Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [108]
“Good for you.”
“There’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Can I borrow some money? I’ll be able to pay you back in a few months.”
After telling me the amount, I hesitated only briefly. “Sure,” I said.
“Thanks.” Then, with a quieter voice, he asked: “How’s Ryan doing?”
Micah, alone among my family, was the only one who never forgot to ask.
There were, however, two bright spots in the first half of 1996. Again, my sister passed her CAT scan with flying colors and seemed perfectly healthy. Other than being tired—twin two-year-old boys can do that to you—she was in good spirits, and we seldom talked about her health.
My dad, too, finally began to find his way again. As 1996 progressed, he spoke less about Flame and began talking more about the woman he was dating. He spoke about work as well—work was the one area of his life where he continued to function normally—and by the summer he’d even begun listening to my requests that he start talking to his family again.
“They miss you,” I said. “They’re worried about you.”
“I know,” he admitted. “And I’ll talk to them again. I just have to be ready first.”
I think that my dad’s hesitation had less to do with a continuing anger than fear of how they would respond to his attempted reconciliation. In the end, he put aside whatever fears he had and called his brother. Later, I would hear from my uncle Monty that my dad did almost all of the talking, that he’d rambled a bit, but after the call, my uncle had broken down. He loved and missed my dad, and the sound of my dad’s voice—even if it was less a conversation than a speech—was something he’d longed to hear. It was a step my dad had needed to make, not only for his brother, but for himself, and as the summer wore on, they began speaking more and more.
After I learned what he’d done, I told my dad that I was proud of him, and for once my dad seemed touched by my words.
“I love you, Dad,” I whispered.
“Love you, too.”
And a couple of weeks later, my dad called to tell me something else.
“I’m getting married,” he said.
“You’ll like her, Nick,” Micah said on the phone.
I’d called to ask him about the woman my dad intended to marry. While I’d never met her, my brother had. “And she’ll be good for dad, too.”
“He seems happier.”
“I think he is,” Micah said. “He even went to see Dana and the twins last weekend.”
“That’s good,” I said. I paused. “It’s been a long seven years since mom died.”
“Yes it has. The poor guy—I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to be okay. Did you hear he called Uncle Monty?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m glad. He needs his family. He always has. How’s your business going?”
“It’s hard. I’ve been working day and night, but it’s paying off. Sales have been going up every month.”
“Congratulations.”
He paused. “There’s something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
“I think I finally met my Cathy,” he said. “But her name’s Christine.”
“Really? That’s great!”
“Nick, you’re going to love her.”
“Sounds pretty serious.”
“It is serious.”
“Yeah, but is it marriage serious, or Micah serious?”
“Ha, ha.”
My eyebrows shot up. If he wasn’t willing to joke about it, I realized I already had the answer.
“Well, good for you,” I said. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
Two days after my father told me he was engaged—and a month prior to the publication of The Notebook—the CBS tele-vision show 48 Hours arrived at our house.
One of the producers, Andrew Cohen, had read an advance copy of the book in the early part of the summer, and decided to run a segment entitled “The Making of a Best Seller.” In addition to filming me, they’d also been filming at Warner Books all summer; sitting in on marketing meetings, conducting interviews with Larry Kirshbaum, the CEO of Warner Books, Maureen Egen, the president, and Jamie Raab, my editor, in addition to filming a book group (composed of strangers) who would discuss the novel.
They came to the house on a Thursday; two days later, on Saturday, I was supposed to fly to Los Angeles for the Southern California Booksellers Association dinner,