The Notebook (23 page)

“Well, that’s the thing . . .” she said. “What’s the thing?”

“Wilson, please let me finish,” she said wearily. She drew a long breath. “What I was trying to say was that I think I might like to visit him by myself.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say.

“You’re upset, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No,” I said quickly. “He’s our son. How could I get upset about that?” As if to underscore my equanimity, I used my knife to cut another bite of meat. “So when were you thinking about heading up there?” I asked.

“Next week,” she said. “On Thursday.”

“Thursday?”

“I already have my ticket,” she explained.

Though she wasn’t quite finished with her meal, she rose and headed to the kitchen. By the way she avoided my eyes, I guessed she had something else to say and wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it. A moment later, I was alone at the table. If I turned, I could just see her face in profile as she stood near the sink.

“Sounds like it’ll be fun,” I called out, with what I hope sounded like nonchalance. “And I know Joseph will enjoy it, too. Maybe there’s a show or something that you could see while you’re up there.”

“Maybe,” I heard her say. “I guess it depends on his schedule.”

I heard the faucet run, and rising from my seat, I brought my dishes to the sink. Jane said nothing as I approached.

“It should be a wonderful weekend,” I added.

She reached for my plate and began to rinse, her eyes still focused on her task.

“Oh, about that,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I was thinking about staying up there for more than just the weekend.”

At her words, I felt my shoulders tense. “How long are you planning to stay?” I asked.

She set my plate off to the side. “A couple weeks,” she answered.

I didn’t blame Jane for the course our marriage seemed to have taken. Somehow I knew I bore much of the responsibility, even if I hadn’t put all of the pieces of why and how together yet. For starters, I have to admit that I’ve never been quite the person my wife wanted me to be, even from the beginning of our marriage. I know, for instance, that she wished I were more romantic, the way her own father had been with her mother. Her father was the kind of man who would hold his wife’s hand in the hours after dinner, or spontaneously pick a bouquet of wildflowers on his way home from work. Even as a child, Jane was enthralled by her parents’ romance. Over the years, I’ve heard her speaking with her sister Kate on the phone, wondering aloud why I seemed to find it so difficult to display emotion. It isn’t that I haven’t made attempts, I just don’t seem to have an understanding of what it takes to make another’s heart start fluttering. I remember talking to her father about it once, and he suggested that I write a letter to my wife. “Tell her why you love her,” he said, “and give specific reasons.” I tried taking his advice, but as my hand hovered over the paper, I couldn’t seem to find the appropriate words. Eventually I put the pen aside. Unlike her father, discussing feelings has never been one of my strengths. I’m steady, yes. Dependable, absolutely. Faithful, without a doubt. But romance, I hate to admit, is as foreign to me as space travel.

I sometimes wonder how many other men are exactly like me.

While Jane was in New York, Joseph answered the phone when I called.

“Hi, Dad,” he said simply. “How are you?”

“Good,” I said. “It’s quiet around here, but I’m doing okay. How’s your mom’s visit going?”

“It’s fine. I’ve been keeping her busy.”

“Shopping and sight-seeing?”

“A little. Mainly we’ve been doing a lot of talking. It’s been interesting.”

I hesitated. Though I wondered what he meant, Joseph seemed to feel no need to elaborate. I finally cleared my throat. “Oh,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice light. “Is she around?”

“Actually, she isn’t. She ran out to the grocery store. She’ll be back in a few minutes, though, if you want to call back.”

“No, that’s okay,” I said. “Just let her know that I called. I should be around all night if she wants to give me a ring.”

“Will do,” he agreed. Then, after a moment: “Hey Dad? I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Did you really forget your anniversary?” I closed my eyes. “Yes,” I said, “I did.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I remembered that it was coming, but when the day arrived, it just slipped my mind. I don’t have an excuse.”

“I think it hurt her feelings,” he said.

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. “Do you understand why?” he finally asked.

Though I didn’t answer Joseph’s question, I thought I did. Quite simply, Jane didn’t want us to end up like the elderly couples we sometimes saw when dining out, couples that have always aroused our pity.

These couples are, I should make clear, usually polite to each other. The husband might pull out a chair or collect the jackets, the wife might suggest one of the specials. And when the waiter comes, they may punctuate each other’s order with the knowledge that has been gained over a lifetime—no salt on the eggs, or extra butter on the toast, for instance.

But then, once the order is placed, not a word passes between them.

Instead, they sip their coffee and glance out the window. Placing their napkins in their laps, they silently wait for their food to arrive. Throughout the meal, they will sit like strangers and say nothing at all, as if they believed that the enjoyment of each other’s company was more effort than it was worth.

Perhaps this is an exaggeration on my part of what their lives are really like, but I’ve occasionally wondered what brought these couples to this point.

While Jane was in New York, however, I was suddenly struck by the notion that we might be heading there as well.

When I picked Jane up from the airport, I remember feeling strangely nervous. It was an odd feeling, and I was relieved to see a flicker of a smile as she walked through the gate and made her way toward me.

I immediately reached for her carry-on.

“How was your trip?” I asked.

“It was good,” she said. “I have no idea why Joseph likes living there so much. It’s so busy and noisy all the time. I couldn’t do it.”

“Glad you’re home, then?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am. But I’m tired.”

“I’ll bet. Trips are always tiring.”

For a moment, neither of us said anything. I shifted from one foot to the other. “How’s Joseph doing?” I asked.

“He’s good. I think he’s put on a little weight since the last time he was here.”

“Anything exciting going on with him that you didn’t mention on the phone?”

“Not really. He works too much, but that’s about it.” There it was—a hint of sadness in her tone, one that I didn’t quite understand. As I considered it, I saw a young couple with their arms around each other, hugging as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

I smiled. “I’m glad you’re home,” I said.

She looked up at me, held my eyes, then finally turned toward the luggage carousel. “I know you are.”

This was our state of affairs one year ago.

I would love to tell you that things improved in the weeks immediately following Jane’s trip, but they did not. Instead, our life went on as it had before, one unmemorable day after the next. Jane wasn’t exactly angry with me, but she didn’t seem really happy, either. Try as I might, I was at a loss as to what to do about it. It was as if a wall of indifference had somehow been constructed between us without my being aware of it, and by late autumn, two months after the forgotten anniversary, I’d become so worried about our relationship that I knew I had to talk to her father.

His name is Noah Calhoun, and if you knew him, you would understand why I went to see him that day. He and his wife, Allie, had moved to Creekside Extended Care Facility nearly eleven years earlier, in their forty-sixth year of marriage. Noah now sleeps alone. I wasn’t surprised when I found his room empty. Most days, when I went to visit him, he was seated on a bench near the pond, and I remember moving to the window to make sure he was there.

Even from a distance, I recognized him easily; the white tufts of hair lifting slightly in the wind, his stooped posture, the light blue cardigan sweater that Jane had recently knitted for him. He was eighty-seven years old, a widower with hands that had curled with arthritis, and his health was precarious. He carried a vial of nitroglycerin pills in his pocket and suffered from prostate cancer, but back then, the doctors were more concerned with his mental state. They’d sat Jane and me down in the office a year earlier, and eyed us gravely. He’s been suffering from delusions, they informed us, and the delusions seem to be getting worse. For my part, I wasn’t so sure. I thought I knew him better than most people, and certainly better than the doctors. With the exception of Jane, he was my dearest friend, and when I saw his solitary figure, I couldn’t help but ache for all that he had lost.

His own marriage had come to an end five years earlier, but cynics would say it ended long before that. Allie suffered from Alzheimer’s in the final years of her life, an intrinsically evil disease. It’s a slow unraveling of all that a person once was. What are we, after all, without our memories, without our dreams? Watching the progression was like watching a slow-motion picture of an inevitable tragedy. It was difficult for Jane and me to visit Allie; Jane wanted to remember her mother as she once was, and I never pressed her to go, for it was painful for me as well. For Noah, however, it was the hardest of all.

But that is another story.

Leaving his room, I made my way to the courtyard. The morning was cool, even for autumn. The leaves were brilliant in the slanting sunshine, and the air carried the faint scent of chimney smoke. This, I remembered, was Allie’s favorite time of year, and once again, I felt Noah’s loneliness keenly. He was feeding a swan as I approached, and when I reached his side, I put a grocery bag on the ground. In it were three loaves of Wonder Bread. Noah always had me purchase the same items when I came to visit.

“Hello, Noah,” I said. I knew I could call him Dad as Jane did with my father, but I’ve never felt comfortable with this and Noah never seemed to mind.

At the sound of my voice, Noah turned his head. “Hello, Wilson,” he said. “Thanks for dropping by.”

I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you doing okay?” “Could be better,” he said. Then, with a mischievous grin: “Could be worse, though, too.”

These were the words we always exchanged in greeting. He patted the bench and I took a seat next to him. I stared out over the pond. Fallen leaves resembled a kaleidoscope as they floated on the water. The glassy surface mirrored the cloudless sky.

“I’ve come to ask you something,” I finally said.

“Yes?” As he spoke, Noah tore off another piece of bread and tossed it into the water. The swan bobbed its beak toward it and straightened its neck to swallow.

“It’s about Jane,” I added.

“Jane,” he murmured softly. “How is she?”

“Good,” I nodded, shifing awkwardly. “She’ll be coming by later, I suppose.” This was true. For the past few years, we’ve visited Noah frequently, sometimes together, sometimes alone. I wondered if they spoke of me in my absence.

“And the kids?”

“They’re doing well, too. Anna’s writing features now, and Joseph finally found a new apartment. It’s in Queens, I think, but right near the subway. Leslie’s going camping in the mountains with friends this weekend. She told us she aced her midterms.”

He nodded, his eyes never leaving the swan. “You’re very lucky, Wilson,” he said. “I hope you realize how fortunate you are that they’ve become such wonderful adults.”

“I do,” I said.

We fell into silence and I glanced at him. Up close, the lines in his face formed crevices, and I could see the veins pulsing below the thinning skin of his hands. Behind us, the grounds were empty, the chilly air keeping people inside.

“I forgot our anniversary,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Twenty-nine years,” I added.

“Mmm.”

Behind us, I could hear dried leaves rattling in the breeze.

“I’m worried about us,” I finally admitted.

Noah glanced at me. At first, I thought he would ask me why I was worried, but instead, Noah squinted, trying to read my face. Then, turning away, he tossed another piece of bread to the swan. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low, an aging baritone tempered by a southern accent.

“Do you remember when Allie got sick? When I used to read to her?”

“Yes,” I answered, feeling the memory pull at me. He used to read to her from a notebook that he’d written before they moved to Creekside. The notebook held the story of how he and Allie had fallen in love, and sometimes after he read it aloud to her, Allie would become momentarily lucid, despite the ravages of Alzheimer’s. The lucidity never lasted long—and as the disease progressed further, it ceased completely—but when it happened, Allie’s improvement was dramatic enough for specialists to travel from Chapel Hill to Creekside in the hopes of understanding it. That reading to Allie sometimes worked, there was no doubt. Why it worked, however, was something the specialists were never able to figure out.

“Do you know why I did that?” he asked.

I brought my hands to my lap. “I believe so,” I answered. “It helped Allie. And because she made you promise you would.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s true.” He paused and I could hear him wheezing slightly as he breathed. “But that wasn’t the only reason why I did it. I also did it for me. A lot of folks didn’t understand that . . .”

Though he trailed off, I knew he wasn’t finished and I said nothing. In the silence, the swan stopped circling and moved closer. Except for a black spot the size of a dime on its chest, the swan was the color of ivory. It seemed to hover in place when Noah began speaking again.

“Do you know what I most remember about the good days?” he asked.

I knew he was referring to those rare days when Allie recognized him. “No,” I answered.

“Falling in love,” he said. “That’s what I remember. On her good days, it was like we were just starting out all over again.”