The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,85

to the light of the open door. She’d glance occasionally from her book to the horses as she read. Jennie and Lil dressed the milder horses in scarves. They loved to steal away on Darling together, but their interest was not deep. Sarah drew them, of course, and, as soon as her vocabulary was equal to the task, began to advise Adam. He’d listen patiently to her analysis of a horse’s emotional state, his head cocked to one side. She was often right, he told me. Rosie remained the most interested in the horses. She lived in the stable, apprenticing herself to her father, and became his chief riding partner. Nights when she wanted refuge from the antics of her younger sisters, she slept in the stable. More than once she missed a day of school after being up all night with Adam nursing a sick horse or a mare in foal.

Once, when Sarah was still a baby, I passed the corral on my way back from picking squash and paused to watch Adam deep in his own observation of a fearful, volatile mare that had been brought to him for social repair. He stood a few yards from the corral fence, his hands relaxed at his side, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I was thinking about what was under his clothes—his shoulders and the slope from his back to his waist. He turned, smiled, and then crooked his finger, calling me over. “What kind of horse is this?”

I gave him a blank look. The horse circled the corral, her eyes darting back and forth.

“Is she scared, content, nervous, healthy?”

I shook my head and shrugged.

He raised his eyebrows. “Look. The kind of horse she is shows right there on her skin and how she moves.” Then he began a recitation, pointing at her ears, the tension in her neck, how she held her tail, the balance of her spine, and the condition of her skin. “She’s been poorly groomed and someone beat her,” he announced. He waved his beautiful hands, tracing the horse’s back and the curve of her neck in the air. He entered the corral and raised his right arm. Immediately, the horse stopped circling the corral and began an agitated pace opposite him, neighing sharply.

Later that evening, while Adam finished in the stable, I got the girls ready for bed. I squatted by the bathtub bathing Sarah, who, completely soaped, wiggled in my hands and struggled to climb the shower curtain. Lil and Jennie perched on the sides of the sink, peering into the drain, their heated debate about toothpaste bringing them close to blows. Gracie sat on the toilet, peeing and tracing my spine with her toes. Rosie rushed in, accused Gracie of stealing her favorite stuffed horse, then bit her sister. Suddenly, the four of them were in full skirmish behind me. Sarah rubbed soap into her eyes and screamed. I calculated whether I’d be able to let go of her and have time to knock the others’ heads together before she drowned. “Out!” I shouted. “Everybody out!”

Adam popped his head into the bathroom.

“What kind of girls are these?” I snapped at him over the ruckus.

“Huh?”

“What kind of children are these?” I shouted. “It’s on their skin and how they move.”

He grinned. “Children with a mad momma, children with a tired momma.”

From then on, when Adam or I wanted the other to pay attention to someone or something, we played the question game. The girls caught on and the game expanded. What kind of blossom is that? What kind of sky is that? What kind of report card is this? The questions might be a simple invitation to curiosity, a request for praise, a lesson, or a warning.

I loved the playfulness of the question game. But there were times it seemed to be shadowed by the questions I did not ask, the questions now less urgent, subsumed by normal daily life. What kind of man is my husband? How are our daughters like him?

Addie’s solo mountain trip became an annual ritual with Adam. He would leave just after morning chores on a Sunday and come back two or three days later. Many men did the same, going hunting or fishing. But Adam always went alone and brought home nothing. His trips were dependent on the seasons and our work. But they always seemed sudden, imperative. Tension built in him the weeks before he left. I felt uneasy as he packed for his trips. But each