9781250816214

“Your Father is my Father too. He made me too.”
“So what?”
“Why…” Sophia raises her eyes to the ceiling, searching for a divinity
that is not there, not for her. Her eyes fill up with hopelessness. She asks a
question older than day and night. “Why doesn’t He love me like He loves
you?” Tears fall down her perfect face. “Why does He let you do this? Why
won’t He tell you to stop?”
Adam picks awkwardly at the piecrust. “I was made in His image,” the
primordial man says softly. Then he giggles. “You were made from my
eye!” He passes one hand over his right eye and reveals a puckered, sunken
gouge beneath it. He passes his hand back the other way and his face is
whole again. Two blue eyes watching her with boyish interest. “Did you
know that? I don’t expect you could. Father said he made you incapable of
unhappiness. That you were my last chance. He always says that though.
And then I always get more chances! In retrospect, it hardly mattered what
He made you from. Doomed from the start. You saw too clearly and too far
ahead. We’ll know better next time. No more eyeballs! He owes me this
time.” Sophia’s husband points accusingly at her. “You’re as unhappy as
anybody I’ve ever seen! You’re broken. At least you lasted longer than the
last one. What a misery she was. Wouldn’t stay where I put her. Wouldn’t
do what I told her. It’s her fault. All she had to be was mine and she refused.
I didn’t even keep anything from her. She ran away, can you believe it? I
had to send the police after her. I had to, Soph. She hurt me. She had to be
punished. Nobody’s allowed to hurt me.”
“Did you give her a name?”
“Sure did. I really thought she was the one. Lilith. My Lilith. But none
of that matters now. She doesn’t matter. This is about us.” Adam reaches
out and squeezes her knee. “I always like this part. It feels so honest, right
before the end. Like a real marriage.”
Sophia scrambles for other questions, other answers, anything to extend
this moment when she is alive and he is interested in her and possibilities
still exist. “What about the lace cap? It’s too small for a woman. And the
bottle with the rubber tip.”
Adam flushes an ugly color. His lip curls up in disgust. He leans in
toward her. “Sometimes, after they talk to the thing in the garden,” he
whispers, “they have babies.”