Adam

Quick Facts

Adam is a married funeral director and the secret lover of Sage Singer. First seen at the funeral for Sage’s mother, he becomes both a source of warmth and a mirror for Sage’s guilt and shame. Key relationships include Sage; his wife, Shannon; his twins, Grace and Bryan; and Sage’s friend and boss, Mary DeAngelis.

Who He Is

Adam is the man who makes secrecy feel like safety. His attraction to Sage—gentle, attentive, and apparently accepting of her scars—offers her validation while also binding her to a life lived in shadows. As a charming adulterer and devoted father, he inhabits moral gray space, embodying the novel’s tensions around Guilt, Sin, and Atonement and Identity and Reinvention. In Adam, the book asks whether a “good” man who does “bad” things can still be a refuge—and whether that refuge is just another form of self-harm.

Personality & Traits

Adam’s persona is disarmingly tender and plausibly sincere, yet built on concealment. He speaks to Sage’s deepest insecurities and needs, then uses that intimacy to keep her tethered. His contradictions—solace-giver and liar, caregiver and manipulator—are precisely what make him dangerous.

• Charming, persuasive: He is the first to call Sage “pretty” after her accident, neutralizing her defenses and recasting her scar as a “story.” His language makes transgression feel like care.
• Secretive, deceptive: He orchestrates an ongoing affair while married, managing lies to Shannon and soft lies to Sage—promises he cannot or will not keep.
• Reverent toward life: His work among the dead gives him a tactile appreciation for living bodies; with Sage, this becomes a gentle, reverent physicality that feels like healing.
• Devoted father: His unwavering love for Grace and Bryan is genuine and the immovable reason he will not leave his marriage, complicating any simple villain label.
• Manipulative: When Sage tries to leave, he escalates to a grand proposal—less a commitment than a strategy to retain control by preying on her fear of being unlovable.

Character Journey

Adam does not grow; he clarifies. From the funeral onward, he represents the loop Sage is trapped in: seeking comfort that confirms her belief she deserves only the fragmentary and the secret. The “I ❤️ MY WIFE” bumper sticker punctures their bubble, reminding Sage that their intimacy stands on borrowed time and borrowed integrity. His last-ditch proposal crystallizes his pattern—eloquent, urgent, and empty—forcing Sage to choose between being cherished in private and being whole in public. Her refusal breaks the cycle. Adam remains fixed, the embodiment of a life Sage outgrows the moment she claims her worth.

Key Relationships

• Sage Singer: With Sage Singer, Adam offers seductive acceptance—he sees her scars, calls her “pretty,” and gives her a sanctuary that doubles as a hiding place. For Sage, the affair initially functions as self-punishment; for Adam, it is escape. The relationship’s secrecy ultimately teaches Sage that validation without integrity corrodes rather than heals.

• Shannon: More presence than person on the page, Shannon is the boundary Adam will not cross. The bumper sticker incident suggests she may suspect the affair, raising the stakes and underscoring that Adam’s promises to Sage stop where his family begins.

• Grace and Bryan: His twins humanize him and anchor his choices; he will not fracture their home. Their importance exposes the core contradiction in Adam: he can be both loving and harmful, often in the same breath.

• Mary DeAngelis: Mary DeAngelis names what Sage cannot—calling Adam “Satan” and urging Sage to see the emotional damage the affair inflicts. She functions as a moral counterweight, reframing Adam’s charm as a trap.

Defining Moments

Adam’s pivotal scenes track from seduction to exposure to ultimatum—each step revealing both his tenderness and his limits.

• Meeting at the funeral: He comforts Sage after she faints and reframes her scar as a story, calling her “pretty.” Why it matters: This inaugurates a pattern in which Adam converts Sage’s shame into intimacy, making secrecy feel like care.
• The bumper sticker: He reports the sudden “I ❤️ MY WIFE” sticker he suspects Shannon placed on his car. Why it matters: Reality intrudes; the affair is no longer a private refuge but a public risk, heightening anxiety and forcing choices.
• The proposal: When Sage tries to leave, Adam proposes and vows to divorce. Why it matters: The grand gesture spotlights his manipulation—using romance to retain control—and makes visible the gap between what he says and what he can deliver.
• Sage’s rejection: She refuses him and ends the relationship. Why it matters: Adam becomes the line Sage will not cross again; her refusal is an act of self-definition, not merely a breakup.

Symbolism

Adam symbolizes secrecy-as-solace: the coping mechanism that lets Sage survive while keeping her small. He is the allure of being seen without being claimed, loved without being chosen, and thus a living metaphor for guilt-made-comfortable. His moral ambiguity—devoted father, unfaithful husband; gentle lover, practiced liar—echoes the novel’s meditation on The Nature of Good and Evil: harm can wear a human face, and comfort can be a form of harm.

Essential Quotes

"You know," he said, as if we were in the middle of a conversation, "in my line of work, there aren’t any secrets. I know who’s had plastic surgery, and who’s survived a mastectomy... The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story. And besides," he said, "that wasn’t what I noticed when I first saw you."
"Yeah, right."
He put his hand on my shoulder. "I noticed," he said, "that you were pretty."

This is Adam at his most persuasive: he reframes the very thing that isolates Sage into a narrative of beauty and survival. The tender language disarms her, but it also inaugurates a relationship built on the paradox of “no secrets” spoken within secrecy.

"I love you, Sage Singer. I love the way you have to sleep with one foot uncovered and the fact that you hog the popcorn when we watch a movie. I love your smile, and your widow’s peak. It’s a cliché, I know, but seeing you with that guy yesterday made me realize how much I have to lose... Sage... marry me?"

The proposal catalogues intimate, specific knowledge—proof of closeness that masks a structural dishonesty. Its urgency feels authentic, yet the subtext is control: if Adam cannot change his life, he can try to keep Sage in it.

"Just remember," he whispers. "No one else will ever love you like I do."

This line exposes the emotional pressure beneath the romance. It transforms love into a limiting belief, weaponizing Sage’s insecurity to keep her compliant—precisely the dynamic she must reject to reclaim herself.