The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,136

after we saw Sarah’s drawing, I asked Adam if he had ever told the girls—particularly Sarah—anything about himself and Addie. Adam had just returned from his shower. “No, I haven’t tried to explain anything to them.” He shrugged. “I can’t answer your questions. How would I answer theirs?”

He stepped into his boxers and climbed into bed with me.

“What should we tell them?” I asked.

“You could tell them about finding me, since you remember it better than me. And I guess I could tell them something about becoming who I am now. But not everything.”

“What did you do with Roy Hope in that hotel for two weeks?”

“Everything a body can do to know another body.” We both thought about that a moment.

“No.” I laughed. “You wouldn’t want to tell them about that. But what should we tell them and when?”

“Not now. They’re all too young. And they should all be told at the same time so they have company. You would be the best judge of when. When do you think Momma should have told you about your father?”

I had no answer.

Adam’s hair had grown out quickly, covering the scar on his head. The wound on his chest provided the smile for the happy face Sarah drew on him with a permanent marker. Each night, as he undressed, I saw that the circle and two dots had grown fainter, nearly vanishing, until she redrew them and the process began again.

While I puzzled over the soil and flat pastures, Adam was buoyant. He threw himself at Florida as if it was the Second Coming and redemption was at hand. For him, it was a kind of redemption, and his contagious enthusiasm pulled us all in. Even Gracie, who had begun dating, willingly joined in on her father’s explorations of Florida.

Adam studied Florida as he had my body when we first met. His interest quickly shifted from tourist attractions to geography and state parks. He familiarized himself with the local bookstores and libraries. On Saturday nights, he scattered the dining room and bedroom with books, maps, and pamphlets, covering every surface as he planned the next day’s outing. Somewhere, he found a huge geographical map of Florida and taped it to the dining-room wall. A changing constellation of bright red destination tacks dotted it. “Karst,” he said to me one night as he read at the dining-room table. He repeated the new word happily, savoring it. “Karst. That’s the name for this place. Limestone and water. That’s why the land feels so different here.”

With luck, he could be finished at the Warrens’ by ten on Sunday mornings and we would take off for a day’s excursion as soon as he walked in the door.

“Beats church,” Rosie said one Sunday morning as she helped me pack our picnic lunch.

“But won’t we go to hell for missing church and going off to do other stuff?” Sarah asked as she poured more cereal into her bowl. She was very interested in rules and the consequences of their violation.

“Not if we sing hymns while we’re on our way to the parks. That makes it the Church of Florida,” Rosie retorted.

“The Church of Florida” sounded good to all of us. So, on the way to beaches, caves, springs, parks, swamps, rivers—anywhere we could get to and back home in one day—we sang our way through every hymn we knew and saved our souls. We collected Steinhatchee scallops, canoed the Sewanee, and fished at Cedar Key. All the girls learned to snorkel. Adam and Rosie even learned to scuba-dive. Late Sunday nights, we drove home, the girls asleep around us, Adam and I alone in the lights of the dashboard.

Cool water obsessed us those first long, hot months. There were the dark, tannin-stained rivers and cold, crystal-clear rivers, their waters originating in swamps or from deep underground. Unlike the rivers of the Appalachian Mountains, these brooked no boulders, few rocks, no white-water rapids, no muddied rust-colored rise of spring thaw. Florida’s rivers were at peace with gravity, sliding along its belly instead of tumbling down into its embrace.

One river in particular excited Adam, the Santa Fe. The first Sunday after school let out for the summer, we drove out to O’Leno State Park and cooled ourselves in orange-brown water near the swimming dock. Then Adam announced that he had a surprise for all of us and led us down the trail that paralleled the bank.

When we reached an observation deck, he laughed and, holding his arms out, proudly announced,