Tares

Digitally signed by MAZ DN: cn=MAZ, c=EG, o=Bokks Squad, ou=Kool People, email=LOL@FUN.ORG Reason: I am approving this document Date: 2006.01.11 14:11:48 +02'00'

THE NOTEBOOK

THE NOTEBOOK Nicholas Sparks

WANER BOOKS A Time Warner Company This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are usedfictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Copyright ©1996 by Nicholas Sparks All rights reserved. Warner Books, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 A Time Warner Company Printed in the United States of America First Printing: October 1996 10 9 8 7 6 $ 4 3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sparks,Nicholas. The notebook / Nicholas Sparks. p. cm. ISBN 0-446-52080-2 1. Man-woman relationships--North Carolina--Fiction. 2. Oral reading--Fiction. 3. Aged--Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.P363N68 1996 813'.54--dc2096-33815CIP Book design and composition by L & G McRee

This book is dedicated with love to Cathy, my wife and my friend.

Acknowledgments
This story is what it is today because of twospecial people, and I would like to thank them for everything they've done. To Theresa Park, the agent who plucked me from obscurity. Thank you for your kindness,your patience, and the many hours you have spent working with me. I will be forever grateful for everything you've done. To Jamie Raab , my editor. Thank you for your wisdom , your humor , and your good-hearted nature. You made this a wonderfulexperience for me, and I'm glad to call you my Friend.

THE NOTEBOOK
Electronic Copy Is Edited By MAZ Egypt - 2005

Miracles

W

ho am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?

The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life,,,. gone by. I'm a sight this morning: two shirts,heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck  and  tucked into a thick  sweater  knitted  by  my  daughter  thirty birthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is  set as high  as it will go , and a  smaller space heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot air  like a fairy‐tale dragon , and still my body shivers  with  a  cold  that  will  never  go  away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making.Eighty years, I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it still  amazes me that I haven't been warm since George Bush was president. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age. My life ?  It  isn't  easy   to explain  .  It has not been the rip‐roaring spectacular I fancied it would be , but  neither  have  I  burrowed  around  with  the  gophers. I suppose  it  has  most  resembled  a  blue‐chip  stock:  fairly  stable ,  more  ups  than downs , and gradually  trending  upward  over  time .  A good buy , a lucky  Buy , and  I've  learned  that not  everyone  can  say  this  about  his life .  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. The  romantics  would  call  this  a  love  story , the cynics  would  call  it  a  tragedy.   In my mind it's a little bit of both , and no matter how you choose to view it in the  end, it does not change the fact that it  involves  a  great  deal  of  my  life  and  the path  I've chosen to follow . I have no complaints about my path  and  the places it  has taken me; enough  complaints  to  fill a circus tent about  other things, maybe,  but the path I've chosen has always been the right one, and I wouldn't have had it  any other way.

Time , unfortunately , doesn't  make  it  easy  to  stay  on  course . The  path  is  straight    as    ever  ,    but    now   ...