The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,166

arms. “Do you think this will change? Will it be different?”

“I don’t know. This is as new to me as it is to you.” He shifted his position to face me.

“Yes, I’ve never had me an old man.”

Then Adam lay down with me, and his hands poured over me, as they had so many times before, toes to crown, unhurried, silent until his voice washed over us and he filled the room. Time was mute, irrelevant.

He fell asleep before me, while I tried to focus on my novel. Rain pattered down steadily on the roof, persistent, laudatory, a sound that reminded me of the farm. I put my book down and watched Adam sleep beside me, smooth-faced. I tried to imagine him as an old man, but could not. His transition from woman to man had been so overwhelming a feat. I’d seen no change in his character then, none of Roy in him. Would this time be different? Would he be different if he became older, like me? After he became a man, there had been times when I missed Addie. What would I miss after this transition?

I held my hand up, flexing it. In the angled light of the bedside lamp, all the fine lines on my hands and forearms were visible. These signs of age in me had made no difference to Adam. His touch at night was the same. Under his hands’ long stroke from my shoulder to my hip, I felt as ripe and beautiful as I had ever been.

I made a fist and the lines across the back of my hand disappeared. I remembered staring at my body when I was high on the LSD. I tried to retrieve that same calm acceptance now. My hand seemed to be melting before me, then I realized I was only crying.

Adam’s hand slid out from under the covers. Without opening his eyes, he clasped his hand over my fist. “I can’t promise you anything. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I am willing to try.” He rolled over on his side to face me. Eyes the color of burnished mahogany. Leaning across me, he switched the light off. “Sleep now. It’ll be okay.” He drew me closer.

In the morning, we decided we would go first to the R. Hope address, then move down the list if we had no luck there.

“Do you think he remembers being with you?” I asked as we dressed.

“Oh, I’m sure he remembers. He had days alone in that grimy little motel with Addie! I kept him very drunk toward the end. Drunk and, I’m sure, confused.”

I realized that what we were planning was a minor reenactment of that transformation, carrying it forth to some logical conclusion in which Adam would at last share a characteristic with both Roy and me. The thought of their strange history overwhelmed my optimism for a moment. I remembered my amazement when A. had returned as Adam. For the first time, I saw us from Roy’s point of view. In the mirror above the dresser we looked like mother and son. “He’ll think I’m Addie and you’re his son.”

Adam shrugged his shirt onto his shoulders and considered his reflection. “Yes, I guess you’re right. We could say—”

The strangeness of our situation washed through me. The room darkened and tilted.

“Evelyn! Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath and my dizziness passed. “It was so strange when you returned then. I thought my heart would break from sheer strangeness.” I righted myself and covered my mouth. “I was so young. Sometimes I could barely make it all fit together. And I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Momma.”

Adam took my hand. “This is different. I don’t want to change in any other way, just look more my age.”

Silently, I wondered: what was his age? Out loud, I asked, “What will we do when we find him?”

“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s find him first. A lot will depend on him.”

Outside, the morning was mountain-fresh, crisp, and cool. A faint tang of wood smoke and coffee sweetened the air. A bright stream of birdsong overlay the mutter of the TV from the hotel office.

With the directions from the desk clerk, we found the R. Hope residence, a small, green clapboard house at the end of a short, well-shaded drive off the main road. There was no car in the drive, but we knocked anyway. Woods surrounded the house and the land rose