The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,97
see her across her sisters. “I don’t want to go to church anymore.” She spoke softly, her face solemn and open, waiting for my response.
The others listened.
Then, from the backseat. “I don’t want to either.”
The thick, sweet burden of their need lay on me like lead. I took a breath and sat up straight. I still felt the burning stares of the congregation. Unbidden, unearned, shame flushed through me, followed by a shudder of defiance. I cleared my throat. “I’ll think about it,” I said. In our vocabulary, that meant an eventual, qualified yes.
People whose children have died do not believe in God the same way everyone else does. The death of a child is an earthquake of the soul. The landscape changes forever. I cannot say I was a believer at that time, but I knew that the church was a link that bound us to others. Now, I felt that link breaking. Did I have to let it break in order to protect my children? To do so seemed a kind of defeat, an admission that my daughters did not—could not—belong there. If they did not belong there, where they were born, where did they belong?
I decided that Gracie and Rosie could stay home from church most Sundays with their father. Special days and holidays, they would still have to attend services. In exchange, they had to cook the Sunday dinner. It would have to be ready to go onto the table when Sarah, Lil, and I returned from church. This seemed to be a reasonable compromise.
Later that week, I stopped by Momma’s near suppertime. I expected to find her alone in the kitchen, making dinner for Daddy. But when the back door slapped shut behind me, the kitchen was empty. The distinct vinegary sweetness of Pearl’s takeout ribs lingered. The theme from Momma’s favorite TV show, Jeopardy, blared from the living room.
Momma stepped into the kitchen and dropped into one of the dining chairs as she motioned for me to help myself to the coffeepot and refill her cup. I dreaded telling her that we would not be coming to Sunday dinners after church.
When I told her, her brow wrinkled with concern. “Evelyn,” she began. I expected a protest of some sort and perceived its beginning in her clipped delivery of my name. But something changed her mind. Her face softened. Instead of objecting, she sighed. “You might be right. Gracie and Rosie are old enough that they should be learning to cook for the family. That’s a good idea.”
Her quick concession shocked me. I swallowed my rehearsed defenses and reasons. As I remembered the pained shock on her face at the funeral, I tried to keep my own expression neutral. Helpless humiliation filled my throat.
“Your brother and sisters will be fine with this,” she added firmly. “You all can take turns feeding your daddy and me each Sunday after church. We’ll rotate among you and y’all can come here for Christmas and Easter.” She grinned. “Maybe Thanksgiving if you play your cards right.”
I heard the relief in her tone and I wondered if Joe, Bertie, or Rita had already had this discussion with her, maybe all of them. “Everybody else’ll be okay with this?” I asked.
“Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest. She wouldn’t be telling me who objected to having dinner with us. She’d always been the kind of mother who dampened rather than inflamed our tiffs and sibling rivalries. But when she leaned toward me across the table, her voice was low, confidential. “Evelyn. I’m tired. When all of you come with all of your kids, your husbands—that’s more than a couple dozen people crammed into this little house. How about your daddy and I showing up next Sunday at your house? Get those girls cooking.” She did look tired. Suddenly, I was embarrassed by my lack of concern for her and what all of this must have cost her. She had lost a grandchild.
Moments later, as I drove to Rhyne’s store, Momma’s agreement and my certainty that Joe, Bertie, or Rita didn’t want us there for dinner plagued me. Bertie’s disdain alone would have been easy to take; that was her standard response to most of life. But the thought of Joe or Rita wanting to avoid us jolted me. I stopped outside the store, determined for a moment to rush back to Momma’s and demand to know more. But something in me collapsed, a reluctant finality that made me queasy. Everything