Nicholas Sparks: Message in a Bottle

She turned her head and saw a man standing a little way down the beach. He was older than she, maybe fifty or so, and his face was deeply tanned, as if he lived here year-round. He didn’t appear to be moving—he simply stood in the water and let it wash over his legs—and she noticed his eyes were closed, as if he were enjoying the beauty of the world without having to watch it. He was wearing faded jeans, rolled up to his knees, and a comfortable shirt he hadn’t bothered to tuck in. As she watched him, she suddenly wished she were a different kind of person. What would it be like to walk the beaches without another care in the world? How would it be to come to a quiet spot every day, away from the hustle and bustle of Boston, just to appreciate what life had to offer?

She stepped out a little farther into the water and mimicked the man, hoping to feel whatever it was that he was feeling. But when she closed her eyes, the only thing she could think about was Kevin. Lord knew she wanted to spend more time with him, and she definitely wanted to be more patient with him when they were together. She wanted to be able to sit and talk with Kevin, or play Monopoly with him, or simply watch TV with him without feeling the urge to get up from the couch to do something more important. There were times when she felt like a fraud when insisting to Kevin that he came first and that family was the most important thing he’d have.

But the problem was that there was always something to do. Dishes to be washed, bathrooms to be cleaned, the cat box to be emptied; cars needed tune-ups, laundry needed to be done, and bills had to be paid. Even though Kevin helped a lot with his chores, he was almost as busy as she was with school and friends and all his other activities. As it was, magazines went straight to the garbage unread, letters went unwritten, and sometimes, in moments like these, she worried that her life was slipping past her.

But how to change all that? “Take life one day at a time,” her mother always said, but her mother didn’t have to work outside the home or raise a strong and confident yet caring son without benefit of a father. She didn’t understand the pressures that Theresa faced on a daily basis. Neither did her younger sister, Janet, who had followed in the footsteps of their mother. She and her husband had been happily married for almost eleven years, with three wonderful girls to show for it. Edward wasn’t a brilliant man, but he was honest, worked hard, and provided for his family well enough that Janet didn’t have to work. There were times when Theresa thought she might like a life like that, even if it meant giving up her career.

But that wasn’t possible. Not since David and she divorced. Three years now, four if you counted the year they were separated. She didn’t hate David for what he had done, but her respect for him had been shattered. Adultery, whether a one-night stand or a long affair, wasn’t something she could live with. Nor did it make her feel better that he never married the woman he’d been carrying on with for two years. The breach of trust was irreparable.

David moved back to his home state of California a year after they separated and met Annette a few months later. His new wife was very religious, and little by little she got David interested in the church. David, a lifelong agnostic, had always seemed to be hungry for something more meaningful in his life. Now he attended church regularly and actually served as a marriage counselor along with the pastor. What could he possibly say to someone doing the same things he’d done, she often wondered, and how could he help others if he hadn’t been able to control himself? She didn’t know, didn’t care, really. She was simply glad that he still took an interest in his son.

Naturally, once she and David had split up, a lot of her friendships ended as well. now that she was no longer part of a couple, she seemed to be out of place at friends’ Christmas parties or backyard barbecues. A few friends remained, though, and she heard from them on her answering machine, suggesting that they set up a lunch date or come over for dinner. Occasionally she would go, but usually she made excuses not to. To her, none of those friendships seemed the way they used to, but then of course they weren’t. Things changed, people changed, and the world went rolling along right outside the window.

Since the divorce there had been only a handful of dates. It wasn’t that she was unattractive. She was, or so she was often told. Her hair was dark brown, cut just above her shoulders, and straight as spider silk. Her eyes, the feature she was most often complimented on, were brown with flecks of hazel that caught the light when she was outside. Since she ran daily, she was fit and didn’t look as old as she was. She didn’t feel old, either, but when she looked in the mirror lately, she seemed to see her age catching up with her. A new wrinkle around the corner of her eye, a gray hair that seemed to have grown overnight, a vaguely weary look from being constantly on the run.

Her friends thought she was crazy. “You look better now than you did years ago,” they insisted, and she still noticed a few men eyeing her across the aisle in the supermarket. But she wasn’t, nor ever would be, twenty-two again. Not that she would want to be, even if she could, unless, she sometimes thought to herself, she could take her more mature brain back with her. If she didn’t, she’d probably get caught up with another David—a handsome man who craved the good things in life with the underlying assumption that he didn’t have to play by the rules. But dammit, rules were important, especially the ones regarding marriage. They were the ones a person was never supposed to break. Her father and mother didn’t break them, her sister and brother-in-law didn’t, nor did Deanna and Brian. Why did he have to? And why, she wondered as she stood in the surf, did her thoughts always come back to this, even after all this time?

She supposed that it had something to do with the fact that when the divorce papers finally arrived, she felt as if a little part of her had died. That initial anger she felt had turned to sadness, and now it had become something else, almost a dullness of sorts. Even though she was constantly in motion, it seemed as if nothing special ever happened to her anymore. Each day seemed exactly like the last, and she had trouble differentiating among them. One time, about a year ago, she sat at her desk for fifteen minutes trying to remember the last spontaneous thing she’d done. She couldn’t think of anything.

The first few months had been hard on her. By then the anger had subsided and she didn’t feel the urge to lash out at David and make him pay for what he had done. All she could do was feel sorry for herself. Even having Kevin around all the time did nothing to change the fact that she felt absolutely alone in the world. There was a short time when she couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours a night, and now and then when she was at work, she would leave her desk and go sit in her car to cry for a while.

Now, with three years gone by, she honestly didn’t know if she would ever love someone again the way she had loved David. When David showed up at her sorority party at the beginning of her junior year, one look was all it took for her to know she wanted to be with him. Her young love had seemed so overwhelming, so powerful, then. She would stay awake thinking about him as she lay in her bed, and when she walked across campus, she smiled so often that other people would smile back whenever they saw her.

But love like that doesn’t last, at least that’s what she found out. Over the years, a different kind of marriage emerged. She and David grew up, and apart. It became hard to remember the things that had first drawn them to each other. Looking back, Theresa felt that David became a different person altogether, although she couldn’t pinpoint the moment when it all began to change. But anything can happen when the flame of a relationship goes out, and for him, it did. A chance meeting at a video store, a conversation that led to lunch and eventually to hotels throughout the greater Boston area.