Lalibela, we learned, was roughly twenty-five miles away, and two thousand feet higher in elevation. The winding asphalt road curved through the valley and along the peaks; in the hour it took to reach our destination, we never saw another vehicle.
We did, however, see a young boy around ten years of age, eight miles from Lalibela. Walking along the road, he was hauling a monstrously overstuffed burlap bag of charcoal that he intended to deliver to the city. The bag, both taller and wider than the child, had been strapped to his back and looked many times heavier than the child himself. When he saw our bus passing, he smiled and waved a greeting before continuing his slow march to the town.
Most of the town of Lalibela was situated off the main highway, along bumpy gravel roads. Its thatched-roof adobe homes featured few glass windows, but the town boasted numerous places to eat, small, family-owned businesses, and souvenir shops. Nearly everyone we saw wore western clothing. A number of tables lined the roads, offering various T-shirts, most emblazoned with American logos. For all intents and purposes, the town of Lalibela was an Ethiopian tourist trap.
Our buses parked near the carved rock churches, and as soon as we stepped off the bus, we were besieged by teens; unlike other places we’d visited, they had no trinkets for sale. Instead, they asked for money; every child who came up to us told us that he needed money either to attend school or to buy the books he needed at the school he was currently attending.
In the end, they were forced back by Ethiopian guards swinging sticks.
Lalibela was one of the least-known sites we would visit on the trip; few knew what to expect. We weren’t disappointed. The vast amount of labor needed for construction—literally carving through rock by hand—was evident as soon as we gazed upon the first church we would visit. It was far larger than we’d imagined; at least sixty feet long and forty feet wide, it was surrounded by modern scaffolding that supported a roof over the top.
“The roof is to prevent leaks,” the guide informed us, “and to keep the churches from decaying.”
We spent the next couple of hours wandering from one church to the next. The churches were dark inside. Few had windows, and though fluorescent lights had been strung inside, they barely permeated the blackness. The floors were slick, polished by eight hundred years of use to an almost icy smoothness. Because the churches are still in use today, throw rugs had been placed throughout. Unfortunately, they didn’t cover the floor in its entirety, and we moved slowly, like blind men in foreign surroundings, to prevent us from falling.
In all, we would spend three hours in Lalibela. Toward the end of our visit, Micah and I wandered off to take pictures; because the churches were so different from everything we’d seen up to that point—carved into stone, rather than built with stone—we tried to find vantage points that could capture how unique they were.
The visits to the churches had left Micah strangely silent, and as I was snapping away, he went to sit on one of the ledges overlooking the site. I eventually walked over to join him.
“So what did you think of this place?” Micah finally asked.
“It was worth seeing, if that’s what you mean.”
“They’re not exactly like the churches we have back home, are they?”
“I don’t think the kids would appreciate having to stand the whole time during the service.”
He smiled. “Are you glad you still go to Mass?”
“As opposed to what?”
“Going to another Christian church?”
I thought about it. “Yeah,” I said. “I am. But Cat is Catholic, too, so we’ve never considered changing.”
“I like the church I go to now. Or used to, anyway.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just got bored that Mass always seemed the same. And I couldn’t relate the sermons to my life. I think church should make you feel close to God, but I wasn’t getting that. With the new church, I did for a while.”
“Do you think you’ll ever feel that way again?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t felt . . . close to God lately. I’m not even sure that I believe in God anymore.”
“Really?”
“Not God, per se. I think God exists, but I’m not so sure that he takes an active role in the world. I think he put everything in motion and since then he’s just sitting back watching how it’s going to turn out.”
“Hmm,” I responded. “Go on.”
“It’s not what they tell you in church, obviously. In church, you’re supposed to pray and be thankful, but like I said before I’ve come to the conclusion that prayer doesn’t work. And for a long time there, it wasn’t easy to be thankful for much. We went through one big challenge after the next. They just didn’t let up. And everyone kept telling me to be strong, that it would work out in the end.”
I knew Micah wasn’t looking for a response.
“And after a while, it just kind of hit me. What do I really believe? I followed the commandments, I believed in Jesus, I went to church, and I prayed all the time. And when I really needed God’s help, it was like the only answer I got was, Who cares? I didn’t want God to give me strength to endure whatever was happening, I wanted God to put an end to what was happening. And he didn’t. So I quit.”
I said nothing. When it comes to matters of faith, the best response is to say nothing unless you’re asked directly.
“Didn’t you ever feel that way?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “All the time.”
“But it didn’t hit you the way it hit me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I guess I didn’t think any of the bad stuff was really God’s fault in the first place. Things just happened. And if God didn’t cause them, I guess I didn’t expect him to change it.”
He nodded, then said, “I still get sad about everything that happened. Every now and then, it just hits me. Sometimes, it takes days for me to get over it.”
I put my arm around his shoulder. “That happens to me, too.”
“What do you do?”
I shrugged. “Work,” I offered.
He laughed. “Yeah. Your balance is totally out of whack.”
“Yours, too. Work, spirituality, family, friendships, health—you can’t ignore any of them or it’ll get you in the end.”
“Are you saying that I’m as bad as you?”
“Sure,” I said. “We’re brothers. We reacted to the stress in different ways, but to be honest, I think our situations are more alike than you realize. We went through the same things, didn’t we?”
By early 1995, my sister had been in remission for two years and had become a mother. Her CAT scans continued to come up clear. With every passing month, our worries began to diminish. At the same time, though, all three of us became more and more concerned about our father.
His behavior outside work was growing worse. Though heavily in debt, he began spending money like crazy; he remodeled the house and bought a new SUV, and whenever he spoke to us on the phone, his only interest seemed to be in talking about Flame. Despite having a new girlfriend, his world seemed to revolve around the dog.
The estrangement from his family continued; frequently, I’d get calls from relatives wondering what was going on, yet there was nothing I could say except that I didn’t understand what was happening any better than they did. He was distant and on edge whenever I called, his conversations with Cat had grown short, and Dana was busy with twins and living on the far side of town, which brought them into little contact with each other.
Even Micah was having trouble making sense of what was going on. When pressed, my dad would swear that he’d never been happier, that work was going well, that he loved his weekends with the dog and his girlfriend. Twenty minutes later, however—long after Micah had asked him how he was doing and had moved on to discussing other things—my dad would launch into DEFCON 5, suddenly turning to Micah and snarling:
“My life isn’t your damn business anyway, so why don’t you get the hell out of here!”’
Bizarre. Hurtful. Worrisome.
Yet Cat and I were so far removed from the situation that we wouldn’t learn the full story of what was going on until years later. We were caught up in yet another move, while raising two young boys. For the first couple of months, Cat had to stay in New Bern to try to sell the house, while I lived in a small apartment in Greenville. During the days, I worked at establishing a new territory; in the evenings I’d drive around looking for a house we could buy. On the weekends, I’d either head back home, or Cat would come to Greenville to view the homes that I’d found.
By the end of May, we finally moved into our new home in Greenville, and spent the first few weeks meeting our neighbors, learning the layout of the town, and making new friends. Miles had always been outgoing and friendly; he met lots of kids and frequently played with them. Ryan, not yet two, was still a toddler. He hadn’t learned to talk yet and seemed much more introspective. He showed little of the curiosity that Miles had at his age and it often seemed as if his mind was elsewhere. He screamed in terror whenever we put him in the car, and seldom responded when we tried to get his attention. When we discussed it with our pediatrician, he said not to worry and assured us that Ryan would grow out of it.
“He’s not even two yet,” he said. “Just give him a little time.”
In July, I started the process of soliciting literary agents; I sent out twenty-five query letters and the first agent to respond, Theresa Park, was willing to work with me on the novel; the next twenty-four would all end up passing on the project. By October 1995, the novel was as ready as it would ever be.
Aside from worries about my dad and the move, the year had been quiet until then. My sister had gone through yet another negative CAT scan—she was tested every three months—and my brother was doing well in real estate. My dad, if struggling in his personal life, was apparently functioning smoothly in his professional life. For a short while, it almost seemed as if things were normal; looking back, I now realize it was simply a lull before the storm broke full force.
While both my agent and I had high hopes about how the novel would be received, hopes were one thing, and reality was another. In my heart, I knew that I’d be pleased if I secured enough of an advance to pay off the credit card bills, or perhaps buy a decent car for my wife. Anything would have helped; I was living a typically middle-class lifestyle with the same budget concerns as everyone else in our neighborhood; the mortgage on my house was $125,000.
The novel, entitled The Notebook, was sent to publishers on a Thursday and Friday; on Monday, I listened to a message that my agent had left on my voice mail at work, one that asked me to call. It was a little before noon, and I was getting ready for a luncheon at one of the doctors’ offices. I’d brought all the food, set everything up, and was waiting for the doctors to finish with their morning patients so I could tell them about the effectiveness of Lederle’s antibiotics and antihypertensives.
Using the office phone, I dialed my agent, and she came straight to the point.
“You have an offer from Warner Books,” she said. She sounded a little breathless on the phone.
“And?”
“Warner Books would like to offer you one million dollars for the book,” she said.
I blinked, pressing the phone hard to my ear. Thinking I had heard her wrong, I asked her to repeat what she’d said. She did, and it was all I could do to sit in the chair without falling to the floor.
In one fell swoop, less than two months before my thirtieth birthday, I realized that I’d just become a millionaire.
How was I supposed to react in a situation like that? I had no idea, nor did Cathy. I can say, however, that even though I’d had my agent repeat the number not twice, but three times, I still believed I’d somehow been mistaken in what I’d heard. A few minutes later, however, my agent and I spoke again, and she informed me that the deal had closed.
I immediately called Cat, but she wasn’t in. Nor was Micah when I tried to reach him—he happened to be out of town. Or Dana. Or my dad. None of them were home, and with the news of the sale still bubbling inside me, the doctors finally began arriving at the luncheon. Despite the earth-shaking news I’d just received, I somehow forced myself to talk to them about pharmaceuticals.
Later, when I finally reached Cat, she was flabbergasted. In excited moments, my wife’s New Hampshire accent becomes pronounced.
“No suh!” she screamed. “No suh!”
“Yes suh!” I shouted in response.
Even my dad, when I told him the news, seemed genuinely excited for me; after speaking to him, I spent much of the evening on the phone, talking to various relatives. Micah was almost the last person I talked to that day, and he was silent for a long moment after I finally told him the news.
“You’re kidding,” he finally said.
“It’s unreal, isn’t it?”
“A million dollars? For a book that you wrote?”
“Can you believe it?”
“Not right this moment, but give me a second.” He breathed into the phone. “This is . . . unbelievable . . .” he murmured, before pausing again.
As close as we were, we weren’t completely immune to sibling rivalry. Ever since we’d graduated, Micah had always been more successful in his various careers than I’d been. It had always made sense to both of us; he was the older brother, and—aside from school and track—had been more successful in everything. He was happy for me, but I also knew that part of him wished he’d been the one with the news.
Yet Micah was able to put all that aside, and his next words meant more to me than anything anyone else had said to me.