The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,109

is the pain of your voice. And she’s in pain now.”

“Evelyn I can’t change that.”

“I know. But she should know you. Let her hear who you are. And it will soothe her.”

His face softened.

Momma frowned at me, confused, then looked to Adam as he placed her hand on his breastbone and covered it with both of his. His lips parted in a gentle “ahh.”

As I closed the bedroom door behind me, the first wave resonated sweetly across the room.

In the kitchen, I poured myself a cup of coffee. My hands shook slightly.

The distinct, sweet tonal waves of Adam’s voice rose and fell in the rhythms of a long, slow heartbeat. More complex than what he had done with the girls in the mountains, this song swelled with an optimistic sadness and receded in tender resignation.

Outside, early afternoon brilliance filled the empty streets and yards of the mill-village. All the children were in school, the same schools I had gone to. The mill hummed. All the night-shift mill workers were home sleeping. Beyond the mill lay downtown Clarion and the farm, more land, hills, then the mountains. So many different voices.

I paced the house with deliberate quietness, looking out the front door and then the back door, stopping once outside of Momma’s bedroom to place my hand on the door and feel the vibration of his voice through the wood.

Slowly, Adam’s song receded, as if gradually absorbed by the air. Stillness filled the house.

When I returned to the bedroom, Momma sat upright and they embraced chest to chest. Her arms circled Adam loosely. He supported Momma’s back and cupped her head as he lay her back down on the pillows. She seemed to fall asleep immediately, a small, relaxed smile on her lips. Tears streaked down Adam’s face. We tiptoed out.

Back in the kitchen, Adam wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. “She is leaving soon.” A hard sorrow deepened his voice.

“Did she say anything?”

“Not a word. Neither of us.”

Rita’s car appeared in the driveway, sunlight flashing off the windshield.

“I’ll wait for you in the truck,” he said.

Rita shot a wary glance at Adam as they passed each other on the porch. Neither spoke.

“She’s had a good day,” I told Rita as I gathered up my purse.

Momma died quietly in her sleep five days later. She and I never had another moment alone when she was awake and coherent. We never discussed Ben Mullins again or the time she spent alone with Adam. Once, as she drifted off into a morphine drowse, she rolled her head on the pillow and looked over at me. “You’ve had your secrets, too.” That was the last clear statement she made to me.

What do we ever know of our mothers? I thought I knew her. But I’d seen her as a child sees a good mother—pure, transparent, incapable of deception.

She was the only person I ever really wanted to tell about Adam, the only one I felt ashamed of lying to. I never got to tell her I forgave her. I never got to ask for a map to help me through the terrain of my own secrets, my own marital bargains.

I tried to set aside what Momma had told me while we prepared for her funeral. But I felt the current of it run through me when I was near my father, brother, and sisters. My eyes kept wandering over their features, not just for the similarities and differences between us, but for what they knew. I gained nothing by my scrutiny. All I saw in their faces was a mirror of my own grief.

The speed of her death surprised us all. She’d never been sick before. We thought we’d have her for months longer. Rita, who had held on to the certainty that Momma would get better, collapsed in on herself, her face vague. Daddy fell into a constant stupor. Joe, Bertie, and I made arrangements for the viewing and the funeral. We kept it simple, the way Momma would have wanted it.

Then Bertie called. As I drove to Momma’s house, my anxiety centered on Adam. I also wondered if Momma had said anything to them. Maybe Daddy had told them I was their half-sister. Maybe they wanted to discuss that. At best, I hoped to hear about some disagreement between them, something that didn’t involve me at all. But Joe stood on her porch and held the door open for me when I got out of the car. The apology on