Free The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks Page B

it whenever I came by. And half the time, I didn’t succeed. I’m surprised you don’t carry a picture of it in your wallet.”
    “I do.”
    “Really?”
    “I was kidding.”
    She laughed, the same free-spirited laugh from long ago. “How long have you been working on rigs?”
    “Fourteen years. I started as a roustabout, worked up to roughneck, and here I am, a derrick hand.”
    “Roustabout to roughneck to derrick hand?”
    “What can I say? We speak our own language out there on the ocean.” He absently picked at one of the grooves etched into the ancient countertop. “And what about you? Do you work? You used to talk about becoming a teacher.”
    She took a sip, nodding. “I taught for a year, but then I had Jared, my oldest son, and I wanted to stay at home with him. After that Lynn was born and then… we had a few years when a lot happened, including my dad passing away, a really toughtime.” She paused, conscious of how much she was leaving out, knowing it wasn’t the time or place to talk about Bea. She straightened up, keeping her voice steady. “A couple of years after that, Annette came along, and by then there was no reason for me to go back to work. But I’ve spent a lot of time over the past ten years volunteering at Duke University Hospital. I also do some fund-raising luncheons for them. It’s hard sometimes, but it makes me feel like I’m making a little bit of difference.”
    “How old are your kids?”
    She ticked them off on her fingers. “Jared turns nineteen in August and just finished his first year of college, Lynn is seventeen and starting her senior year. Annette, my nine-year-old, just finished third grade. She’s a sweet and happy-go-lucky little girl. Jared and Lynn, on the other hand, are at the age when they think they know everything and I, of course, know absolutely nothing.”
    “In other words, you’re saying they’re kind of like we were?”
    She thought about it, her expression almost wistful. “Maybe.”
    Dawson fell silent, staring out the window, and she followed his gaze. The creek had turned the color of iron and the slow-moving water reflected the darkening skies. The old oak tree near the bank hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been here, but the dock had rotted away, leaving only the pilings.
    “A lot of memories there, Amanda,” he observed, his voice soft.
    Maybe it was the way he sounded when he said it, but she felt something click inside at his words, like a key turning in a distant lock.
    “I know,” she said at last. She paused, wrapping her arms around herself, and for a while the hum of the refrigerator was the only sound in the kitchen. The overhead light cast a yellowish glow on the walls, projecting their profiles in abstract shadows. “How long are you planning on staying?” she finally asked.
    “I have a flight out early Monday morning. You?”
    “Not long. I told Frank I’d be back on Sunday. If my mom had her way, though, she would rather I had stayed in Durham all weekend. She told me it wasn’t a good idea to come to the funeral.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she didn’t like Tuck.”
    “You mean she didn’t like me.”
    “She never knew you,” Amanda said. “She never gave you a chance. She always had ideas about the way I was supposed to live my life. What I might want never seemed to matter. Even though I’m an adult, she still tries to tell me what to do. She hasn’t changed a bit.” She rubbed at the moisture on the jelly jar. “A few years ago, I made the mistake of telling her that I’d dropped in on Tuck, and you would have thought that I’d just committed a crime. She kept haranguing me, asking why I visited him, wanting to know what we talked about, all the while scolding me like I was still a child. So after that, I just stopped telling her about it. Instead, I’d tell her I was going shopping, or that I wanted to have lunch with my friend Martha at the beach. Martha and I were roommates in