《[Nicholas Sparks]The Notebook》.doc

THE NOTEBOOK i THE NOTEBOOK Nicholas Sparks VVNER BOOKS A Time Warner Company ii This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Copyright ?996 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 relatinnships--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 iii This book is dedicated with love to Cathy, my wife and my friend. iv Acknowledgments This story is what it is today because of two special people, and I would like to thank them for everything theyve done. To Theresa Park, the agent who plucked me from obscurity. Thank you for your kiness, your patience, and the many hours you have spent working with me. I will be forever grateful for everything youve done. To Jamie Raab, my editor. Thank you for your wisdom, your humor, and your good-hearted nature. You made this a wonderful experience for me, and Im glad to call you my friend. v THE NOTEBOOK 1 Who 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. Im 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 shive