The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,178

door opened and Rosie walked back in. She came and stood beside my chair. “Mom, you’ve been saying he can’t be in the cave because no guide line was ever found and he always used one. This is the line we used the last time we went diving. I found it on the top of the office file cabinet.” Carefully, she laid a neatly tied bundle of white nylon rope in the middle of the table.

I recognized Adam’s method of looping and knotting ropes. A strand of blue ran through the supple cord. A clip dangled heavily from each end.

“He never kept his diving gear in the stable. Never. He must have stopped to check some file before he left for the spring. Then he forgot and left the line.” Rosie’s chin quivered. “He went in anyway.”

Lil stroked the rope tenderly. “He once told me he knew that spring like the back of his hand. He’d explored every ‘vein and artery.’ ”

Sarah rubbed her chest and whispered, “He believed he’d be able to find his way out, by touch or by listening, if anything went wrong.”

I shivered. They were eulogizing.

“What do you know about what he might have done?” I snapped. In the sliver of silence that followed, I picked up the rope and moved it to the kitchen counter behind me, out of sight.

“Momma,” Rosie cried, “Daddy’s not lost in the woods!”

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Sarah’s quick shake of her head and her warning glance at Rosie.

I took Rosie’s hand, and the gesture seemed to calm her. She drew closer and stood next to my chair with her arm around my shoulder. But I could not bring myself to agree with them.

Gracie wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Shit. Shit. I miss him.”

Baby Adam beat the table with his tiny fists. “Shit! Shit!” he chirped. Then he stopped, his hands in the air, and stared, his happy gaze taking in their stricken faces. “Shit?” His grin broke into a wail of alarm, and they all burst into sobs.

Lil laid her head on the table. “I can’t believe he’s gone.” Her arms muffled her voice.

I smoothed her hair over her head, feeling her heat and youth. I longed to reassure them, to offer some hope. I wanted company in my optimism. I yearned to have them understand everything about their father—who he was, how he came to me, and how he might once again return to me—to us. But the story seemed so large then, impossible for one person to unfurl. I’d always imagined the two of us telling them. I could not bring myself to speak of him in the past tense. Such a recitation, however much I owed it to them, seemed delicate, precarious, even dangerous without him there. My heart veered.

While my daughters wept around me, I literally choked on my words. My energies drained out of me. I was helpless against the momentum of their story and their assumption that he was there in the springs, entombed.

I had no intention of becoming my mother. I didn’t want to keep them from the truth about their father for decades. But I also had no idea how rare such opportunities to confide in them would become, how infrequently all four of my daughters would be able to visit at the same time as they spread out across their various careers and, later, the globe. Rarer still would be times the five of us would have without husbands, boyfriends, or children.

The next day, they wanted to return to the springs. They spent the morning efficiently and solemnly preparing for what I realized was an informal, impromptu funeral. Pauline and some of their friends would be joining them. They insisted I come, too. But I was equally insistent on staying home, again, with the baby.

That evening, the table was crowded with Adam’s favorite dishes: gumbo, collards, corn bread, Key Lime pie, and my canned peaches.

“We need to do something more. Something official. Daddy had lots of friends,” they began to say. I understood their need, but each time, I shook my head. “Not yet.” A hopeful denial hardened in me. I was quiet any time they discussed their father.

A restlessness trailed their sorrow. They were young. They had the distractions and the promise of new life to contend with.

Lil’s boyfriend, Alphonso, had been calling every evening, missing her and hoping to be invited to join us. Sarah confided that Gracie was in