Nights in Rodanthe

  The work habits honed in the fields extended to other areas of Paul's life. Not only did he graduate valedictorian of his class, he became an excellent athlete as well. When he was cut from the football team as a freshman, the coach recommended that he try cross-country running. When he realized that effort, not genetics, usually separated the winners from losers in races, he started rising at five in the morning so he could squeeze two workouts into a day. It worked; he attended Duke University on a full athletic scholarship and was their top runner for four years, in addition to excelling in the classroom. In his four years there, he relaxed his vigilance once and nearly died as a result, but he never let it happen again. He double majored in chemistry and biology and graduated summa cum laude. That year he also became an all-American by finishing third at the national cross-country meet.

  After the race, he gave the medal to his father and said that he had done all this for him.

  "No," his father replied, "you ran for you. I just hope you're running toward something, not away from something."

  That night, Paul stared at the ceiling as he lay in bed, trying to figure out what his father had meant. In his mind, he was running toward something, toward everything. A better life. Financial stability. A way to help his father. Respect. Freedom from worry. Happiness.

  In February of his senior year, after learning he'd been accepted to medical school at Vanderbilt, he went to visit his father and told him the good news. His father said that he was pleased for him. But later that night, long after his father should have been asleep, Paul looked out the window and saw him, a lonely figure standing near the fence post, staring out over the fields.

  Three weeks later, his father died of a heart attack while tilling in preparation for the spring.

  Paul was devastated by the loss, but instead of taking time to mourn, he avoided his memories by throwing himself even further into work. He enrolled at Vanderbilt early, went to summer school and took three classes to get ahead in his studies, then added extra classes in the fall to an already full schedule. After that, his life became a blur. He went to class, did his labwork, and studied until the early morning hours. He ran five miles a day and always timed his runs, trying to improve with each passing year. He avoided nightclubs and bars; he ignored the goings-on of the school athletic teams. He bought a television on a whim, but he never unpacked it from the box and sold it a year later. Though shy around girls, he was introduced to Martha, a sweet-tempered blonde from Georgia who was working at the medical school library, and when he never got around to asking her out, she took it upon herself to do so. Though worried about the frantic pace he held himself to, she nonetheless accepted his proposal, and they walked the aisle ten months later. With finals looming, there was no time for a honeymoon, but he promised they'd head someplace nice when school was out. They never got around to it. Mark, their son, was born a year later, and in the first two years of his son's life, Paul never once changed a diaper or rocked the boy to sleep.

  Rather, he studied at the kitchen table, staring at diagrams of human physiology or studying chemical equations, taking notes, and acing one exam after the next. He graduated at the top of his class in three years and moved the family to Baltimore to do his surgical residency at Johns Hopkins.

  Surgery, he knew by then, was his calling. Many specialties require a great deal of human interaction and hand-holding; Paul was not particularly good at either. But surgery was different; patients weren't as interested in communication skills as they were in ability, and Paul had not only the confidence to put them at ease before the operation, but the skill to do whatever was required. He thrived in that environment. In the last two years of his residency, Paul worked ninety hours a week and slept four hours a night but, oddly, showed no signs of fatigue.

  After his residency, he completed a fellowship in cranial-facial surgery and moved the family to Raleigh, where he joined a practice with another surgeon just as the population was beginning to boom. As the only specialists in that field in the community, their practice grew. By thirty-four, he'd paid off his debts from medical school. By thirty-six, he was associated with every major hospital in the area and did the bulk of his work at the University of North Carolina Medical Center. There, he participated in a joint clinical study with physicians from the Mayo Clinic on neurofibromas. A year later, he had an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning cleft palates. Another article on hemangiomas followed four months later and helped to redefine surgical procedures for infants in that field. His reputation grew, and after operating successfully on Senator Norton's daughter, who'd been disfigured in a car accident, he made the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

  In addition to reconstructive work, he was one of the first physicians in North Carolina to expand his practice to include plastic surgery, and he caught the wave just as it started to swell. His practice boomed, his income multiplied, and he started to accumulate things. He purchased a BMW, then a Mercedes, then a Porsche, then another Mercedes. He and Martha built the home of their dreams. He bought stocks and bonds and shares in a dozen different mutual funds. When he realized he couldn't keep up with the intricacies of the market, he hired a money manager. After that, his money began doubling every four years. Then, when he had more than he'd ever need for the rest of his life, it began to triple.

  And still he worked. He scheduled surgeries not only during the week, but on Saturday as well. He spent Sunday afternoons in the office. By the time he was forty-five, the pace he kept eventually burned out his partner, who left to work with another group of doctors.

  In the first few years after Mark was born, Martha often talked about having another child. In time, she stopped bringing it up. Though she forced him to take vacations, he did so reluctantly, and in the end, she took to visiting her parents with Mark and leaving Paul at home. Paul found time to go to some of the major events in his son's life, those things that happened once or twice a year, but he missed most everything else.

  He convinced himself that he was working for the family. Or for Martha, who'd struggled with him in the early years. Or for the memory of his father. Or for Mark's future. But deep down, he knew he was doing it for himself.

  If he could list his major regret about those years now, it would be about his son; yet despite Paul's absence from his life, Mark surprised him by deciding to become a doctor. After Mark had been accepted to medical school, Paul spread the word around the hospital corridors, pleased by the thought that his son would join him in the profession. Now, he thought, they would have more time together, and he remembered taking Mark to lunch in the hopes of convincing him to become a surgeon. Mark simply shook his head.

  "That's your life," Mark told him, "and it's not a life that interests me at all. To be honest, I feel sorry for you."

  The words stung. They had an argument. Mark made bitter accusations, Paul grew furious, and Mark ended up storming out of the restaurant. Paul refused to talk to him for the next couple of weeks, and Mark made no attempt to make amends. Weeks turned into months, then into years. Though Mark continued the warm relationship he had with his mother, he avoided coming home when he knew his father was around.

  Paul handled the estrangement with his son in the only way he knew. His workload stayed the same, he ran his usual five miles a day; in the mornings, he studied the financial pages in the newspaper. But he could see the sadness in Martha's eyes, and there were moments, usually late at night, when he wondered how to repair the rift with his son. Part of him wanted to pick up the phone and call, but he never found the will to do so. Mark, he knew from Martha, was doing fine without him. Instead of becoming a surgeon, Mark became a family practitioner, and after taking several months to develop the skills he needed, he left the country to volunteer his services to an international relief organization. Though it was noble, Paul couldn't help but think he'd done it to be as far away from his father as possible.

  Two weeks after Mark had gone, Martha filed for di
vorce.

  If Mark's words had once made him angry, Martha's words left him stunned. He started to try to talk her out of it, but Martha gently cut him off.

  "Will you really miss me?" she said. "We hardly know each other anymore."

  "I can change," he said.

  Martha smiled. "I know you can. And you should. But you should do it because you want to, not because you think I want you to."

  Paul spent the next couple of weeks in a daze, and a month after that, after he had completed a routine operation, sixty-two-year-old Jill Torrelson of Rodanthe, North Carolina, died in the recovery room.

  It was that terrible event, following on the heels of the others, he knew, that had led him to this road now.

  After finishing his coffee, Paul got back in the car and made his way to the highway again. In forty-five minutes, he'd reached Morehead City. He crossed over the bridge to Beaufort, followed the turns, then headed down east, toward Cedar Point.

  There was a peaceful beauty to the coastal lowlands, and he slowed the car, taking it all in. Life, he knew, was different here. As he drove, he marveled at the people driving in the opposite direction who waved at him, and the group of older men, sitting on a bench outside a gas station, who seemed to have nothing better to do than watch the cars pass by.

  In midafternoon, he caught the ferry to Ocracoke, a village at the southern end of the Outer Banks. There were only four other cars on the ferry, and on the two-hour ride, he visited with a few of the other passengers. He spent the night at a motel in Ocracoke, woke when the white ball of light rose over the water, had an early breakfast, and then spent the next few hours walking through the rustic village, watching people ready their homes for the storm brewing off the coast.

  When he was finally ready, he tossed the duffel bag into his car and began the trip northward, to the place he had to go.

  The Outer Banks, he thought, were both strange and mystical. With saw grass speckling the rolling dunes and maritime oaks bent sideways with the never-ending sea breeze, it was a place like no other. The islands had once been connected to the mainland, but after the last ice age, the sea had flooded the area to the immediate west, forming the Pamlico Sound. Until the 1950s, there wasn't a highway on this series of islands, and people had to drive along the beach to reach the homes beyond the dunes. Even now it was part of the culture, and as he drove, he could see tire tracks near the water's edge.

  The sky had cleared in places, and though the clouds raced angrily toward the horizon, the sun sometimes squinted through, making the world glow fiercely white. Over the roar of the engine, he could hear the violence of the ocean.

  At this time of year, the Outer Banks were largely empty, and he had this stretch of roadway to himself. In the solitude, his thoughts returned to Martha.

  The divorce had become final only a few months earlier, but it had been amicable. He knew she was seeing someone, and he suspected she'd been seeing him even before they'd separated, but it wasn't important. These days, nothing seemed important.

  When she left, Paul remembered cutting back on his schedule, thinking he needed time to sort things out. But months later, instead of going back to his regular routine, he cut back even more. He still ran regularly but found he no longer had any interest in reading the financial pages in the morning. For as long as he could remember, he'd needed only six hours of sleep a night; but strangely, the more he cut back on the pace of his previous life, the more hours he seemed to need to feel rested.

  There were other, physical changes as well. For the first time in years, Paul felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. The lines in his face, grown deep over the years, were still prominent, but the intensity he once saw in his reflection had been replaced with a sort of weary melancholy. And though it was probably his imagination, it seemed as if his graying hair had finally stopped receding.

  At one time, he had thought he had it all. He'd run and run, he'd reached the pinnacle of success; yet now, he realized he'd never taken his father's advice. All his life, he'd been running away from something, not toward something, and in his heart, he knew it had all been in vain.

  He was fifty-four and alone in the world, and as he stared at the vacant stretch of asphalt unfolding before him, he couldn't help but wonder why on earth he'd run so hard.

  Knowing he was close now, Paul settled in for the final leg of his journey. He was staying at a small bed-and-breakfast just off the highway, and when he reached the outskirts of Rodanthe, he took in his surroundings. Downtown, if you could call it that, consisted of various businesses that seemed to offer just about everything. The general store sold hardware and fishing gear as well as groceries; the gas station sold tires and auto parts as well as the services of a mechanic.

  He had no reason to ask for directions, and a minute later, he pulled off the highway onto a short gravel drive, thinking the Inn at Rodanthe was more charming than he'd imagined it would be. It was an aging white Victorian with black shutters and a welcoming front porch. On the railings were potted pansies in full bloom, and an American flag fluttered in the wind.

  He grabbed his gear and slung the bags over his shoulder, then walked up the steps and went inside. The floor was heart pine, scuffed by years of sandy feet, and without the formality of his former home. On his left, there was a cozy sitting room, brightly lit by two large windows framing the fireplace. He could smell fresh coffee and saw that a small platter of cookies had been set out for his arrival. On the right, he assumed he'd find the proprietor, and he went that way.

  Though he saw a small desk where he was supposed to check in, no one was behind it. In the corner, he saw the room keys; the key chains were small statues of lighthouses. When he reached the desk, he rang the bell, requesting service.

  He waited, then rang again, and this time he heard what sounded like a muffled cry coming from somewhere in the rear of the house. Leaving his gear, he stepped around the desk and pushed through a set of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. On the counter were three unpacked grocery bags.

  The back door was open, beckoning him that way, and the porch creaked as he stepped outside. On the left, he saw a couple of rocking chairs and a small table between them; on the right, he saw the source of the noise.

  She was standing in the corner; overlooking the ocean. Like him, she was wearing faded jeans, but she was enveloped by a thick turtleneck sweater. Her light brown hair was pinned back, a few loose tendrils whipping in the wind. He watched as she turned, startled at the sound of his boots on the porch. Behind her, a dozen terns rode the updrafts, and a coffee cup was perched on the railing.

  Paul glanced away, then found his eyes drawn to her again. Even though she was crying, he could tell she was pretty, but there was something in the sad way she shifted her weight that let him know she didn't realize it. And that, he would always think when looking back on this moment, had only served to make her even more appealing.

  Four

  Amanda looked across the table at her mother.

  Adrienne had paused and was staring out the window again. The rain had stopped; beyond the glass, the sky was full of shadows. In the silence, Amanda could hear the refrigerator humming steadily.

  "Why are you telling me this, Mom?"

  "Because I think you need to hear it."

  "But why? I mean, who was he?"

  Instead of answering, Adrienne reached for the bottle of wine. With deliberate motions, she opened it. After pouring herself a glass, she did the same for her daughter.

  "You might need this," she said.

  "Mom?"

  Adrienne slid the glass across the table.

  "Do you remember when I went to Rodanthe? When Jean asked if I could watch the Inn?"

  It took a moment before it clicked.

  "Back when I was in high school, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  When Adrienne began again, Amanda found herself reaching for her wine, wondering what this was all about.

  Five

&n
bsp; Standing near the railing on the back porch of the Inn on a gloomy Thursday afternoon, Adrienne let the coffee cup warm her hands as she stared at the ocean, noting that it was rougher than it had been an hour earlier. The water had taken on the color of iron, like the hull of an old battleship, and she could see tiny whitecaps stretching to the horizon.

  Part of her wished she hadn't come. She was watching the Inn for a friend, and she'd hoped it would be a respite of sorts, but now it seemed like a mistake. First, the weather wasn't going to cooperate--all day, the radio had been warning of the big nor'easter heading this way--and she wasn't looking forward to the possibility of losing power or having to hole up inside for a couple of days. But more than that, despite the angry skies, the beach brought back memories of too many family vacations, blissful days when she'd been content with the world.

  For a long time, she'd considered herself lucky. She'd met Jack as a student; he was in his first year of law school. They were considered a perfect couple back then--he was tall and thin, with curly black hair; she was a blue-eyed brunette a few sizes smaller than she was now. Their wedding photo had been prominently displayed in the living room of their home, right above the fireplace. They had their first child when she was twenty-eight and had two more in the next three years. She, like so many other women, had trouble losing all the weight she'd gained, but she worked at it, and though she never approached what she had once been, compared to most of the women her age with children, she thought she was doing okay.

  And she was happy. She loved to cook, she kept the house clean, they went to church as a family, and she did her best to maintain an active social life for her and Jack. When the kids started going to school, she volunteered to help in their classes, attended PTA meetings, worked in their Sunday school, and was the first to volunteer when rides were needed for field trips. She sat through hours of piano recitals, school plays, baseball and football games, she taught each of the children to swim, and she laughed aloud at the expressions on their faces the first time they walked through the gates of Disney World. On her fortieth birthday, Jack had thrown a surprise party for her at the country club, and nearly two hundred people showed up. It was an evening filled with laughter and high spirits, but later, after they got home, she noticed that Jack didn't watch her as she undressed before getting into bed. Instead, he turned out the lights, and though she knew he couldn't fall asleep that quickly, he pretended he had.