The Notebook (The Notebook #1)(47)

Allie

When I am finished with the letter, I put it aside. I rise from my desk and find my slippers. They are near my bed, and I must sit to put them on. Then, standing, I cross the room and open my door. I peek down the hall and see Janice seated at the main desk. At least I think it is Janice. I must pass this desk to get to Allie’s room, but at this hour I am not supposed to leave my room, and Janice has never been one to bend the rules. Her husband is a lawyer.

I wait to see if she will leave, but she does not seem to be moving, 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, I am as invisible as baby pigeons.

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.”

“I remember.”

“Then you know you shouldn’t be doing this.”

I don’t answer directly. Instead I say, “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.”

“Then I can go?”

She looks away for a moment, and her voice changes. Her voice is softer now, and I am surprised. She has never struck me as the sentimental type.

“Noah, I’ve worked here for five years and I worked at another home before that. I’ve seen hundreds of couples struggle with grief and sadness, but I’ve never seen anyone handle it like you do. No one around here, not the doctors, not the nurses, has ever seen anything like it.”

She pauses for just a moment, and strangely, her eyes begin to fill with tears. She wipes them with her finger and goes on:

“I try to think what it’s like for you, how you keep going day after day, but I can’t even 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 softly and sniffling and shuffling some papers on the desk, 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 toward the stairs. She doesn’t look back, and suddenly I am alone. I don’t know what to think. 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.

I am warm for the first time in years as I begin my trek to Allie’s room. I take steps the size of Pixie straws, and even at that pace it is dangerous, for my legs have grown tired already. 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 walk by a dozen darkened rooms, rooms where I have read before, and I realize I miss the people inside. They are my friends, whose faces I know so well, and I will see them all tomorrow. But not tonight, for there is no time to stop on this journey. I press on, and the movement forces blood through banished arteries. I feel myself becoming stronger with every step. I hear a door open behind me, but I don’t hear footsteps, and I keep going. I am a stranger now. I cannot be stopped. A phone rings in the nurses’ station, and I push forward so I will not be caught. I am a midnight bandit, masked and fleeing on horseback from sleepy desert towns, charging into yellow moons with gold dust in my saddlebags. 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, and my heart is beating funny inside my chest. 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. I think, as I see her, I am nothing but a passerby on a busy city street, forgotten forever.

Her room is quiet, and 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, and as I watch her I know it is over between us. The air is stale and I shiver. This place has become our tomb.

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: