A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

you enjoy it, or does it make you sad?”
    “Both. Some of the children here came from really horrible situations. It’s enough to break your heart when you hear about it. But when they see you come in with some books from the library or a new game to play, their smiles just take all the sadness away. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”
    She practically glowed when she spoke. Though she wasn’t saying it to make me feel guilty, that was exactly the way I felt. It was one of the reasons it was so hard to put up with her, but by then I was getting fairly used to it. She could twist you every way but normal, I’d come to learn.
    At that moment, Mr. Jenkins opened the door and invited us in. The office looked almost like a hospital room, with black-and-white tiled floors, white walls and ceilings, a metal cabinet against the wall. Where the bed would normally have been, there was a metal desk that looked like it had been stamped off the assembly line. It was almost neurotically clean of anything personal. There wasn’t a single picture or anything.
    Jamie introduced me, and I shook Mr. Jenkins’s hand. After we sat down, Jamie did most of the talking. They were old friends, you could see that right off, and Mr. Jenkins had given her a big hug as soon as she’d entered. After smoothing out her skirt, Jamie explained our plan. Now, Mr. Jenkins had seen the play a few years back, and he knew exactly what she was talking about almost as soon as she started. But even though Mr. Jenkins liked Jamie a lot and knew she meant well, he didn’t think it was a good idea.
    “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said.
    That’s how I knew what he was thinking.
    “Why not?” Jamie asked, her brow furrowed. She seemed genuinely perplexed by his lack of enthusiasm.
    Mr. Jenkins picked up a pencil and started tapping it on his desk, obviously thinking about how to explain himself . In time, he put down the pencil and sighed.
    “Even though it’s a wonderful offer and I know you’d like to do something special, the play is about a father who eventually comes to realize how much he loves his daughter.” He let that sink in for a moment and picked up the pencil again. “Christmas is hard enough around here without reminding the kids of what they’re missing. I think that if the children see something like that .  . .”
    He didn’t even have to finish. Jamie put her hands to her mouth. “Oh my,” she said right away, “you’re right. I hadn’t thought about that.”
    Neither had I, to tell you the truth. But it was obvious right off the bat that Mr. Jenkins made sense.
    He thanked us anyway and chatted for a while about what he planned to do instead. “We’ll have a small tree and a few gifts—something that all of them can share. “You’re welcome to visit Christmas Eve. . . .”
    After we said our good-byes, Jamie and I walked in silence without saying anything. I could tell she was sad. The more I hung around Jamie, the more I realized she had lots of different emotions—she wasn’t always cheerful and happy. Believe it or not, that was the first time I recognized that in some ways she was just like the rest of us.
    “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” I said softly.
    “I am, too.”
    She had that faraway look in her eyes again, and it was a moment before she went on.
    “I just wanted to do something different for them this year. Something special that they would remember forever. I thought for sure this was it. . . .” She sighed. “The Lord seems to have a plan that I just don’t know about yet.”
    She was quiet for a long time, and I looked at her. Seeing Jamie feeling bad was almost worse than feeling bad because of her. Unlike Jamie, I deserved to feel bad about myself—I knew what kind of person I was. But with her .  . .
    “While we’re here, do you want to stop in to see the kids?” I asked into the silence. It wasthe only thing I could think to do that might make her feel