The Notebook

see you with speckles of grey in your hair, sitting on the porch and playing your guitar while little ones play and clap to the music you create. 'You're a better father than you know,' I tell you later, after the children are sleeping.

I love you for many things, especially your passions: love and poetry and fatherhood and friendship and beauty and nature. And I am glad you have taught the children these things, for I know their lives are better for it. They tell me how special you are to them, and it makes me feel like the luckiest woman alive.

You have taught me as well, and inspired me and supported me in my painting, and you will never know how much it has meant to me that you were always there, encouraging me. You understood my need for my own studio, my own space, and saw beyond the paint on my clothes and in my hair. I know it was not easy. It takes a man to do that, Noah, to live with something like that. And you have. For forty-five years now. Wonderful years.

You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together. You have something inside you, Noah, something beautiful and strong. Kindness, that's what I see when I look at you now, that's what everyone sees. Kindness.

I know you think me crazy for making us write our story before we finally leave our home, but I have my reasons and I thank you for your patience. I never told you why, but now I think it is time you knew. We have lived a lifetime most couples never know, and when I look at you I am frightened by the knowledge that all this will be ending soon. For we both know my prognosis. I worry more about you than I do about me, because I fear the pain I know you will go through. There are no words to express my sorrow for this.

I love you so deeply, so incredibly much, that I will find a way to come back to you despite my disease, I promise you that. And this is where the story comes in. When I am lost and lonely, read this story-just as you told it to the children-and know that in some way I will realize it's about us. And perhaps, just perhaps, we will find a way to be together again.

Please don't be angry with me on days I do not remember you- we both know they will come. Know that I will always love you, and no matter what happens, know that I have led the greatest life possible. My life with you.

Noah, wherever you are and whenever you read this, I love you. I love you deeply, my husband. You are, and always have been, my dream.

Allie

I put the letter aside, rise from my desk and find my slippers. I must sit to put them on. Then, standing, I cross the room and open my door. I peep down the hall and see Janice seated at the main desk which I must pass to get to Allie's room. At this hour I am not supposed to leave my room, and Janice is never one to bend the rules.

I wait to see if she will leave, but she does not and I grow impatient. I finally exit my room anyway, slow- shuffle, slide-the-right, slow-shuffle. It takes aeons to close the distance, but for some reason she does not see me approaching. I am a silent panther creeping through the jungle. In the end I am discovered, but I am not surprised. I stand before her.

'Noah,' she says, 'what are you doing?'

'I'm taking a walk,' I say. 'I can't sleep.'

'You know you're not supposed to do this.'

'I know.' I don't move, though. I am determined.

'You're not really going for a walk, are you? You're going to see Allie.'

'Yes,' I answer.

'Noah, you know what happened the last time you saw her at night. You shouldn't be doing this.'

'I miss her.'

'I know you do, but I can't let you see her.'

'It's our anniversary,' I say. This is true. It is one year before gold. Forty-nine years today.

'I see.' She looks away for a moment, and her voice becomes softer. I am surprised. She has never struck me as the sentimental type. 'Noah, I've seen hundreds of couples struggle with grief, but I've never seen anyone handle it like you do. No one around here has ever seen anything like it.' She pauses for just a moment and her eyes begin to fill with tears. 'I try to think what it's like for you, how you keep going day after day, but I can't imagine it. I don't know how you do it. You even beat her disease sometimes. Even though the doctors don't understand it, we nurses do. It's love-it's as simple as that. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen.'

A lump has risen in my throat, and I am speechless.

'But, Noah, you're not supposed to do this, and I can't let you. So go back to your room.' Then, smiling, sniffling and shuffling some papers, she says: 'Me, I'm going downstairs for some coffee. I won't be back to check on you for a while, so don't do anything foolish.'

She rises quickly, touches my arm and walks towards the stairs. She doesn't look back and suddenly I am alone. I look at where she had been sitting and see her coffee, a full cup, still steaming, and once again I learn that there are good people in the world.

As I begin my trek to Allie's room, I take tiny steps, and even at that pace my legs grow tired. I find I must touch the wall to keep from falling down. Lights buzz overhead, their fluorescent glow making my eyes ache, and I squint a little. I press on, and the movement forces blood through banished arteries. I feel myself becoming stronger with every step. A phone rings in the nurses' station, and I push forward so that I will not be caught. I am young and strong, with passion in my heart, and I will break down the door and lift her in my arms and carry her to paradise.

Who am I kidding? I lead a simple life now. I am foolish, an old man in love, a dreamer who dreams of nothing but reading to Allie and holding her whenever I can. I am a sinner with many faults and a man who believes in magic, but I am too old to change and too old to care.

When I finally reach her room my body is weak. My legs wobble, my eyes are blurred. I struggle with the knob and in the end it takes two hands and three truckloads of effort. The door opens and light from the hallway spills in, illuminating the bed where she sleeps.

She is lying with the covers halfway up. After a moment I see her roll to one side, and her noises bring back memories of happier times. She looks small in her bed.

I do not move, on this our anniversary, for almost a minute, and I long to tell her how I feel, but I stay quiet so I won't wake her. Besides, it is written on the slip of paper that I will slide under her pillow. It says:

Love, in these last and tender hours,
is sensitive and very pure
Come morning light with soft-lit powers
to awaken love that's ever sure.

I think I hear someone coming, so I enter her room and close the door behind me. Blackness descends and I cross her floor from memory and reach the window. I open the curtains, and the moon stares back, large and full, the guardian of the evening. Though I know I should not, I sit on her bed while I slip the note beneath her pillow. Then I reach across and gently touch her face. I stroke her hair, and I feel wonder, like a composer first discovering the works of Mozart. She stirs and opens her eyes and I suddenly regret my foolishness, for I know she will begin to cry and scream, for this is what she always does. But I feel an urge to attempt the impossible and lean towards her, our faces drawing closer.

When her lips meet mine, I feel a tingling I have never felt before, in all our years together, but I do not pull back. And suddenly a miracle, for I feel her mouth open and I discover a forgotten paradise, unchanged all this time, ageless like the stars. I feel the warmth of her body and allow myself to slip away, as I did so many years ago. I close my eyes and become a mighty ship in churning waters, strong and fearless, and she is my sails. I gently trace the outline of her cheek, then take her hand in mine. I kiss her lips, her cheeks, and listen as she