The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,106

but it was about him. I thought I was the stranger, but he was the one she did not know. She’d been looking for him in me! All my life, she’d seen the shadow of another person on me. And she’d never spoken his name to me. At that moment, I did not know her. She seemed smaller now, a frailer version of her old self, as if the surgeons had taken more than her womb and ovaries. Her skin glowed soft and translucent.

I lied: “It’s okay, Momma. It doesn’t change anything.”

Relief brightened her eyes.

I held her face in my hands and looked straight into her eyes. “I have a good daddy. You gave me a good daddy.” She relaxed back against the pillows, her face calmer.

The picture of me and Addie still rested on the pile of photos. Stunned, I put my head in Momma’s lap and wept for her, for my two fathers, and for all the things that never get said or known.

Seven

Flood

Within a few weeks, Momma returned to her shift at the mill. We urged her to retire, but she insisted she wanted to go back to work. She looked smaller and older. The dark circles remained under her eyes. The differences in her appearance seemed to me to be indications, not only of the change in her health, but signs of a new momma sprung from her revelation about my father.

With self-conscious discretion, I observed the faces of my brother and sisters for similarities to Momma and Daddy. Joe looked the most like Daddy, same dark hair, brown eyes, and receding hairline. The same lumbering gait. Bertie was stocky, like Daddy and Joe, but had Momma’s height and complexion. Rita was the most slender and graceful, with straight red hair and fair skin. With a hand mirror, I studied my own profile. I looked like my mother. The planes of my face from cheek to jaw might have been slightly different from hers, my face maybe longer, more oval. I had fewer freckles and my hands were bigger. Those things had always been true. Nothing had changed except what I now knew. My inspections always left me with emotional vertigo.

With the farm, four kids, and the bookkeeping for our horse business, I spent little time in Clarion, and always combined errands with visits to Momma’s. Since the funeral, I was less comfortable in town. I wanted to avoid every set of eyes there. And it seemed especially important to be home each day when the girls returned from school. But after Momma’s revelation, I made more frequent trips to town during the school day, looking for every opportunity to be alone with her. Always someone else seemed to be within earshot—Daddy, my brother, or one of sisters. My aunts and uncles came by more often, too.

One weekday evening, I drove into town to bring Momma some of my peach jam, her favorite. I found her alone in the kitchen washing the supper dishes. Daddy and Joe were in the yard, deep under the hood of Joe’s truck.

Her back looked more delicate than I was accustomed to, and it wasn’t like her to not notice when someone came into the room. She jumped in surprise, then smiled when I pulled a dish towel out of the kitchen drawer. “Sneaking up on me, huh?”

I began drying the dishes stacked in the drainer.

Before I could speak, she said, “If anything ever happens to me and your daddy, I want your sisters and Joe to have the furniture and the cars.” Her voice was soft and thoughtful. I’d obviously interrupted her reverie about these things.

“What?” I didn’t want our conversation to go there. I didn’t want to think about anything more happening to her.

“We gave you and Adam the farm. We don’t have anything comparable for them. It would only be fair.”

“And we’re very, very grateful for the farm, Momma. Because of the farm, we don’t need another car or more furniture.” To my own ears, my voice sounded stilted and thick.

She heard the change of direction in my tone. The platter she was handing me stopped above my hand.

I took the platter and continued, “Why didn’t you ever tell me before?”

Momma’s hands dropped into the soapy water. She shook her head. “I know I should have told you sooner. First, you were just too young. And there were times when you were a little girl, you already seemed to know. You were always wandering off by yourself as