The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,19

I saw, to soften the horrors I imagined had caused such damage. “Are you from around here? Where are you from?”

He said nothing. I couldn’t see his face, but imagined his blank then confused expression. After a moment, he spoke. “I don’t know where I am from.” Each word stood carefully by itself, his first full sentence.

The bath water began to cool. I held his hands again and he stood with more confidence. But the towel stayed in the water. He did not seem to notice and just held the dry towel when I handed it to him.

“Dry yourself. Here. Like this.” I rubbed his shoulder with the towel, careful not to look down. “You can get dressed. Hurry before you get cold.” I dried him off and he helped in his awkward way.

He just stood there when he was dry. Clearly, he needed my help getting dressed. I knelt in front of him holding his underwear open and, averting my eyes, I motioned that he should lift his leg. He got the idea and, steadying himself by holding on to my shoulders, stepped with his other leg into the shorts. I bent forward, holding them open. As I rose to pull them up around his hips, I had to see what was right in front of my face. There was an awful protruding mangle of flesh, neither man nor woman, and a fuzz of red pubic hair.

“Who did this to you? Who hurt you like this?” I held his rough face in my hands. “What happened to you?”

His face contorted, alarmed and puzzled. He put his hand up and touched a tear on my face. “Hurt?” he said. “Who did this?”

“Were you in Japan?”

“Japan?”

I was upsetting him. He didn’t seem to know how to answer. He stared at me, waiting to find out about Japan.

“Let’s finish putting your clothes on and then I’ll show you something,” I said. I helped him put on the rest of his clothes. They were too big, even the shoes. He was not as tall as Uncle Lester. I slipped Uncle Lester’s socks on over his scarred foot. Like the bath, socks seemed new and unexpected to him, but after the struggle of the first one, he held his foot firm so the second one slipped on easily.

“Wait,” I said when he was dressed. I brought the picture of the Japanese woman back to him and held it out. He took it carefully, holding it by the corner, and studied the woman. A ragged sigh rose from him.

“This is hurt?” He held the photograph out for me to take.

I touched his hand, feeling the strangeness of his skin, and turned it over next to my hand, comparing. “I know who did this to her, but who did this to you?”

He seemed to struggle for words and then announced, “I am not like her. I am not hurt. I do not hurt.” I took the photograph back.

“You don’t hurt anywhere?” I rubbed his shoulder. He leaned into my touch like a purring cat.

He shook his head, then turned his attention back to our hands. Taking my hand in both of his, he held it, touching me lightly at first, then searching the bones and tendons of my wrist as if memorizing them.

I did not bathe after him, as I normally would have, to take advantage of the labor of getting up a hot bath. I let the water go cold. When I went to throw it out, it was not muddy as I had expected it to be, but almost clear, with just a bit of grit in the bottom. There was not much dirt on the quilts, either, not nearly what there should have been given the conditions I’d found him in.

The rain continued that day, the waterfall of it crashed off the roof, keeping me housebound with my odd stranger. I had begun to think of him as mine. Mine to protect and teach. Mine to bring back to what he had been before. I tried not to think of the unnatural speed of his recovery, or the faint vibrating drone that sometimes emanated from him. I still thought of him as a damaged soldier.

Except for my brief trips to the barn, I spent that day holding him by the hand, guiding his clumsy steps around the house, and talking to him.

Again and again, I asked him about his family and where he was from. Did he remember anyone or anything? The answer