The Notebook

by Nicholas Sparks

But do not be misled. I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.

Noah Calhoun watched the fading sun sink lower from the wraparound porch of his plantation-style home. He liked to sit here in the evenings, especially after working hard all day, and let his thoughts wander without conscious direction.

North Carolina trees are beautiful in deep autumn: greens, yellows, reds, oranges, every shade in between. Their dazzling colors glow with the sun, and for the hundredth time, Noah Calhoun wondered if the original owners of the house had spent their evenings thinking the same things.

Besides, thinking about money usually bored him. Early on, he’d learned to enjoy simple things, things that couldn’t be bought, and he had a hard time understanding people who felt otherwise.

He was thirty-one now, not too old, but old enough to be lonely.

An ordinary beginning, something that would have been forgotten had it been anyone but her.

When she left three weeks later, she took a piece of him and the rest of summer with her.

The first time he mentioned her, Gus started to shake his head and laugh. “So that’s the ghost you been running from.” When asked what he meant, Gus said, “You know, the ghost, the memory. I been watchin’ you, workin’ day and night, slavin’ so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin’ to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin’ to forget. I just didn’t know what.”

He had told Gus about it one night, and not only had Gus understood, but he had been the first to explain why. He said simply, “My daddy used to tell me that the first time you fall in love, it changes your life forever, and no matter how hard you try, the feelin’ never goes away. This girl you been tellin’ me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she’ll stay with you forever.”

She understood his vigorous pursuit of success, for her father and most of the men she met in her social circle were the same way. Like them, he’d been raised that way, and in the caste system of the South, family name and accomplishments were often the most important consideration in marriage. In some cases, they were the only consideration.

Like Lon, she had always been confident, even as a child. She remembered that it had been a problem at times, especially when she dated, because it had intimidated most of the boys her age.

“Only the summer is over, Allie, not us,” he’d said the morning she left. “We’ll never be over.” But they were. For a reason he didn’t fully understand, the letters he wrote went unanswered.

During that time, he dated a few different women. He became serious with one, a waitress from the local diner with deep blue eyes and silky black hair. Although they dated for two years and had many good times together, he never came to feel the same way about her as he did about Allie.

She had known they wouldn’t be together forever. Toward the end of their relationship she’d told him once, “I wish I could give you what you’re looking for, but I don’t know what it is. There’s a part of you that you keep closed off from everyone, including me. It’s as if I’m not the one you’re really with. Your mind is on someone else.”

He tried to deny it, but she didn’t believe him. “I’m a woman—I know these things. When you look at me sometimes, I know you’re seeing someone else. It’s like you keep waiting for her to pop out of thin air to take you away from all this.…”

“Are you okay?” he asked, a thousand other questions on his face.

His questions brought her back to the present, making her realize what could happen if she wasn’t careful. Don’t let this get out of hand, she told herself; the longer it goes on, the harder it’s going to be. And she didn’t want it to get any harder. But God, those eyes. Those soft, dark eyes.

“But what about you?” He asked the question softly, suspecting the worst. It was a long moment before she answered. “I’m engaged.” He looked down when she said it, suddenly feeling just a bit weaker. So that was it. That’s what she needed to tell him. “Congratulations,” he finally said, wondering how convincing he sounded. “When’s the big day?”

“You didn’t have to come here to tell me you were engaged. You could have written me instead, or even called.” “I know. But for some reason, I had to do it in person.” “Why?” She hesitated. “I don’t know…,” she said, trailing off, and the way she said it made him believe her.

By his tone, she knew he was just making conversation. Yet for some reason it made her feel… lonely.

“You told me about it the next day. It hurt my feelings, too. I liked your parents, and I had no idea they didn’t like me.” “It wasn’t that they didn’t like you. They didn’t think you deserved me.” “There’s not much difference.”

“I don’t know, Noah. I really don’t, and you don’t either. We’re not the same people we were then. We’ve changed, we’ve grown. Both of us.” She paused. He didn’t respond, and in the silence she looked toward the creek. She went on: “But yes, Noah, I think we would have. At least, I’d like to think we would have.”

She smiled weakly and shrugged as she answered. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I guess I still look for the kind of love we had that summer.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Fin and Sarah were with us. Fin kept elbowing me the whole way back to your parents’ house, trying to get me to hold your hand.” “You didn’t, though.” “No,” he answered, shaking his head. “Why not?” “Shy, maybe, or afraid. I don’t know. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do at the time.” “Come to think of it, you were kind of shy, weren’t you.” “I prefer the words ‘quiet confidence,’ ” he answered with a wink, and she smiled.

Noah watched her from the corner of his eye. God, she’s beautiful, he thought. And inside, he ached.

This was a night he wanted never to end. How should he tell her? What could he say that would make her stay? He didn’t know. And thus the decision was made to say nothing. And he realized then that he had failed.

Poetry, she thought, wasn’t written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.

Work came first, and for him there was no time for poems and wasted evenings and rocking on porches. She knew this was why he was successful, and part of her respected him for that. But she also sensed it wasn’t enough. She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.

“Keep it,” he said. “I want you to have it.” She didn’t ask why, because she wanted to keep it, too.

He summoned his courage. “Will I see you tomorrow?” A simple question. She knew what the answer should be, especially if she wanted to keep her life simple. “I don’t think we should,” was all she had to say, and it would end right here and now. But for a second she didn’t say anything.

Clem wandered up to him and he squatted down to pet her, paying special attention to her neck, scratching the spot she couldn’t reach anymore.

And sometime after midnight on that clear October evening, it all rushed inward and Noah was overcome with longing. And if anyone had seen him, they would have seen what looked like an old man, someone who’d aged a lifetime in just a couple of hours. Someone bent over in his rocker with his face in his hands and tears in his eyes. He didn’t know how to stop them.

He remembered that after they’d gone out a few times, he’d said to her what he said to all women he dated—that he wasn’t ready for a steady relationship. Unlike the others, though, Allie had simply nodded and said, “Fine.” But on her way out the door, she’d turned and said: “But your problem isn’t me, or your job, or your freedom, or whatever else you think it is. Your problem is that you’re alone. Your father made the Hammond name famous, and you’ve probably been compared to him all your life. You’ve never been your own person. A life like that makes you empty inside, and you’re looking for someone who will magically fill that void. But no one can do that but you.”

She didn’t like to argue with him about it, mostly because she knew he was telling the truth. Trial work was demanding, both beforehand and during, yet she couldn’t help wondering sometimes why he had spent so much time courting her if he didn’t want to spend the time with her now.

Two minutes later she was in her car, driving to Noah’s, anticipating the day, largely unconcerned about the phone calls. Yesterday she would have been, and she wondered what that meant.

She realized she hadn’t said much since they’d started, and she appreciated the silence he had allowed her.

America was in full swing now, all the papers said so, and people were rushing forward, leaving behind the horrors of war. She understood the reasons, but they were rushing, like Lon, toward long hours and profits, neglecting the things that brought beauty to the world.

She had known it once before, and again she cursed herself for forgetting something as important as creating beauty. Painting was what she was meant to do, she was sure of that now. Her feelings this morning had confirmed it, and she knew that whatever happened, she was going to give it another shot. A fair shot, no matter what anyone said.

Lon was a good man, the kind of man she’d always known she would marry. With Lon there would be no surprises, and there was comfort in knowing what the future would bring. He would be a kind husband to her, and she would be a good wife. She would have a home near friends and family, children, a respectable place in society. It was the kind of life she’d always expected to live, the kind of life she wanted to live. And though she wouldn’t describe theirs as a passionate relationship, she had convinced herself long ago that this wasn’t necessary to be fulfilled in a relationship, even with a person she intended to marry. Passion would fade in time, and things like companionship and compatibility would take its place. She and Lon had this, and she had assumed this was all she needed.

“It wasn’t just up to you, Noah. I didn’t tell you, but I wrote you a dozen letters after I got home. I just never sent them.” “Why?” Noah was surprised. “I guess I was too afraid.” “Of what?” “That maybe it wasn’t as real as I thought it was. That maybe you forgot me.”

I can’t live my life happily knowing you’re with someone else. That would kill a part of me.

She imagined him sitting at an old desk, crafting the letter, somehow knowing this was the end, and she saw what she thought were tearstains on the paper. Probably just her imagination.

Poetry brings great beauty to life, but also great sadness, and I’m not sure it’s a fair exchange for someone my age. A man should enjoy other things if he can; he should spend his final days in the sun. Mine will be spent by a reading lamp.

“You are Hannah, a lover of life, a strength to those who shared in your friendships. You are a dream, a creator of happiness, an artist who has touched a thousand souls. You’ve led a full life and wanted for nothing because your needs are spiritual and you have only to look inside you. You are kind and loyal, and you are able to see beauty where others do not. You are a teacher of wonderful lessons, a dreamer of better things.”

Her paintings are in museums around the world, but I have kept only two for myself. The first one she ever gave me and the last one. They hang in my room, and late at night I sit and stare and sometimes cry when I look at them. I don’t know why.

In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you, and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry, I cry, and when you hurt, I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods of tears and despair and make it through the potholed streets of life.

He was four years old at the time, just a baby. I have lived twenty times as long as he, but if asked, I would have traded my life for his. It is a terrible thing to outlive your child, a tragedy I wish upon no one.

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken us a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered.

She turns to me and stares for a long time. “What are you doing?” I ask. “I don’t want to forget you or this day, and I’m trying to keep your memory alive.” Will it work this time? I wonder, then know it will not. It can’t. I do not tell her my thoughts, though. I smile instead because her words are sweet. “Thank you,” I say.