foreword to Book Two

ART writes--

Adam had disappeared in early November.  It was a fairly dry winter
that year, for which we were glad, because we believed that he was
out in it somewhere.  Christmas was dismal.  We spent it at Gary and 
Rhonda's in Seattle and everyone missed Adam. 
 
Our last entry, in BOOK ONE of this document, was in January.  We
posted it on Adam's web-site and wondered if there would ever be 
any more to write about our son. 

In the middle of that same month, during a heavy snowstorm one 
Monday evening the telephone rang.  I was reaching to take the 
phone when Elaine raced past me and grabbed it, saying, "Adam! 
Adam, it's you, isn't it?"  

I thought she had gone crazy from grief, but she was right.  She 
had somehow KNOWN from the first ring that it was Adam calling.  
Woman's intuition, telepathy, who knows?  

I grabbed the other telephone and heard our son's familiar voice
saying, "...no, I'm okay, Mom, really!  Not dead, not me, okay?" 

I joined in.  "Adam!  It really IS you!" 

"Yes--Hi, Art!--yes!  Jeez, I'm glad to hear your voices!"

Elaine was sobbing, but hanging on, "Oh Addy, we were so worried 
for you...it's been so long!"

"Yeah, well, I was worried for me too for a while there, I was 
hurt pretty bad.  But I'm all healed and healthy again-- well, 
hah! more than healthy, you should see me." 

"Oh, we WANT to see you!  We were afraid we never would again!"

"I know and I'm sorry you had to wait so long to hear from me, 
but it's been literally impossible to call you until this very 
moment.  There's absolutely no telecommunications where I've been
--I've just hiked out, borrowing someone's cell phone right now.  
Oh, by the way...am I, uh, wanted for murder?"

"What?  Oh no, NO!  Peter Sinsley didn't die and besides Melly 
swore in court that it was HIM who tried to murder YOU, that 
you were the innocent victim.  You're all clear with the law.  You
can come home!"

"Jeez, wish I could, but can't just yet.  Actually, all I can do
right now is make this call to let you know not to worry.  I've 
got a commitment for about three-four more months which I have to
honor first.  Then I'll come home, I promise."

"Where ARE you?  What's going ON?  And where have you BEEN 
for the last two and a half months?"  That was me, trying to get 
some hard data.

"I'm in the Cascade Mountains, that's all I can say right now, I'm
sort of sworn to secrecy.  As for where I've been: well, can't you
guess?"

Both Elaine and I said it: "You found the sasquatches!"

"They found me."

We talked for about 15 minutes, he gave us a sketchy outline of
what he had been experiencing, but it is too good a story to 
relate what he told us in those few minutes over the telephone.    

We told him that everyone here was all right--especially now!  But
that Melly had taken his "death?" very hard, blamed herself.  She
was also certain that if/when Adam DID come back, he could never 
forgive her.  Adam said there was nothing to forgive her for, he 
knew that it was all Peter's fault, not hers.

"Addy, will you call her too and tell her that?" Elaine asked.

There was a long pause, then a decisive answer. "No, I'd just fall
in love with her voice and I can't start feeling anything for her
right now.  But if she really needs to be forgiven, she IS.  You
can tell her that for me.  And that...well, that I still love her 
too.  I really want to see her when I do come home."

Adam said that he had been obliged to spend at least half a year
with the sasquatches, to which he had agreed.  He had already been
with them for 3 months by then, so he hoped to return to us in the 
middle of May.  Then he laughed, said "how weird it feels to suddenly
be locked into a NokhSo time-frame again!"  Then said goodbye and 
our son's voice was gone from us again. 

Elaine was going to call Melly immediately, but the phone rang 
again first.  It was Melly.  "I've been trying to call you, but 
couldn't get through...that was Addy, wasn't it?"  All these 
intuitive women, my God.


We called around, telling everyone who had stood vigil with us that Adam was alive. But he had asked us not to mention the sasquatches just yet, which made our explanations brief. "We're not sure what happened, we'll just have to wait and get the story from Adam himself." And so we started waiting again. At least this time we knew that our son was alive--and more than just alive, he was probably on the greatest anthropological adventure of the century! But...well, waiting is still waiting. January, February March, April. No word from Adam. May. We had been planning a trip to Mexico for our summer vacation, but didn't dare go, in case Adam came back. Melly came by often, slept over, hoping Adam would arrive one of those nights. But he didn't. We became impatient. We missed him, his music in the house, his help on the Hacienda and often found ourselves staring off at the Cascade Mountain Range, wondering what he was going through up there. Was it dangerous? It was easy to start worrying again. However, we also had to carry on with our own lives. I had duties at school, including a week-end class outing to the Olympic Peninsula. Elaine went along with me on that one, just for fun. We were gone for three days. In case Adam should show up, we'd left a message for him saying where we were and giving him my cell phone number so he could call us. The message was posted on his very own digital voice recorder which we'd left standing upright on the kitchen table, so we knew he would automatically check that right away. When we came back from the Peninsula the first thing we noticed was that the Squatchmobil was gone, thinking someone had stolen Adam's car! But no one else can drive it, so that didn't make any sense. We quickly ascertained that someone had also been in the house while we were gone, although that could have been Melly, since she had fed the horses for us while we were away and might have come inside for something. But in the kitchen we discovered that the refrigerator had been picked clean like a fine bone, so we looked to the digital recorder on the table.
It was lying, no longer upright,
upon a sheet of paper, onto which
had been drawn Adam's signature
with a magic marker:
We regarded that for a moment of stunned wonder before turning on the recorder to hear the voice and the adventures of our prodigal son.
Book Two
of the story
Adam out of Eden

Chapter 36

Adam out of Eden