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The Fowler Cooper Publication Federation

January 2019

Primary Topic: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

Additional book(s) mentioned: the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling,

Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson


Amy allowed herself to ungraciously flop on the bed. Sheldon, who was sitting on his side reading a comic book, turned to look down at her.

"Difficulties getting Ada to bed?" he asked.

"No, surprisingly not. I thought she'd be hyper, but she fell asleep before I was half-way through the book. She must have been exhausted." Amy groaned softly. "As am I."

Sheldon sat the comic book on his bed side table and slid down next to her, leaving his lamp on for a soft glow. He stopped halfway to kiss her cheek. "Birthday parties are overly and unnecessarily exhausting. But you were marvelous."

It was sweet, but it was also, Amy knew, Sheldon's version of 'I told you so.' She smiled. "Did you hate it?"

"No. Given the mix of people and the crowded conditions, I thought it went as well as could be expected. But I still think it was unnecessary. And confusing. Her birthday is tomorrow."

"We've been over this. It worked out better for everyone to have the party on a Saturday. It doesn't matter, she won't remember it," Amy said without any heat. She was both too tired to argue, and, more importantly, too happy to do so.

"I remember my first birthday party. Missy insisted on being the center of attention," Sheldon protested.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

Amy sighed. "No, you most certainly do not. The hippocampus and amygdala are not fully developed until at least age three, and those parts of the brain are vital for memory storage. It is possible to retain a few vague, impression-like memories around age two, but nothing at age one. End of discussion."

"Fine."

She let him pout for a few moments before she said, "Tomorrow we're meeting your family for brunch before they have to be at the airport, right? Please tell me we'll have time to sleep in."

"You will, but I'm going to church with them."

"What?" Amy rolled over on her side to look at him.

"Mom is making me go. She somehow found out I didn't go for the Christmas service when you were pregnant. Remember?"

Amy laughed.

"Why is that funny?" Sheldon asked.

"Because you're a grown man with a child of your own, and you're still letting your mother insist you go to church once a year."

He shrugged. "It makes her happy."

She leaned in closer and kissed his cheek, before pulling his arm around her so that she could lay her head on his chest. "You're a good man, Sheldon Cooper."

"I'm a great man."

"Yes." Amy paused. "Do you want Ada and I to go with you?"

"No, you don't have to. It's not your bargain. You can just meet us at the restaurant afterwards. We'll drive separately. But if you want me to take Ada so you have some quiet to sleep in, I will."

"Mmmmmm, I'm tempted. It will give her somewhere to wear that frilly monstrosity my mother bought her." The mental image of Sheldon attempting to corral a squirming one-year old into both tights and a dress with multiple buttons and bows made Amy giggle.

"What?"

"Nothing. Leave her here. Just wake me up before you leave. I'll put her in the dress some other day and take her picture to send to my mother."

Sheldon squeezed her shoulder. "You're a good woman, Amy Farrah Fowler."

They lay in silence, and Amy's eyelids started to feel even heavier.

"It really was a great party, Amy. You outdid yourself," Sheldon said.

"Thank you, but I don't deserve all the credit. Raj was very helpful. But it was too crowded, you're right. I was surprised everyone came. How exciting can a first birthday party be for someone like Kripke?"

"I was surprised to see Nurse Patel with him," Sheldon said.

"Why? They're engaged." She paused. "And she keeps telling you to call her Sarah. Were you embarrassed she was here?"

"No, why would I be embarrassed?"

Amy shrugged. "Because you were seeing her outside of the clinic."

"Why would that be embarrassing? That's her profession. I'm sure if she ever has a physics need, she'll come see me."

"Or maybe Barry since she's going to marry him," Amy said.

Sheldon snorted. "Her loss."

Amy smiled. "Wasn't Penny just beautiful? I looked like a beached whale at thirty-six weeks. I can't wait for baby Fenny to get here."

"Are we really going to call him baby Fenny? His name will be Fenton. I'll grant you it's an absurd name, but I expected nothing less from Leonard and Penny. The only redeeming thing about it is that it was Harry Mudd's middle name in Star Trek."

"Okay, wasn't Fenton Charles Hofstedder's mother just beautiful? Although, does it make me a bad friend that I'm disappointed she's having a boy?"

"I don't know how to answer either of those questions," Sheldon said after a pause.

"I was just hoping that Penny would have a girl, and then she and Ada would grow up together and be besties, too." Amy yawned. "But Bernadette is pregnant again, so maybe she'll have a girl."

Sheldon rubbed her shoulder. "Ada will be fine. As she will no doubt have an IQ dozens of points above the offspring of our friends, she may find them too intellectually limiting regardless of their gender."

"Sheldon . . . " Amy sighed.

"What? You've always allowed me to be honest with you, when we're alone, even if you insist I can't say things like that in front of our friends."

"I do want you to be honest. But please don't even allude to that attitude in front of Ada. And leave them all be. They're just children." She rubbed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Sheldon whispered. "Perhaps you're right." He paused. "I also think you need a good night's sleep. There were too many people here, it was too crowded and noisy, you were too stressed."

"Well, we won't do it every year. And I doubt your entire family will fly in from Texas for it every year."

"Mom will, if we ask. And . . . your mother lives fairly close."

Amy let out a sound that resembled, "Mmmmrrrrr."

"Amy?"

"Hmmm?"

"I will admit this is not my area of expertise, but why do you hate the dress your mother gave Ada? You seemed to like the one Howard and Bernadette gave her."

She sighed heavily and rolled off of him, landing on her back, looking up at the ceiling.

"Did I say something wrong?" Sheldon turned toward her. "I shouldn't have brought it up since you're so tired."

"Was it that obvious when I opened it?" she asked, putting her hand over her face.

"No. I only saw it flash on your face for a second. You recovered well."

I hope Sheldon is right. She lowered her hand. "It's not the dress, really. I mean, it is some. Where is she supposed to wearing something that puffy and precious? It's so impractical. Bernadette's dress is lifestyle appropriate." She sighed again. "It's the idea of the dress."

"I don't understand."

"It's what she dressed me in when I was young. She forced me to wear puffy dresses long after I wanted to. Everybody else was wearing tight-rolled jeans and neon shirts and banana clips to school, but not Amy Farrah Fowler. 'A true lady always wears a dress,'" she finished in a mocking tone.

"But you don't wear jeans now. You still wear skirts and dresses. You only wear your sweatpants when you know we'll be home alone all day."

Amy closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I know. It was a compromise that became a uniform. She would give up the frilly dresses, but I could not wear pants."

"But you're an adult now."

Amy looked at Sheldon out of the corner of her eye. "Are you saying you want me to wear jeans?"

"No," Sheldon said. "Unless you want to. I, um, actually really like your cardigans." He blushed just enough that Amy smiled. "I was just asking."

"Why do you always wear graphic tee shirts?" Amy asked.

"That's easy. Because my mother - Oh, I see."

Sheldon rolled on his back again and reached for her, until Amy crawled back onto his chest. They lay for a short time in silence.

"Maybe we aren't such good children after all," Amy said.

"Speak for yourself. I'm a wonderful son." Sheldon paused. "But I don't think it matters to them anymore. Just to us." Another pause. "Do you want me to wear something else?"

"Not really. I met you in your tee shirts, I fell in love with you in your tee shirts, I've memorized them all. I wouldn't change you for the world. You do look especially handsome in a suit, but that's impractical and unnecessary for everyday wear."

"You look especially beautiful in your green dress."

Amy raised her head slightly. "Green dress? The one I wore to the conference earlier this year?"

Sheldon nodded. Amy put her head down. She hadn't thought about that dress since she wore it. She was breastfeeding then and could not find anything new to fit her giant breasts and her extra weight. Penny had suggested a wrap dress at the store, and, even though Amy had been apprehensive of something essentially held together by a single belt, she had to admit after she tried it on that it covered a multitude of sins. She had planned to wear it with a tan cardigan, to try and obscure some of her curves; but that morning, Sheldon had surprised her by wrapping his arms around her in their closet and whispering, "You look beautiful." The cardigan was left on the shelf. Amy remembered how she started her talk, suddenly self-conscious that people may be focusing on her form in that dress instead of what she had to say, her voice less sure than normal, her eyes searching the crowd. Then she heard the commotion from the far right side of the room, as a lanky man in a Captain America tee shirt made everyone in the second row move so he could reach the lone empty seat in the middle. She had allowed her eyes to rest on him and smile at him for the barest span of time. He smiled back. She slid her professional face back on, stood a little taller, and spoke a little louder to the crowd. In fact, as she recalled . . .

"If I was so beautiful in it, why were you so eager to get me out of it?" she smirked.

"Because you looked even more beautiful taking it off."

The smirk faded. "Do you think it's possible for a woman to be taken seriously for her intelligence and the advances she has made in science, and still be a woman?"

"Um, yes?" Sheldon sounded unsure of his answer.

"I mean can she be taken seriously if she displays her womanly goods as it were? Or if she were beautiful? Or would she always just be categorized as beautiful or curvaceous?" Amy sighed. "I worry sometimes about what type of example I should set for Ada. I want her to be proud of her mind but not ashamed of her body."

"I cannot speak for the entire scientific community, but I take your career and advances very seriously. Just as seriously as I take your curves. As for Ada, she has the best example to follow."

Amy smiled and squeezed Sheldon a bit. "I love you, Sheldon. Can you believe a whole year is gone, that we survived, that our beautiful baby isn't really much of a baby anymore? She's already saying several words, and she'll be walking soon."

Sheldon rubbed her shoulder. "I think we just didn't survive it, we excelled at it. But, no, I can't believe it. At the risk of sounding like an old person, where did the time go?"

"We are old people. And I don't know how that happened, either. But you're so lucky, you remember everything. There are moments with Ada, and with you, that I find myself thinking 'I must remember this. Try to remember this.' And sometimes I worry that my brain has crowded out the good memories with the memories of Ada crying or something like that." Amy shut her eyes and listened to the steady rhythm of Sheldon's heart beat. She had been right months ago and he was right tonight: he was an excellent father. Unconventional, certainly, and she did wonder if perhaps he was encouraging them to be too strict at times, but he had, indeed, excelled at it. Those were the memories she wanted to keep forever, those were the memories she was fearful of losing. But at least Sheldon would always be there to remind her of them.

She took a deep, contented, sleepy breath, happy to relax and fall asleep, when Sheldon suddenly said, "It's Book Club Night."

Amy groaned. "Can we do it tomorrow?"

"But you love Book Club! And, as for tomorrow . . . well, I guess." But she heard the itch in his voice. He may have changed and calmed down some over the years, but he was still the same man who woke her up at 11:54 p.m. one night to discuss a book so that he wouldn't "be late."

"No," she said. "Let's do it now. It was awful. Goodnight."

"That's not how this works. You have to say why you picked it."

A resigned smile played at the corners of her mouth. Well, it was worth a shot. "Penny suggested it. It's her favorite book."

"Since when do you take literary advice from Penny?"

"I thought that if it was her favorite book, then maybe there was something to it. She likes Harry Potter, you know. And a lot of people love this book."

"But not you. Did you really hate it?"

Amy raised her head up to look at Sheldon's face. "Uhhh, yes. Why?"

Sheldon let out a breath. "Because I hated it, too. But I thought I was supposed to love it. But I didn't. But I think we were supposed to be moved by it; who wouldn't like this story? But I wasn't moved, I was annoyed. I couldn't understand what was happening."

Smiling, Amy put her head back down. "I think it's emotionally manipulative. Maybe you were feeling that. It's clearly written to be heart-breaking; it doesn't even try to hide that. I thought it came across as cloy and insincere because it was so blatantly obvious. It was overkill."

"Oh. Maybe. Yes, I think you're right." Sheldon swallowed. "What does that say about us? Are we callous, cynical people?"

"No, Sheldon, it means were are intelligent and perceptive. And independent thinkers." She paused. "I think it also means Book Club has had an effect on how we critically analyze a book. Remember when we read Somewhere in Time?"

"Of course."

"How was this different?"

"Because . . . Huh. Because Somewhere in Time felt true. Which doesn't make any sense, because it was based on theoretical, illogical pseudo-science."

"Go on," Amy whispered, closing her eyes again, content to listen to his voice rumbling through his chest.

"I felt like in this book, we were being told how to feel, even though it was explained as how Noah felt. But he just kept saying the same things over and over again, like we were being systematically indoctrinated. In Somewhere in Time, it felt more natural. There was always a wonder there; here it was assumed that it would be a certain way. I also thought this book was a novella that had been pulled into a novel. The whole day in the nursing home, every single second was explained ad nauseam." He paused. "Amy, since we're now old people, have you thought about what will happen to us? When we really are old? What if we don't live long enough to transfer our consciousnesses into machines and achieve immortality?"

"Uh-huh," Amy murmured.

"I think that if one of us started to get Alzheimer's or dementia, that would be the worst possible outcome. To be robbed of our brilliance! And, as you just pointed out, our memories. Do you remember that line from Doctor Who that River says? I'm sure you do. 'The day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me.' Two sentences, and it's so much more profound and heart-breaking than this entire book, don't you think? And River's notebook! So much better than this one."

"Mmmmmmmm," Amy breathed out.

"You're right, this is too depressing to talk about now," Sheldon said. "Today is a happy day. There's a River quote for that, too, isn't there? 'Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed.' Do you know what you said about memories, that I was lucky that I could keep them all? Sometimes, I also try very hard to control my memories. I also work to only keep the good ones, the ones in which you are happy. I believe that one day I will succeed. When you are happy, it makes me happy."

Amy didn't reply, so Sheldon lifted his head to look down at her on his chest. She was sound asleep. He smiled and put his head back. Sleeping with her, another blessed memory of happiness to keep.


The corresponding After Dark chapter is Chapter 26: The Green Dress.

Just as Sheldon and Amy marvel over how fast the time has gone, we have reached another anniversary. The Anniversary Evolution: Year Four follows this Book Club/After Dark pair.