The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope

by Rhonda Riley

  The twins’ names had always been a single unit: Jennie-and-Lil; Lil-and-Jennie. Now we all stumbled on the lone syllable of Lil’s name. It seemed too abrupt, a fresh wound each time we called her. And every time we stuttered there or paused before her name, Lil flinched.

  Soon, the other girls and I began, spontaneously, to call her Lillian, a mouthful that had always seemed too much for a small child. Sarah, particularly, seemed to savor drawing out the full three syllables. Only Adam continued, without any change of inflection or timing, to call her Lil.

  I found her once looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, chirping in the secret language she and Jennie had shared. She spoke back and forth in conspiratorial whispers as herself and then as Jennie. After several exchanges, her tone changed to tearful exasperation. When I moved, she caught sight of me in the mirror, froze in embarrassment, then collapsed in tears. “Momma, Momma!” I held her for a long time.

  For a while, Lil adopted Sarah as her new twin. They frequently wore identical clothes, something she and Jennie had done only for special occasions. The matched clothes hung loosely on Sarah and stretched tight on Lil, who had grown since Jennie’s death. She even let Sarah into the twins’ “house.”

  But then one day at the breakfast table Sarah answered Lil in the twins’ patois and Lil flew into a rage, screaming, “Don’t say that, don’t say that.” It took me and Rosie both to pull her off her sister. That was the end of Sarah as a twin.

  During the day, Sarah seemed the least affected by her sister’s death, but she soon began to have nightmares, so frightened of the dark that she stood in the middle of her bed paralyzed, crying and refusing to leave her room. Often her cries woke me and Adam, and we brought her into our room. She crawled into the middle of our bed and clung to us. After a few minutes, her small, bony grip would loosen in sleep.

  After Lil beat her away, Sarah began to spend more time with Gracie. They talked about what Jennie was doing in heaven, debating the merits of celestial activities as they collected things to take to the grave—a pretty ribbon, a dead butterfly, stale cookies.

  Gracie, more womanly each day, bounced back and forth between a brooding darkness that cut her off from us and a tender solicitousness toward all her sisters. Every time she was alone with me, she told me of her dreams of Jennie.

  Rosie, still a stick of a tomboy at thirteen, threw herself into school and the horses. Seldom mentioning Jennie directly, she talked constantly of college, never able to make up her mind if she should become a doctor or veterinarian. In spite of her efforts and interests, her grades flagged. Lack of concentration, her teachers said.

  One afternoon, as I carried a basket of folded laundry down the hall, I passed Gracie and Rosie’s room and heard Gracie say, “It’ll be okay. They’ll never know. I can fix it. See?”

  Rosie answered her, “I don’t want to. I bet nobody’s asking him to put makeup on.”

  “You want Momma and Daddy to know?”

  There was a pause.

  “Okay, okay. Go ahead.” Rosie sighed.

  I made certain to be nearby when they came out of the room. Rosie had a thick swatch of makeup above her left eye, awkwardly blended into her hairline. I pretended I hadn’t seen it.

  We made it through supper without comment. Adam didn’t notice. The scrape across her hand wasn’t worth a comment. Minor injuries were part of the stables for her.

  Later that evening, when I heard Rosie get out of the shower, I went into the bathroom. She tried to turn her face away, feigning sudden interest in drying her feet. But I waited until she sighed and turned to face me. The bruise on her face was bright blue, an ugly shiner, but there wasn’t much swelling, and her eyes were clear. Another bruise darkened her shoulder.

  “Gracie made me put the makeup on,” she said.

  “Put ice on it when you go to bed. It’ll keep it from swelling.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And no more fights. Ignore what people say.”

  “I couldn’t just stand there and let him say things about Daddy.”

  “What did he say?”

  Her eyes darted around the bathroom.

  “Tell me, Rosie.”

  “He said that Daddy hurt his momma. He claimed Daddy had to be ‘of the devil’ to hurt people while they were in church. He wouldn’t shut up.” Tears filled her eyes.

  I put my arms around her and discovered that she had to bend slightly to lay her head on my shoulder. I remembered John Thompson’s car veering toward the telephone pole after Addie spoke to him. “Be careful, Rosie. We don’t need anything else to deal with right now.”

  She stiffened in my arms, broke our embrace. “I don’t like people looking at us like that.” Her voice hardened.

  I touched her forehead, under the bruise. I felt as lacking in explanations as A. had been when he first arrived. A tender shame filled me; I had nothing to offer her. I could see no way to translate what I knew of her father into something her young hands could hold. Solemnly, she watched me as I lifted her hand to kiss her scraped knuckles.

  “And the boy, how does he look?” I asked.

  “Worse.” She smiled.

  I couldn’t help myself. I smiled back.

  I heard Rosie and Gracie in the bathroom later. Every morning, until the bruise dimmed to a barely visible yellow, Gracie covered it up, saving face.

  After her bruises were gone, Rosie stayed constantly by Adam’s side in the stable or on horseback. I wondered how Adam’s dark grief might alter her affection for him. Part of her, I’m sure, yearned to ride away from the weight of familial grief and love.

  Adam, I left to himself. I had little choice. Jennie’s death had sharpened something in him and, to be honest, in me, too. We did not argue or have any direct conflicts, but contact seemed to involve small, invisible cuts. Each was not too painful, but the accumulation stung.

  And so we all continued. We did our work. The girls finished the school year. The alfalfa and the garden came in well.

  Several times after the funeral, Marge had called to see how we were doing and tell me little bits of Clarion gossip. Her voice had the slightly hushed tones of taboo violation and genuine concern, but she never mentioned the Sunday night gathering of musicians at her and Freddie’s house. And she never referred directly to Adam.

  He hadn’t played his fiddle or his guitar since the funeral. One day Gracie brought Adam’s fiddle to me and laid the battered case in my hands. She tucked her hair behind her ears, a gesture that often preceded an important announcement on her part. “I talked to Marge. They’re still having their regular Sunday picking party. She said Freddie would like to see Daddy there. And Grandma says it would be nice to see us one Sunday evening before we head over to Freddie’s.” Gracie, the diplomat. She didn’t ask and she didn’t say I’d fallen down on the job. She just tried to fix things.

  The next Sunday, after dinner, I slipped Adam’s fiddle into the trunk when we all piled into the car for an afternoon visit with Momma. Later, as we were saying good-bye to Momma, I shooed Lil and Sarah off down the road toward Marge and Freddie’s. I got the fiddle out of the trunk and strolled toward Freddie’s with it under my arm, Rosie by my side. I looked back over my shoulder to see Gracie tentatively grinning up at her daddy, her arm looped through his.

  Sarah and Lil raced ahead of us and clambered up the steps and into the house. Marge’s voice carried past the music, “Well, look who’s here!” She held the screen door open and nodded at Adam as he passed by, her familiar smile forced wider than usual.

  The pickers crowding the kitchen watched as Adam entered. No one moved to offer him space. I felt a shriveling heat in my chest. Then Freddie stood. With a grave smile, he extended his hand to Adam. “Glad to see y’all back.” He stepped aside, offering his chair. I was almost faint with gratitude for his simple gesture.

  Adam sat, pulled his fiddle out of the case, and began tuning up. The other musicians shifted in their seats and plucked at strings.


  The next tune began, a waltz. Adam paused, his bow above the strings a beat past everyone else, a distant look of concentration on his face. Then he plunged in. The tightness in my chest uncoiled a little.

  Sarah grabbed Lil’s hand to pull her into the living room to dance, but Lil pressed against my leg and swatted her away. Marge led Gracie into the small space left in the center of the kitchen. They waltzed through the living room, out to the front porch and back, with Rose and Sarah following in exaggerated dips and swirls. Gracie stood taller than Marge now. Her small breasts pressed above the full shelf of Marge’s.

  Soon Rosie would be budding, too. My girls’ bodies would ferry them away from this time. An awful joy swelled in my throat and I had no skin, no bone between world and heart.

  I wiped my face and picked up Lil, a barely manageable weight for me, and waltzed her across the room.

  Gripping his fiddle, Adam played with his eyes closed. The waltz ended and we clapped.

  As the next tune, “Pretty Polly,” began, the girls, Marge, and I wandered off to the porch. The girls immediately vanished into the darkness, headed toward the mill. Their voices carried back to us. Marge and I sat in matching rockers.

  “It’s good to have y’all here. To see the girls dancing,” Marge said after a moment. “How are you holding up, Evelyn? All of you?” The music wafted down the hall. I strained to keep one ear on the girls and listen for any falter in Adam’s playing. But in Marge’s question, I heard the now-familiar lilt that was more than simple condolences. Few people spoke to me those days. Those who did always asked the same question: “How are y’all doing?” But the questions not asked seemed to resonate in their voice: “What did he do? Will he do it again?”

  “Fine. Fine,” I usually answered. I’d hardly done more than exchange greetings with anyone outside of family since the funeral.

  I looked at Marge’s plump, sweet profile and wanted to bury my face in her neck and tell her that my husband seemed to be gone, that I saw how others looked at him now, a small, hard glance before their eyes slid over and away from him. I wanted to ask her how it could be that grief gutted me every day, yet my body remained whole and normal, unbloodied. Instead, I said, “It’s not easy, but we’re all doing as well as can be expected.”

  She rubbed my hand and I saw in her face that same small surge of relief that I’d seen on others, curiosity followed by relief that I was not going to weep, not utter something terrible.

  I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, then I called the girls onto the porch.

  When we got back to the kitchen, everyone sat with their instruments in their laps, their eyes on Adam. He stood at the edge of their circle, bow poised. My pulse quickened. He gave me a glance I could not read. As his eyes skipped across the girls’ faces, he played the first notes of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” at a dirge-like tempo. The other musicians picked up.

  Rosie was the first to begin singing. Soon Gracie joined her singing, then Sarah and Lil. They faced their father as they sang. He bent slightly at the waist, swaying. The natural harmony of the girls’ voices and the mournful tempo filled the room. “Hurrah. Hurrah.”

  After the first verse, only Freddie continued playing with Adam; the others lowered their instruments. When the last note ended, no one moved. Adam bowed to the girls. Marge cleared her throat and said, “That was pretty, real pretty, girls. Adam.”

  Then someone announced “Haste to the Wedding.” The lively jig sprang up and the room returned to itself. Adam nodded good-bye to Freddie and put his fiddle away. I waved to Marge and corralled the girls toward the door.

  Marge followed and stopped us on the steps, her eyes shining. “That was some of the prettiest singing I’ve heard in a long time. Where’ve you been keeping those voices? Come sing something at Sunday school next week.”

  On the way home, the girls debated Marge’s proposal. Neither Gracie nor Rosie wanted to give up their new freedom from church. Lil thought it was a good idea, but wanted to sing her favorites from West Side Story. Sarah, who’d been silent during her sisters’ discussion, ended the debate with a single pronouncement: “If they’re going to stare at us anyway, let’s give ’em a good reason.” She looked up at Adam. “If we’re singing in church, you’ll come listen to us?”

  He cupped her head, smoothing her hair. “I’ll always be there when y’all are singing.”

  The girls sang first at Sunday school services, visiting a different class in the children’s group each week. Depending on what part of the church they were in, I heard them as I sat in my adult class, their close sister harmony resonating down the church halls. My heart beat faster when I heard them, even at home when they practiced.

  At least superficially, my family ignored what they now knew about Adam, as they had ignored the obvious fact that Addie’s father was not who she and I claimed him to be. Her situation had been beyond her control, an old story with easily traceable motives. She was clearly a relative and treated as such. Adam, on the other hand, had transgressed in an inexplicable, willful, and literally painful way. No one confronted him, but there was a short pause, an intake of breath, when he walked into a room.

  Momma continued to welcome us with unaltered enthusiasm. On the rare occasions now when we were all at her house with my brother and sisters, Momma’s presence tempered Bertie’s judgmental chill. Joe retreated into a kind of jovial formality. Rita never quite lost that startled look around Adam, actually flinching if he spoke with any suddenness or volume. Only Daddy seemed completely unaffected, his smoking and rocking habits uninterrupted.

  Momma was the only one to ever ask me outright about what happened at Jennie’s funeral. We were on the front porch, shelling the first of the white acre peas. All of the girls were out of earshot. Momma leaned over and looked straight into my face. “Evelyn, do you understand what happened at the funeral? Has Adam ever done anything like that before?” Her hands were still as she waited for my response.

  For the first time in years, I felt the urge to tell Momma the truth about Addie and Adam. But I couldn’t face the possibility that she would not believe me, that she would think I was crazy. The truth seemed too fantastic for the porch we sat on, for the peas we shelled. I pushed away the urge to confide and wiped my tears. “No, Momma, I don’t know what happened. Adam didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  “I know that. That should be clear to anybody. He was just hurting so much himself. I swear, though, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life and I hope never to again. Hurt so bad I thought my chest would burst. If it had been anyone but Adam, I’d’ve run out of the church and never come back. I’ve heard of people speaking in tongues, but I’ve never heard of anything like that—and how it hurt! It was a peculiar thing.” She pressed one hand against her ear.

  I nodded my agreement.

  Then she told me her news: “A doctor’s appointment.”

  I should have paid attention to that phrase. Momma, like most in her generation, rarely went to see a doctor, only if she was very sick. But when I asked her what was wrong, she waved her hand, dismissing my concern. “I’m bleeding like it’s my monthly. It doesn’t come regular. You know I went through the change years ago, before Sarah was born. Now it’s back. I feel fine. I just want to know if I should be keeping your father on his side of the bed.”

  We laughed.

  Jennie’s death overshadowed everything then. Grief gutted me, and I relied on Momma.

  I was erratic, hugging the girls, afraid to let them out of the house one minute and oblivious to their presence the next. Adam was the same. Momma became our anchor, our consistency. She spent as much time as she could on the farm, and, when she was not there, I knew I could call her. The girls were reluctant to go home when we were at her house and to see her leave when she visited the farm.

  So, that day, months after Jennie’s funeral, when we sat on the porch shelling peas and Momma announced that she’d decided to see the doctor, I took litt
le notice and felt no alarm. She’d always been there. My fears were centered on the girls and Adam and what I could not say about or to them. I didn’t look further for more to fear or grieve.

  I heard nothing else about her doctor’s visit until the evening Daddy called to tell me that the doctor had sent Momma straight to the hospital. “Female troubles,” he said. “A tumor. They’re taking everything out.”

  During the week after her surgery, Momma spent most days in a painful stupor on the couch in front of the TV. But after her bath one day, she asked me to help her into her newly made bed.

  Rita had stopped by earlier with clean bed linens and a pot roast for Momma and Daddy’s dinner. Daddy’s shift at the mill would not end for hours. Momma and I were alone. To pass the time and distract her from her pain, she wanted to organize an old shoe box of photos.

  She studied a black-and-white photo of me and Addie, taken not long before Addie left with Roy and came back to be my husband. Joe had been the first to arrive one morning to help pull a field of corn. He’d shot the photo to finish off a roll of film he wanted to get developed. In the snapshot, Addie and I stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling into the early morning sun and leaning back against the garden fence by the barn. Addie’s hat threw a shadow across her right eye. My hair hung down past my shoulders.

  I’d not seen the picture in years. I remembered Joe corralling us out of the barn, the morning dew still a web of diamonds on the grass, and the press of Addie’s warm arm at my side. Longing streaked through me, not so much for Addie but for that time of simplicity and innocence, a time when there was just the land, the seasons, and inexplicable Addie to reckon with—no babies, no death. Behind us in the photograph, between our two heads, the old apple tree and the place where I found her were visible.