched her soberly, her hands in her lap.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said quietly. “For everything. For losing Paul, for having to live through that alone. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to keep all of that inside.”

“Neither can I,” Adrienne said. “There’s no way I could have made it without help.”

Amanda shook her head. “But you did,” she whispered.

“No,” Adrienne said. “I survived, but I didn’t do it alone.”

Amanda looked puzzled. Adrienne offered her a melancholy smile.

“Grampa,” she finally said. “My daddy. That’s who I cried with. And I cried with him every day for weeks. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“But…” Amanda trailed off, and Adrienne went on for her.

“But he couldn’t say anything?” Adrienne paused. “He didn’t have to. He listened, and that was what I needed. Besides, I knew there wasn’t anything he could have said that would have made the pain go away, even if he could speak.” She lifted her gaze. “You know that as well as I do.”

Amanda pressed her lips together. “I wish you’d told me,” she said. “Before now, I mean.”

“Because of Brent?”

Amanda nodded.

“I know you do, but you weren’t ready to hear it until now. You needed time to work through your grief in your own way, on your own terms.”

For a long moment, Amanda said nothing.

“It isn’t fair. You and Paul, me and Brent,” she whispered.

“No, it isn’t.”

“How were you able to go on after losing him like that?”

Adrienne smiled wistfully. “I took things one day at a time. Isn’t that what they tell you to do? I know it sounds trite, but I used to wake up in the mornings and tell myself that I only had to be strong for one day. Just one day. I did that over and over.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Amanda whispered.

“It wasn’t. It was the hardest time I ever went through.”

“Even more than when Daddy left?”

“That was hard, too, but this was different.” Adrienne flashed a quick smile. “You were the one who told me that, remember?”

Amanda looked away. Yes, she thought, I do. “I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.”

“You would have liked him. In time, I mean. Back then, you might not have. You were still hoping that your dad and I would get back together.”

Amanda’s hand went reflexively to the wedding band she still wore, and she twisted it around her finger, her face a mask.

“You’ve lost a lot in your life.”

“Yes, I have.”

“But you seem so happy now.”

“I am.”

“How can you be?”

Adrienne brought her hands together. “When I think of losing Paul or the years that might have been, of course it makes me sad. It did then, and it still does now. But you have to understand something else, too: As hard as it was, as terrible and unfair as the way things turned out, I wouldn’t have traded the few days I spent with him for anything.”

She paused, making sure her daughter understood that. “In Mark’s letter, he said that I saved Paul from himself. But if Mark had asked me, I would have said that we’d saved each other, or that he’d saved me. Had I never met him, I doubt I ever would have forgiven Jack, and I wouldn’t have been the mother or grandmother I am now. Because of him, I came back to Rocky Mount knowing that I was going to be okay, that things would work out, that no matter what, I’d make it. And the year we spent writing each other gave me the strength I needed when I finally learned what had happened to him. Yes, I was devastated by losing him, but if somehow I could go back in time—this time knowing what would happen in advance—I still would have wanted him to go because of his son. He needed to make things right with Mark. His son needed him—had always needed him. And it wasn’t too late.”

Amanda looked away, knowing she was talking about Max and Greg as well.

“That’s why I told you this story from the beginning,” Adrienne went on. “Not just because I’d been through what you’re living