The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,184

and would be able to understand everything else about him. But I’d forgotten Cole had left the funeral early.

For one second, I hoped he might still be with me. I began to sweat. “Yes, that’s what I am telling you, Cole.” The timbre of a plea clung to my words.

A grimace flickered across his face, followed by a small, uncomfortable smile.

“Evelyn, honey, I know Addie had a gift with horses, a special way of talking to them that was . . . was . . .” he waved his hands as if trying to scoop the words out of the air. “Unusual. Lord knows it was amazing that Adam had the same gift and showed up when he did. But he came to Clarion because he’d heard of how good she was with the horses. You said so yourself then. He may have replaced her in your heart, but . . .”

He looked down at my hands pressed together as if in prayer and shook his head rapidly. “That doesn’t make Addie and Adam the same person. A woman can’t turn herself into a man.” He wrapped his hands around mine and I felt myself shrivel. “Listen to me, Evelyn. You’re still in shock. You can’t let the grief get to you. I know when Eloise passed, I thought I would go crazy.”

We stared at each other for a long moment.

Shame flooded me. The impotence of not being believed crushed me. I had no recourse. No proof.

He leaned closer, trying to catch my eye. “Evelyn, do your girls know you’re here? Do they know you drove up here by yourself?”

I withdrew my hands from his and drove him back to the pizzeria. Then I returned to Florida, my shoulders and neck aching from hours of driving, stunned by the dual loss, by the final glance of pity on Cole’s face. My throat closed.

He was the only person I ever tried to tell this story to.

By the time I was in Florida, I had decided that, if cowardice once again prevented me from attempting the truth, I could, at least, offer my daughters closure. A memorial for their father required no validation beyond what they already believed.

I called Sarah first. “I want you to make something for me, for your father.” I described the simple fired-clay plaque I wanted.

“Good. I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” she said gently.

Then I had to go swimming. I needed to cleanse myself of the memory of doubt and pity I’d seen in Cole’s eyes. I wanted to wash away my mother’s shame and the weakness and fear that made me like her. In the water, I would be with Adam and I would be like him—no past, free of explanations.

Families and small children filled the park surrounding Devil’s Spring. The smells of grilling meat and sunscreen hung heavy in the air. In the cold water, families shouted and splashed around me. Bright, inflated toys bounced against me as I waded into the shallows. I put on my mask, snorkel, and fins, glad to have children nearby as counterbalance to the blue void below the surface.

I swam past them and circled the mouth of the spring, peering down on the place where he had taken me. The place that had taken him. Bubbles of air escaped from the azure hole and a guide rope disappeared into it. As I dove lower, underwater silence overcame the sounds of playing children. The spring mouth loomed, a vivid, continuously deepening blue. I understood Adam’s attraction. The spring seemed placid, not the menace I had imagined there for months.

Then I surfaced.

Months later, I stood near the same spot surrounded by my daughters, our hearts on the same shore again. Holding hands, we waded knee-deep into the water. The girls’ long skirts floated around them, except for Rosie, who was in full dive gear. Lil carried her father’s fiddle. Little Adam bounced and burbled on his mother’s hip as we passed the memorial plaque hand-to-hand, admiring the terra cotta, the color of the Carolina clay, and the pale, crackled blue glaze. Clearly carved into the surface in Sarah’s square, neat calligraphy were the words from Lil’s and Adam’s favorite Whitman poem: “Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery . . . In memory of A. Hope.”

Gracie, Lil, Sarah, and I watched Rosie and one of the springs dive crew disappear down into the spring, to place the plaque in the cave, just outside the grate that