The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,132
rendered nothing of the sweat we’d put into the farm, nothing of the generous bowls of beans, corn, and squash we had passed, hand to hand, at the supper table.
In the empty barn, I methodically scanned every surface with the flashlight beam. The chickens, hog, and remaining cow had gone to Wallace’s and Cole’s families. The walls and rafters seemed skeletal, oddly intimate in their solitary exposed planes.
I opened the stable door and listened to the breath of the remaining horses in the close darkness, then went back into the house. At last, I packed. Kitchen, first, then bedrooms. I tried not to look at things, not to think. Just get the job done.
By four in the morning, the car bulged. Luggage and more boxes were tied on top. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I left more money for Wallace and a glowing letter of recommendation Adam had written. Then I fled, again.
As I made my final turn out of Clarion before dawn, I thought I saw a row of police lights atop an approaching car. I pressed the brakes suddenly. Boxes groaned and shifted in the backseat. My heart hammered. I turned in the opposite direction and took the longer route out of Clarion, heading back to Florida as quickly as I could, fleeing what I had, just the day before, looked forward to embracing.
The sun began to rise.
I drove south and turned my heart toward my girls, to consoling and protecting them, as much as possible, from the sorrow of leaving the only home they’d ever known. I wanted to make them understand, to tell them: it will work out. No one will look at your father as people in Clarion had. No one will take him from us. He can return to himself in our new home.
When I pulled into the yard that evening, they eagerly surrounded the car, immediately unpacking and exclaiming over all our old familiar stuff as if I’d returned long-lost treasures to them. My solicitous tenderness found no purchase. They dashed into their bedrooms, unloading clothes and books. Their decorating and organizing decisions seemed endless. The only hesitation I saw was in Rosie. She sat in the dining room, staring pensively at her collection of horse figurines lined up on the table. “I miss Beau.” She sighed.
“Soon,” I said, relieved that I would be able to provide what she was missing. “Your horse will be here.”
The next night at the dinner table I asked my normal questions about school. Lil, who usually just said “Okay,” announced, “No one here knows I’m missing anything.”
“Yeah,” Sarah added. “Here, we’re just an ordinary family.”
“Cool.” Gracie’s new favorite word.
Rosie rolled her eyes, her favored reaction to her little sisters.
“You girls will have to set them straight. You are not ordinary.” Adam leaned back in his chair and grinned at us. The girls regarded their father with surprise.
“I want to be ordinary.” Lil scowled. “I don’t want everybody to know.”
“Ordinary’s good,” Sarah echoed.
Rosie nodded.
Adam reached across the table and touched Lil’s hand as he touched Sarah’s back with his other hand. “You’re right. Here we can be as ordinary as we want to be. And we get to decide how we are ordinary, no one else decides.”
Lil smiled back at her father.
They managed their mutual goal of being ordinary and fitting in very well. All their conversations now were sprinkled with the names of classmates I didn’t know, teachers I’d met only once, if that. With four girls, the phone was ringing constantly. Even Sarah’s second-grade pals called. I didn’t recognize any of the voices, and the deep, unfamiliar voices of boys asking for Gracie or Rosie always surprised me. The freedom of driving, a necessity since we lived so far out of town, also widened Gracie’s social circle. Rosie still came straight home from school each day, changed into dungarees, and joined her father in the stables.
Three months later, I returned to the farm once more, via Greyhound bus, for the truck and some of the furniture. The horses we’d boarded and cared for had all been sent to other stables. Only our two remained. Darling, now docile with age, and Beau, Rosie’s favorite, waited for me to bring them to their new home. I braced myself against the shrill vacancy of the farm.
We’d arranged for Joe’s son, Bud, and his wife, Wanda, to rent the house. Despite the scattered cardboard boxes of their things, neatly labeled and sealed in anticipation of moving in,