The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,95

Alarmed, confused.

I remembered the shocked faces in the church, the frightened faces at the graveside. “Don’t . . .” I choked. “They’re too . . .”

Adam’s hand fell away from Gracie. He looked down.

A shudder of puzzled shame crossed Gracie’s features as her eyes met mine.

“Just sing, girls! Please, just sing,” I pleaded. “Open your mouths and sing. Like everybody else does.”

Gracie glanced at her father, then back to me. She blinked and cut her eyes quickly again toward Adam, who glowered darkly at me.

She stepped forward. I reached for her, but she did not come into my arms. She opened her mouth and sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray . . .” Jennie’s bedtime song. Her voice quavered, then held fast.

Adam strode past me.

I opened my arms and the girls came to me. Sarah cried. Lil bunched silently against me.

Rosie’s voice rose hysterically. “Momma?”

Gracie wiped a tear from my chin. I pulled them in and hugged them. “Just sing, girls. Only singing. Regular singing.” I picked up Sarah and took Rosie’s hand.

“Gracie, bring Lil.”

Unhinged and transparent, I struggled to keep my voice even as I led them up to the porch and handed Sarah to Gracie. “You all go inside. I’m going to talk to Daddy. We’ll be there in a minute. Everything’s okay, girls.”

I found Adam standing in the middle of the stable. The horses huffed, restless in their stalls. His face hardened. His hand shot up in protest, to stop me. “They are the only ones who might be able to . . .” He faltered. “They are the only other ones, Evelyn.”

A dark, violent sorrow for his solitude clenched my chest. I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to continue. “I know, Adam. But not now. They’re children. How will they handle it? You didn’t see the faces of everyone in the church—they were scared of you.”

He squinted at me.

“People were vomiting. Babies screaming . . .” I stuttered. “It hurt.” I didn’t mention the odd shame I’d just seen in Gracie’s eyes.

His face crumpled. “No,” he whispered and shook his head slowly. “No! If I had only been there. I stopped to put the tools away. I was putting tools away while . . .”

I pressed my hand over his mouth.

He let me hold him. But he was alone within my arms, his skin hot, his sweat sour. “Hush, Adam. Hush. I saw her too, by the tractor, talking to Frank, and I went back to the laundry . . .”

His eyes sought mine and held them for a long moment.

“Hush,” he said. “She is gone.”

He slept that night for fourteen hours straight. I sat up with the girls, the four of them packed into the bed Jennie and Lily had shared. We talked about everything except Jennie and what had happened after the funeral. I longed to protect them from what I’d seen on everyone’s faces. And, yes, from their father’s searing voice, the same voice I cherished so intimately. How much of A. was in them? They were normal girls. How much could that change?

I was alone in my questions.

Finally, when I could hear their four steady breaths, I turned off the lamp and left.

I stood in the dark dining room for a long time, listening to the new silence of my home. I thought of the street where I grew up, of Clarion, of the people I’d known all my life. Their voices, names, and faces so familiar to me, suddenly seemed alien. The town now knew that my husband was a stranger.

I crawled into bed with Adam, spooning up behind him and wrapping my arms around him. Gutted and skinned, I lay there in the pool of Jennie’s absence and tried to hear what was coming.

All night, I dreamed of Jennie’s eyes, so like Lil’s and Momma’s, receding under ice-blue water. The mingled vibrato of all the girls engulfed me. I was helpless and drowning. Out of my element.

After that night, Gracie and Rosie came to Lil and Sarah’s room at bedtime. They sang the good-night songs that Adam no longer sang to them. When I heard them sing, I was haunted by the bargain I seemed to have made with them, by the voices they might have used.

Adam never spoke of it to me again.

To this day, I question my judgment. I regret my fear. I regret my silence.

The Sunday after the funeral, Adam appeared early in the