Several times since 'Adam Hope was published, I’ve been asked about the disappearance of Daddy (Evelyn’s father.) The first time I heard the question, I had to go back and reread parts to discover that Daddy does, indeed, disappear in the second half of the novel. Initially, I answered those letters individually. But now the question has come up again. So I thought I would answer, here, in a public format. (Not much of a plot-spoiler here but if you haven’t read the book, you may want to stop reading now.)

Daddy’s disappearance (or lack of a clear exit from the story) was an omission, a mistake, and probably a little of my own life intruding into the story. Originally, there was a scene in which, long after the Roe/Hope family moved to Florida, they felt safe enough to return to North Carolina for a visit. That scene explained, among others things, that Daddy’s health had declined and he had died peacefully in his sleep without ever admitting his true relationship to Evelyn. The scene did not add much else to the novel and my editor asked me to cut it. I simply forgot, in the shuffle of last minutes edits and revisions, to find a new place for an update on Daddy.

In the final scene between Cole and Evelyn, when she visits the graveyard, Daddy’s grave is not mentioned and his absence—or the absence of his grave—is not explained. That omission is different. It is not due to last minute editorial changes, but is the kind of omission Evelyn would make; the kind of omission I made at the grave of my own parents.

Evelyn describes her father as the kind of man who is absent in ways that can leave his wife and children lonely, a man who did not tell stories, “not a bad father, not much of a disciplinarian, and never cruel. Yet his love was like light to me. I could see it and I knew intellectually that it touched me, but I could not touch it back. And like the sun’s light on a winter day, it did not warm me, just reminded me of warmth and made me long for it.” That is how I felt about my own father.

One night, shortly after The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope was published, I drove out to the cemetery where my parents are buried. I buried a copy of 'Adam Hope' not over my father’s body, and not between my parents’ graves, but over my mother’s heart. I took my story to the one who would have read it and because she knew me and loved me with a touch I could feel and could return.

Evelyn does not think of Daddy in that final scene because she wants, on that day and at that moment, to tell the truth and she wants to tell it to the people she most regrets lying to: her mother, her daughters, and Cole.

Still, the readers who contacted me were right. This was an omission that I should have caught. If I had it to do over again, I would add a passage about her father's death.