The Last Chairlift

47. WRITTEN IN THE SNOW

“You don’t want to end up at the Jerome, sweetie,” my mom had told me. Molly and I hadn’t heard her say that before; we let it go. In Vermont, in mid-August, some nights already felt like the fall; a few of the maple trees changed color early. “Every year, the same dumb trees jump the gun,” my mom said.

“The smart trees, Ray—they know what’s coming,” Molly told her.

“Smarty-pants, Molly,” my mother said. Come late August 1995, she’d started talking to her potbelly. “I know I’m not still growing, but you are. Haven’t you figured out you belong to someone else?” my mom would say to her stomach. She was definitely thicker in the middle than Molly and I could remember.

“Is your mother putting on weight?” Grace asked me. We were making an effort to be civil to each other, for Matthew’s sake.

At the end of that summer, when Em and the snowshoer were visiting, Molly mentioned that my mom wasn’t hiking up Bromley Mountain the way she used to. “The snowshoer is still the first one to the top, but Ray used to get there ahead of me,” Molly said. “Something’s going on, Kid, but she won’t see a doctor—she just gives me the ‘no one’s messing around with my privates’ business,” the old patroller said.

By September, I’d moved my clothes to one of the guest bedrooms. Matthew accepted my move; he was used to my nomadic bedroom wandering. In our growing detachment from each other, Grace and I were better behaved—both around Matthew and with each other. A kind of coldness had replaced our lashing out. Grace’s instincts as an editor had taken over; if you can’t make something better, you should delete it, she said to her authors.

That September, my mother must have told me she was sorry a hundred times. If Molly was worried that something was going on with Little Ray, my mom’s apologies made me worry more. There was a finality to the way she blamed herself for my marrying Grace. My mother had observed how Grace managed to improve the people and things around her. “I don’t waste my time with people or things that aren’t essentially good to begin with,” Grace had told my mom. I knew this was Grace’s standard spiel about herself as an editor, but maybe it sounded original to my mother.

“I didn’t know she was one of those women who latch on to people they say they love, when they have every intention of trying to change them—I’m so sorry, sweetie,” my mom said.

“Nothing is your fault,” I told my mother. “It’ll work out—Grace and I want what’s best for Matthew.” I knew Grace was a perfectionist; she wouldn’t allow herself to make more of a mess of a bad situation. In our marriage, surely I’d behaved the worse, and I hadn’t paid for it. I didn’t know if I’d been lucky, or if there was another word for it.

I made a nonreligious confession to Elliot Barlow and Em. I sent them my never-ending Loge Peak screenplay—“too much voice-over” was all I said about it, in my covering letter. I didn’t tell those two that I considered calling it Breakfast at the Jerome—the snowshoer and Em hated Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the cult celebrity of Truman Capote. Those two said Capote was a fake; they believed he’d ruined Breakfast as a title, for eternity.

“Overkill with the voice-over, but at least you didn’t call it Breakfast at the Jerome—just don’t,” Mr. Barlow’s letter began. When it was possible, the little English teacher would begin with the writing. Eventually, I knew, the snowshoer would circle back to the heart of the matter. “Everyone discovers it’s easier to get married than it is to be married, Adam,” Elliot wrote me. “Not everyone can separate and share a child in an exemplary way. Here’s hoping a good writer and a good editor can get this part right—the breakup is what couples with kids get wrong.”

Molly had said as much to me. I’d told Molly, but not my mom, how badly I’d behaved in Aspen. “At this point, Kid, it doesn’t matter how bad a husband you’ve been, or if Grace was the wrong wife for you to begin with,” Molly said. “It’s the next part you two have to do right—Matthew is the only part that matters now, Kid.”

That September of 1995, Matthew was still in preschool. Since Grace and I doubted we would be living together by the following fall, we didn’t know where Matthew might start kindergarten. I kept thinking I should tell Grace everything—I knew I had to pay for it. But I’d withheld too much to imagine telling her all of it. How would telling her help us to stay focused on Matthew? I could always think of a logical basis for my lies of omission.

“It seems to me you are paying for it—you definitely will pay for it, eventually,” Em told me. “Grace will end up knowing everything, you know—you might as well start somewhere,” she added. “One day, Matthew will want to know who his grandfather is—if only for the medical history. You wanted to know who your father was, didn’t you?” Em asked me. “You’re a melodrama of your own making—you’re not telling this story, you know. You’re in it,” Em told me.

That September, my mother found a tiny spot of blood in her panties. “I’ve been trying to tell you, smarty-pants, there’s something going on—I’m not having my first period all over again, not in my seventies,” she said to Molly, showing her the blood.

“It was like she knew it all along, Kid—it was never about her having a potbelly,” Molly told me.

On examination, the gynecologist noticed a “fullness” to Little Ray’s lower abdomen and pelvic areas. An exam revealed “bulkiness” and “nodulation” in the “adnexa and tubes,” and one of her ovaries seemed to be “notably enlarged and irregular.”

“What does all that mean?” I asked Molly, who’d been quoting the gynecological findings.

“Don’t beat around the bush, smarty-pants—you know what they think it is,” my mother told Molly.

“At Ray’s age, a show of blood could be uterine cancer—it’s usually treatable. That’s not likely, but that would be better,” Molly said.

“Better than what, Molly?” I asked.

“Tell him, smarty-pants! I’ve got eighteen months—two years, tops, sweetie,” my mom said.

“They’re thinking it’s ovarian cancer, Kid—it’s insidious, and slow to show symptoms. You probably don’t have eighteen months, Ray—that would be a long time,” the trail groomer told her.

A subsequent CT scan showed “a complex ovarian mass with both solid and cystic components, as well as widespread lymph node enlargement with nodulation and stranding throughout the pelvis.” That didn’t sound good; I refrained from asking the old ski patroller what all that meant. There was a blood test, too—the cancer antigen 125 blood test, Molly told me. It returned at 413—an abnormally high level, compatible with what was now an almost certain diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

CT scans of my mother’s lungs, abdomen, and brain showed there had been spread to her liver, her spleen, her brain. My mom would be told not to blame herself for the delay in seeking treatment; most ovarian cancer patients, as in her case, don’t get the diagnosis until the cancer has progressed considerably.

The doctors would describe the treatment, the chemotherapy, and possibly the “debulking” surgery—to remove the ovaries and the pelvic organs. She was told that radiation wouldn’t be used because of the widespread distribution of the cancer. Molly knew the chemo would make my mom lose her hair, and vomit, and become very weak—prone to serious infections.

Once treatment began, Little Ray wouldn’t be able to manage by herself; she would need what Molly called “a fair amount of care.”

“What do you mean, Molly?” I asked the old ski patroller.

“Ray realizes she’s not going to get out of this, Kid. You know her—if she’s going to die, she’ll do it on her own terms,” the trail groomer told me.

I knew what Molly meant. My mother would refuse all treatment; the treatment might prolong her life, but she knew the treatment would make her suffer and wither, with no hope of a cure. Her doctors advised her against this decision; almost no one refused all treatment, the doctors told her, although they admitted there was a less than fifteen percent chance of a cure. “Zero is less than fifteen percent, you know,” was Little Ray’s response.

“It’s the diaper man reaction—you can’t blame her, Kid,” Molly said.

I didn’t blame her. I knew what Molly meant. My mom wouldn’t let herself become incapacitated, dependent on Molly or the snowshoer for her most intimate and degrading needs. Little Ray wouldn’t be remembered as sick and pathetic.

As with other enigmatic matters, Mr. Barlow managed to be mysterious and emphatic at the same time. “You know your mother, Adam,” Elliot said. “She can accept that she’s going to die, but not that her ending isn’t in her hands.”

“What does that mean?” Em and I asked the little English teacher.

“Molly knows what I mean,” the snowshoer said. “The end of it is in Ray’s hands, as it should be—that’s all I’m saying.” We could see the snowshoer was crying. Molly wrapped her big arms around the little English teacher, hugging all four feet nine of her.

“It’s in Ray’s hands and in yours, snowshoer,” the trail groomer told her. My mother had gone off to bed, in one of the guest bedrooms.

“I don’t care if we spend the night here, or if you go home without me,” she’d said to Molly, kissing her good night. By mid-September, my mom didn’t look or feel ill, but her energy and appetite had declined, and she continued to hold her lower abdomen and pelvic areas accountable for “still growing.” Over the next four months, we would notice her progressive decline—people who didn’t know about her cancer would ask her if she was okay.

“Little Ray is your rescue job now, Elliot. I’m fine on my own—you know that, don’t you?” Em asked the snowshoer, who was crying.

“I know!” the little English teacher told her, engulfed in Molly’s embrace.

“Here’s what I know,” Grace said to me, but loudly enough for Em and Molly and the snowshoer to hear her. “Em should stay with you and Matthew, when I’m in New York. You both have novels to finish—you can take turns with Matthew. When I’m home, Matthew will have the three of us taking turns with him—he’ll love that,” Grace told us. It’s good to remember these moments, when the people you care the most about behave at their best.

That night, when Molly went home, she took Mr. Barlow with her—the two of them leaving my mom asleep upstairs in our house. When I was getting into bed with Grace, she said she was sorry she ever used the word weird for anyone in my family. “Em is alone tonight—I doubt she’s sleeping with your mother,” Grace told me. “You should go find Em and sleep with her—I know you would rather be in bed with Em than with me, anyway,” Grace said, but she said it nicely. There was no edge to it. “Just don’t sleep with your mom,” Grace added, as I went looking for Em. That had an edge to it.

I found Em in the guest bedroom I’d moved my clothes to. “You have enough clothes for the rest of your life,” Em said to me. “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said, holding me while I cried. “You’re my rescue job now,” Em told me. A little later, she said, “I’ve not thought about two writers living together—I’m trying to imagine it.”

“I’ve thought about it—I can imagine it,” I told her. My hand inadvertently touched her breast. I hadn’t meant to touch her there. I put my hand somewhere more neutral, like her hip—a bony part of her hip, I think, but I’m not sure where my hand ended up.

“You imagine things faster than I can—as a writer,” Em said.

“Imagining things faster isn’t necessarily a virtue—not as a writer,” I said.

“The idea of two writers living together—I’m trying to imagine it,” Em repeated. Very slowly, but deliberately, she took my hand from her hip, or wherever that bony part was, putting it back on her breast. We fell asleep this way—two writers, trying to imagine what was possible.

In the morning, around the time Matthew usually came looking for me, Em reminded me that my mother was alone in one of the guest bedrooms. “You should be with her, I think—I’ll bet Ray would like that,” Em said.

I went looking for my mom, who was pretending to be asleep when I found her. “Is that my one and only?” she asked me, but there was nothing tentative about the way she threw an arm and a leg over me. My history of being in bed with my mother was not something Grace could ever take away from me. “Oh, don’t cry, sweetie,” my mom said. “Look how lucky I’ve been. I have the best husband and the best wife—I have the two best wives, really—and I get to be with my one and only. There’s nothing to cry about, sweetie—I’ve had a pretty long run, too,” the old skier told me. The former slalom racer was not given to complain about finishing off the podium, but it made me cry that my mom would not complain about dying. To Little Ray, the ovarian cancer was as fair an outcome as the competition she hadn’t measured up to as a slalom skier.

Matthew was excited to find me and his grandmother together. “Found you, and Grandma!” he cried, climbing into bed with us. “And Em is in your bed!” Matthew exclaimed—to a four-year-old, a morning of wonders. He didn’t stay long. “Going to see Em,” he told us, as he was leaving.

“I’ve been thinking about you and Em, sweetie,” my mother said, when we were alone again. “I know Nora thought everything was about sex,” my mom began.

“Sex was all-important to Nora,” I agreed.

“Sex isn’t that important—not in the long run, sweetie,” my mother told me. “You and Em should try living together—you might like it.” We could hear Matthew shrieking in the guest bedroom—the one with my lifetime supply of clothes, the one Em chose to sleep in.

“It sounds like you’ve decided everyone is awake, or that everyone should be awake,” we could hear Em saying to Matthew.

“I know Grace can be a pain in the ass, sweetie,” my mom was whispering, “but isn’t everyone happy that Em is speaking?”

Given the absolute certainty of the ovarian cancer, it was unrealistic to say that everyone was happy, but I didn’t hesitate to whisper back: “Everyone is happy that Em is speaking.”

“Me, too, sweetie,” my mother whispered, notwithstanding that she was dying—with an arm and a leg thrown over me.

Molly told me that my mom had requested a “rescue medication”—those were the night groomer’s words. It was just something to have on hand, “to use at her own discretion,” Molly said—meaning, my mother’s.

“If or when it’s needed, it’ll give her a boost—that’s all,” the snowshoer said.

It wasn’t clear to me what good a boost would be for my mother. They gave her Prednisone, the fifty-milligram tablets, telling her that, if anything could, it would give her a rapid surge of high energy. It remained a mystery to me what my mom would want with a sudden surge of high energy. For what?

“It’ll make her feel very good, even euphoric, Adam,” the little English teacher told me—a little testily, I thought. Out of character.

The doctors had told Little Ray that this burst of energy would not last long; it could actually hasten her ultimate demise, Molly was told, with my mother nodding her head the whole time.

“That’s exactly what Ray wants and needs, Kid,” Molly confirmed. I could tell the trail groomer and the snowshoer were in cahoots about having the Prednisone on hand.

“What does she have the Valium on hand for?” I asked the two of them. It was a tranquilizing muscle relaxant in the benzodiazepine family, I had read somewhere; I’d always thought Valium was used chiefly to relieve anxiety.

“A sedative is a sedative, Adam,” Mr. Barlow said—dismissively, which was also out of character.

“We know your mom is going to have some rocky days, Kid,” was all the night groomer would say about having the Valium on hand.

Bromley was a family ski area, a small mountain. When Little Ray resigned before the start of the 1995–96 ski season, her fellow ski instructors and all the patrollers knew she was a goner. Molly was forewarned of a goodbye party in the works for Little Ray.

My mother pooh-poohed that idea. “I’ll plan my own goodbye party—when the time is right, sweetie,” my mom said.

“We know, Ray—that’s what we’re afraid of,” the trail groomer told her.

“Smarty-pants, Molly,” my mother said, but Molly and I knew her. My mother liked drama, and she was good at it. Molly and I knew what we were dealing with in the case of the little English teacher, too—as a man, and as a woman, the snowshoer was inscrutable.

Grace was sad that my mom wouldn’t be Matthew’s ski instructor. Molly had not taken to becoming a ski instructor—not as much as my mother might have hoped—but Molly liked teaching little kids. At the start of that ski season, I saw how Molly took charge of teaching Matthew to ski. I thought the old ski patroller was also working with the new patrollers. It was my impression that Molly ran the meetings on patrol protocol for the first-timers, but I wasn’t paying close attention to the business at Bromley Mountain. I’d stopped skiing with my mom, again; she’d stopped skiing at Bromley altogether.

“Ray is getting her exercise with the snowshoer now,” was the way Molly put it. I saw what those two were doing, as soon as there was snow. There were trails on the mountain uphill of my house, off Dorset Hill Road; they weren’t ski trails, but the old logging roads, and the trails to an abandoned quarry and the bat cave, would suffice. Elliot Barlow kept her snowshoes and her ski poles in my basement; that was where my mother kept her telemarks, and her boots and poles. Ray was back to skiing the way she’d learned—putting the skins on her telemarks and skinning uphill, before she skied down.

“Your mom can almost keep up with me when we’re climbing,” the snowshoer said. “Naturally, I can’t keep up with her when she takes the skins off and she’s skiing down.”

“I don’t know for how much longer she can keep up with the snowshoer, or ski down, Kid,” Molly said.

Around the house, in my house or hers, I saw no slowdown in my mother’s lunges, her squats, her wall sits, but come that December, her familiar piggybacking with Mr. Barlow underwent a subtle change. She stopped carrying the little English teacher around; the snowshoer did all the piggybacking. This wasn’t a detail Molly would miss.

“The snowshoer is seven years younger than your mom, Kid,” the old ski patroller said. And the snowshoer isn’t dying, I refrained from saying, but I almost said it.

I understood why Molly kept herself busy at Bromley Mountain. The old patroller didn’t want to hover over my mother every minute—not that Molly would ask my mom how the dying was coming along. I’ll just say we were all aware that my mother was touchy about our hovering over her.

“Stop hovering over me, Molly!” she’d more than once said to her beloved patroller.

“I love you, Ray!” Molly would say, sometimes bursting into tears.

Around our house, only Matthew was behaving normally; Matthew didn’t know his grandmother was dying.

The winter months were just beginning, but the maniacal telemarking and snowshoeing on the mountainside above our house had an irreversible permanence about it. “They look like religious fanatics,” Em said. I shuddered to think how the nonspeaking Em might have pantomimed my mom’s and Mr. Barlow’s devotions to their tortuous exercise. Em would occasionally go for a walk, but working out wasn’t her thing. And it was deer-hunting season in Vermont when my mother and the snowshoer started their mountain-climbing workouts on the old logging roads and trails uphill of my East Dorset house; there were no other skiers or snowshoers in those woods, just deer hunters.

“If you two want to make sure you’ll be shot, Ray, you ought to attach antlers to your ski hats,” the old patroller said.

“Smarty-pants, Molly,” my mom said.

“If they survive till December, only the muzzleloaders can shoot them, and the season for muzzleloaders is over before Christmas,” Grace reminded Molly and Em and me in her matter-of-fact fashion. Grace didn’t care about the fanatical telemarking and snowshoeing on the hillside above our house. But Little Ray and Mr. Barlow’s après-workout activities troubled Grace; like the abundance of our guest bedrooms, the sauna had been my mother’s idea. Little Ray and Molly bemoaned not having a sauna in their little Manchester house; their bathroom was so small and poorly insulated, the town fire marshal told them they would burn the house down if they put a sauna in it.

I thought the fire marshal might have been kidding, or he’d had a few beers and misjudged Molly’s masculine capabilities. Molly knew better than to burn down a house, unless she meant to. “Why didn’t we just insulate the shit out of the sauna?” my mother had belatedly asked the fire marshal, after years of not having a sauna. The fire marshal had long since retired.

Hence the sauna in our house off Dorset Hill Road was well insulated, and the adjacent room had four showers. “A four-man or four-woman bobsled crew could shower together after their sauna—as I suppose such people do,” Grace had observed, of having four showers in the same room. She was no less judgmental when my mom and Mr. Barlow took showers together, after their sauna, or when Molly took a sauna and a shower with them—even when Molly took a sauna by herself, after skiing, because Matthew loved taking a shower with Molly, which Grace was the most judgmental about. So much depends on the way you grow up. Why wouldn’t Matthew love taking a shower with the old ski patroller, who was his very own ski instructor? Molly turned on all four showers, and she and Matthew splashed each other and screamed like crazy. There was a red light that was on when the sauna was on, and (even with all the insulation) you could smell the cedar benches when they were hot, and you could hear the hiss of the water on the hot rocks. Matthew was always checking out who was in the sauna.

“Grandma and the snowshoer, in the sauna—naked!” he would announce. (Or he would report on who was in the shower—they were always naked—and Matthew would never fail to count how many showers were on.) “Molly is like two naked people!” was Matthew’s complimentary assessment of the old ski patroller, his very own ski instructor. Matthew had no interest in taking a sauna; he just wanted to see for himself who was in there. “Too hot!” was all he said about the sauna itself. Grace thought the communal showers and the sauna were for Europeans and hippies.

Em said saunas were “strange”; she also called them “too sweaty.” Yet the sauna and the shower room gave our house the atmosphere of a gym, as the winter months were getting started. Like a lot of former wrestlers, I associated saunas with cutting weight; I had mixed feelings about them. But I loved taking showers with Matthew in the shower room, where we turned on all four showers, screaming and splashing each other. I’m sure Matthew had more fun in the shower with Molly, who was definitely like two naked people.

I should have known better than to tell Grace that Matthew had more fun in the shower with Molly than he did with me. “Of course he does!” Em cried.

In our five (going on six) years of less than marital bliss, Grace didn’t see the cause for mirth in Matthew’s having fun with Molly in the shower. “I know you—I don’t doubt that you would have fun with Molly in the shower,” Grace said.

“Of course he would—I know I would!” Em told her. The way Grace left the room—in a huff, leaving Em and me alone—you would never have guessed that Grace was the one responsible for getting Em to take up talking.

“There are only so many times you can leave a room in a huff and expect it to have an effect!” I called after Grace.

No matter how busy she was on the mountain, Molly made me ski with her; she found the time. My skiing didn’t amount to half a day a week; I didn’t take more than two or three runs with Molly. “It’s enough to keep your hand in, Kid—you’re going to want to ski with Matthew, until he’s so much better than you that he won’t want to ski with you,” the old patroller told me.

Molly would warm me up on a couple of blue runs—we’d take Twister to Yodeler, to the base of the Blue Ribbon Quad. Then the trail groomer tested me on two black diamonds—we took Stargazer or Havoc the whole way.

I met up with Molly after one of her lessons with the little kids, while Matthew was having cocoa in the base lodge with a bunch of ski schoolers, or I would catch up with her after one of her training sessions with the newbie patrollers. One time, I was hanging out with a couple of veteran patrollers; I was half listening to Molly, who was finishing up with the newbies in the ski patrol’s first-aid room at the base.

“Alcohol gives you a sensation of warmth, but it enlarges your blood vessels—alcohol actually speeds up the loss of heat from your body,” Molly was telling the new patrollers. “Normally, the cold makes the blood vessels to your skin constrict—to preserve body heat—but alcohol blocks this mechanism of self-preservation,” Molly continued. The two veterans I was hanging out with knew the gist of Molly’s message by heart; they knew exactly what the old ski patroller was going to tell the newbies next. “Imagine there’s a bunch of college kids, in their twenties—these boys have been knocking back the beer in the base lodge,” Molly was saying.

“I like this part, Kid,” old Ned confided to me; he’d been on patrol almost as long as Molly. The old and young patrollers called me Kid, because that was Molly’s name for me, and all the patrollers revered Molly.

“Ned is morbid, Kid—this part gives me the willies,” Meg said. She was younger than me, and much younger than Molly, but she was almost as big as Molly; Meg had to lean down to me when she whispered in my ear, exactly the way Molly would have.

“Imagine these college boys come looking for you patrollers, because one of their buddies is missing—he was taking a last run, over an hour ago, and his car is still in the parking lot. The lost boy hasn’t gone home,” Molly was saying more solemnly.

I could imagine Matthew as a lost boy. This part gave me the willies. “You see?” Meg went on whispering in my ear, leaning over me. I could see the old ski patroller’s doomsday scenario unfolding, with my dear son in the imaginary lost boy role.

The college kids, redolent of beer from the base lodge, find the patrollers lined up for the last chair to the top of Number One. The lift will shut down soon, when these patrollers get off at the top. Then patrol will be starting sweep. “What do you ask these college kids about their missing buddy?” Molly asked the new patrollers.

“It’s always a girl who gets it,” Meg was whispering in my ear.

“We should ask which trail their buddy was taking his last run on,” a young man said.

“What else?” Molly asked.

“We should ask if their buddy has been drinkin’,” a young woman piped up.

“You see?” Meg whispered in my ear.

“And why do we need to know if the lost boy has been drinking?” Molly asked. She sounded a little impatient or tired, or both; this time, she didn’t wait for one of them to answer her. “Because we need to know how much time we have to find him,” the old patroller answered herself. “The lost boy has veered off course. He’s hit a tree. He’s lying in the woods, where we won’t see him when we sweep. Alcohol will facilitate his freezing to death in a comfortable and peaceful fashion—he’ll freeze to death faster if he’s been drinking. That’s why we need to know,” Molly told the new patrollers.

“Here comes the paradoxical undressing—I love this part, Kid,” old Ned said.

“You are sick, Ned—sick and morbid,” Meg said. “I hope you never find me undressed, paradoxically or otherwise.”

“At my age, Meg, if I found you undressed, there would probably be something paradoxical about it,” Ned said.

“You are sick, Ned,” Meg told the old-timer again.

“Paradoxical undressing is not uncommon with hypothermia deaths,” Molly said outright, just for starters. “Paradoxical undressing most often occurs in the throes of moderate to extreme hypothermia—if you’re freezing to death, you become increasingly disoriented, confused, and combative. But if you start taking off your clothes, you’ll lose more body heat—much faster,” the old patroller said.

“If you’re freezing to death, aren’t you already cold? Why would you take off your clothes?” one of the young men asked Molly.

“That’s why it’s called paradoxical, honey,” Meg went on whispering in my ear.

“Meg doesn’t see the humor in life-threatening situations, Kid,” Ned said.

“It could be a cold-induced malfunction of the hypothalamus, the part of your brain that regulates body temperature,” Molly was explaining.

“Your hyper-what-a-mus must be out of whack, Ned—if you were freezing to death, you would probably get a paradoxical boner,” Meg said, not in a whisper.

“Young women didn’t used to be vulgar, Kid. And it’s hypo-, not hyper-, Meg,” old Ned said.

“Another explanation is that the muscles contracting your peripheral blood vessels become exhausted, just fighting the cold. If those muscles give out, or just relax, you’re going to get a surge of blood and heat to your extremities—you’ll still be freezing to death, but you’ll feel overheated,” the old patroller explained. “On ski patrol, we’re supposed to know things about mountain survival—we shouldn’t be surprised by paradoxical undressing,” Molly was saying. “If you die from hypothermia in a city, someone finding you might assume you were sexually assaulted—that’s all I’m saying,” the old ski patroller said. Knowing Molly, I knew she was done explaining. One of the young men among the new patrollers laughed.

“It’s always a guy who laughs, Kid,” Meg said; she was done whispering, but she leaned over me, glaring at old Ned.

“You have to admit this part is funny, Kid,” Ned said, but the way Meg was leaning over me, I knew better than to laugh.

Besides, now there were new, young faces looking at the old guy everyone was calling Kid, and Molly was motioning me to follow her. “Let’s go skiing, Kid,” was all she said. Small talk wasn’t the old patroller’s thing; Molly wasn’t one to linger after a patrol meeting. We were riding the old Number One chair, to the top of Upper Twister and the Blue Ribbon runs, before I told the trail groomer that, from what I’d overheard, it sounded like an interesting meeting she’d had with the new patrollers.

“I like the new kids, and I like our volunteer patrollers, but some of them think protocol is just an outdated system of rules—the truth is, if you’re looking for someone who’s lost, you have to ask the right questions, Kid,” Molly said, in her seemingly perfunctory but proficient way. I wasn’t qualified to contribute to this conversation, and I could tell the old patroller was predisposed to say nothing further about freezing to death, or paradoxical undressing. We rode the old chairlift the rest of the way in silence.

When Molly kept her thoughts to herself, I knew she was thinking about my mother. We all were, but—like Little Ray—we hadn’t said much about it. The way my mom and the snowshoer were working out, they looked like they had a plan, but they were keeping it to themselves—the way Molly kept her thoughts.

Come Christmastime, we noticed how tired my mother was; she would often go to bed right after dinner. One night, we were still eating dinner when Little Ray slipped away to one of the guest bedrooms. When Em was putting Matthew to bed, he wandered off—he was supposed to be brushing his teeth—and he discovered my mom, who was sound asleep. Molly and Mr. Barlow would stay for the night, too.

“It’s a good thing there are adequate guest bedrooms in this house—we can play musical bedrooms, à la musical chairs. Let this be a lesson to you, Adam—you should always listen to your mother,” Mr. Barlow said. Molly and Em and I laughed; it was the kind of thing the snowshoer could say, and we could laugh about, because Grace was Christmas shopping in New York and Matthew had gone to bed.

The next morning, Em and I were asleep—in the guest bedroom I’d made my own—when my mom climbed into bed with us. Em was sleeping with one arm around my waist; I could feel her stop breathing on the back of my neck when she saw my mother over my shoulder. “Please stay with us, Em,” my mom said; she’d never before gotten in my bed when anybody was with me.

“Okay,” Em said, but I could feel her hide her face between my shoulder blades. I could see my mother clearly in the predawn light; she lay facing me, with her head on my pillow, and one leg thrown over me for old times’ sake. Em would tell me later that Little Ray had grabbed hold of her arm, the one around my waist; my mom didn’t let go of Em’s arm the whole time we were talking. These days, my mother and the snowshoer were often wide awake and wandering around before dawn; some mornings, I would wake up to the teakettle whistling in the kitchen, where the snowshoer was making herself some tea. Molly was an early riser, but not as early as those two—not these days. Most mornings, Molly was among the earliest of the ski patrollers to show up in the first-aid room at Bromley, but getting up at sunrise was early enough for the old patroller.

“Listen to me, you two: there’s something you should know—you especially, sweetie,” my mom was saying in her wide-eyed way.

“Breathlessly, like a little girl,” Em would say later.

“You know Grace—she’s always telling me things she won’t tell you, sweetie, because she knows I’ll tell you, and she wants you to know,” my mother went on. I could feel Em’s head nodding against my back. Em had this same experience with Grace. When Grace wasn’t satisfied with being Em’s publisher—when Grace wished she was Em’s editor, too—Grace told Elliot Barlow, knowing Elliot would tell Em Grace’s thoughts as an editor. “Grace wants to take Matthew skiing in Aspen—she’s booked the Jerome for all three of you, sweetie,” my mom told me. I could feel Em thrashing around, shaking her head between my shoulder blades.

“Jesus,” I said.

“You don’t want to stay at the Jerome too many times, sweetie, or you might end up there,” my mother said. Em was holding her breath, or she’d died against my back. I held my breath, too; I could tell Little Ray had more to say. “This is supposedly to celebrate Matthew’s fifth birthday, but it’s Grace who’s interested in Aspen and staying at the Jerome. I suggested another hotel, sweetie—I hear The Little Nell is nice,” my mom told me. At the base of Aspen Mountain, The Little Nell was brand new when I’d been in Aspen. “When I die, if you don’t see my ghost around, you’ll have to see if I’m at the Jerome—you’ll have to get me out of there, sweetie,” my mother said. Em made a sudden exhalation and inhalation, more near-death imitations.

“What?” I asked my mom.

“You know I don’t want to end up at the Jerome, sweetie—just get me out of there! If I’m going to be a ghost, I want to be around my one and only,” my mother told me. At first, I thought Em was whistling, but it was Mr. Barlow’s teakettle. “If the snowshoer’s having tea, I want a cup of coffee—go back to sleep, you two,” my mom said. Em and I listened to her going downstairs. All this before sunrise.

“Jesus,” Em said. I knew she wasn’t a ghost person, but Em foresaw the unlikelihood of my convincing my mother’s ghost to leave the Hotel Jerome, if Little Ray ended up there.

I asked Molly to tell me her thoughts on this predawn conversation, but I should have known the old ski patroller was decidedly not a ghost person—more decidedly not than Em. “Where your mom ends up is the farthest thing from my mind, Kid—it’s the here and now that matters to me,” Molly said.

When I asked Elliot Barlow her opinion of my mother’s determination not to end up as a ghost at the Jerome, the little English teacher took a literary view of the afterlife—of ghosts in particular. “I know you and your mom have a thing for ghosts, Adam, but ghosts have a credibility problem,” Mr. Barlow began. I knew where she was going with the credibility theme; in my Loge Peak screenplay, the ghosts were a writing problem, the snowshoer said. She thought the characters who were alive were more believable than the ghosts—not to mention, more badly behaved. As with Molly, the here and now were what mattered to the snowshoer.

I remembered after the avalanche in Wengen, when we were inside the train car, with our flashlights on the little Barlows’ frozen faces. I saw how their little noses were flattened against the window, and how their skin was whitened by the cold. But the little English teacher would read more into her parents’ “enraptured” expressions than I could see; their “rapture” came from knowing that their only child would not predecease them or die with them. Now that I was a father, and knowing Matthew would be my only child, I could see what the snowshoer saw in her parents’ dying faces. “For once, they were happy that I wasn’t skiing with them,” the snowshoer had said.

She’d taken her time saying goodbye to her parents—the way someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts would know it was her last look at them. That frigid night in Wengen, in the derailed car, our breathing fogged up the window where the snowshoer knelt and cried. The little Barlows’ faces were disappearing in the foggy window, which their loving daughter wiped clear with her ski glove.

I saw how hard my mother and the snowshoer were working out, like they had a plan to live forever. Elliot Barlow didn’t concern herself with where my mom’s ghost might end up. I’d seen the little English teacher take a long last look before. I thought the snowshoer was taking what she believed was a long last look at Little Ray. I should have known what those two were up to. They didn’t have a plan to live forever, but they had a plan.

The old ski patroller knew it; Molly knew better than to interfere with it. “I’ve told you, Kid—you know what I’m going to say,” she said, when I asked her what she thought was up with my mother and Mr. Barlow. “I’ll bet your mom and the snowshoer last the longest—I’m betting they go the distance,” the trail groomer told me.

“Jesus,” Em said, when I repeated this to her; she’d heard Molly say this before, too. “But what does Molly mean?” Em asked me.

“Search me!” I said.

There was no hanky-panky between us, but Em and I were sleeping together every night. In this way, we went through Christmas and New Year’s, not knowing what was up with my mother and Mr. Barlow, except they went to bed earlier and earlier, and they were up before dawn every day.

“Now what’s rrr-rong?” Em would whisper in my ear, when we were lying in the predawn light—listening to the whistling of the teakettle in the kitchen, where we could also hear the snowshoer’s serious voice and my mom’s more girlish exclamations.

It was January before I asked Grace if she was planning to tell me about our upcoming family trip to Aspen and the Hotel Jerome. “I can’t confide in your mother anymore—she tells you everything,” Grace told me.

“I hear The Little Nell is nice,” I said, but Grace had heard this before; she wasn’t buying it.

“I want to stay at the Jerome,” Grace said. “If Paul Goode is there, you can introduce us. He’ll remember you, won’t he? I know you don’t think much of him as a screenwriter, but maybe he’s got a book in him—a Paul Goode memoir would be huge,” Grace told me, speaking as a publisher.

“Jesus,” Em said later. “That would have been the time to tell Grace he’s your father, for starters.”

At first, the snowshoer was in favor of telling Grace everything. “It doesn’t matter where you start, Adam. I know you—once you begin, it’ll all come out,” the little English teacher told me. “If you tell Grace everything that happened in Aspen, she might not want to stay at the Jerome—not with Matthew, let’s hope—but I think there’s no getting around her wanting to publish Paul Goode’s memoir, even if she knows he’s your father,” the snowshoer said.

“Jesus,” Em said. “On second thought, don’t tell Grace that Paul Goode is your father—then she’ll definitely want to publish his memoir. Just tell her everything else,” Em told me.

Grace didn’t believe in ghosts, but if I told her about the ghosts, maybe Grace wouldn’t want to take Matthew to the Jerome.

“If you’re going back to the Jerome, you should leave Matthew with us, Kid,” the old ski patroller said.

“You should begin by telling Grace about the ghosts—you definitely don’t want to take Matthew to the Jerome,” Em told me. Em said Grace’s trip to Aspen and the Jerome was not about Matthew’s fifth birthday. Grace had booked the Jerome for mid-February—Matthew’s birthday was in March.

“Leave Matthew out of this craziness,” the little English teacher told me.

Molly and Em and the snowshoer agreed: Little Ray only knew the news accounts of what happened in Aspen.

“Don’t tell Ray anything more, Kid,” Molly said.

“What happened to you in Aspen isn’t a story for mothers,” Em told me.

“Leave your mom out of this, Adam—she shouldn’t be in your movie,” the snowshoer said.

I couldn’t make any headway with Grace. I told her about the ghosts, but she was such a disbeliever—she refused to believe a ghost could frighten Matthew. “You damn fiction writers—you can’t distinguish between what you make up and what’s real,” Grace told me. “This will likely be our last trip together, as a family—we know we’re no longer a couple. It won’t kill you to introduce me to Paul Goode, will it?” she asked me. That was when I realized Grace knew Paul Goode would be staying at the Jerome when we would be there—that was why she’d made the reservation for mid-February, irrespective of Matthew’s birthday. “If your mom is at death’s door, Matthew and I will go, or I’ll go alone—I know how to introduce myself to a movie star, if I have to,” Grace said. I understood then. Going to Aspen and staying at the Jerome was all about her meeting Paul Goode, as a publisher—as Em would say, for starters.

“Don’t tell her anything else—Grace doesn’t need your help to put her heels in the air,” Em said.

“Stop with the ghosts—that’s enough to tell her, Kid,” Molly said.

“Maybe now’s not the time to tell Grace that Paul Goode is your father. She might think you’re just making it up—you damn fiction writers,” the little English teacher told me.

Come mid-January, the snowshoer and my mother were trekking up the mountainside above my house before first light; they had come down the mountain and were in the sauna by sunrise, when Molly was making her breakfast. Matthew was ecstatic; our house was full of people he loved who were up before he was. “Grandma and the snowshoer, in the sauna—naked! And Molly gave me one of her pancakes,” Matthew reported, when he climbed into bed with Em and me. We weren’t waking up to the sound of the snowshoer’s teakettle, not now. Those two were up and out of the house before their breakfast; they weren’t even making tea and coffee till they were out of the sauna, often after Molly had left for Bromley.

It was the last week of January when my mother climbed into bed with me, right after I’d gone to bed and Em was still brushing her teeth. My mom had gone to bed hours ago; I’d assumed she was fast asleep. “Shh Don’t say anything—just listen, sweetie,” she whispered in my ear. “Don’t tell Molly or the snowshoer, but you’re not just my one and only—you’re the love of my life!” my mother told me, giggling like a little girl. Then she was gone, back to her own guest bedroom—back to Molly or the snowshoer, I could only guess.

There was a certain comfort, and a no less certain sadness, in hearing I was the love of my mom’s life. I didn’t doubt that she was the love of Molly’s life, and the snowshoer’s, but I wondered if my mother would be the love of my life, too; at the time, it seemed unlikely that this position could conceivably be occupied by anybody else. I was still crying when Em came to bed, and we talked about it. Nora was the love of Em’s life; Em said she had no higher expectations, no other prospects. Upon saying this, even in the dark, Em must have sensed I was ever hopeful I might be a lowly prospect. “You’re still stuck on me?” Em asked me. I couldn’t speak. I just nodded my head against her, as I’d felt her do to me. “Well, now is not the time, but we’ll have to consider what we can do about that,” Em said.

It was still dark when Molly shook me awake in the morning, waking up Em, too. “Get your ski clothes on, Kid, though we’re not going skiing—any warm boots will do,” the old patroller told me. She’d seen the headlights and heard the car, as those two drove out the driveway. Molly knew—she must have known for a while—where my mom and the snowshoer were going.

It had stopped snowing the afternoon of the day before. By five the following morning, when Molly woke me, the night groomers would have gone home—they were long gone. The lift-maintenance mechanics would show up at six, Molly told me, as she drove us to Bromley; it was still pretty dark. “It was right around midnight when I saw the headlights and heard their car in the driveway, but I thought I was dreaming and went back to sleep—I’ve been dreaming about this for so long, Kid,” Molly said.

The snowshoer and Little Ray would have started their climb after midnight, when the night groomers had already gone. There had been sufficient moonlight, Molly knew. “Ray could find her way up Twister in the dark, Kid,” the old ski patroller said. It was a mile, straight up Twister, to the top of Bromley. Molly drove to the maintenance shed, where she started up one of the snowmobiles that were parked there overnight. The lift-maintenance mechanics used the snowmobiles for their morning opening routines. Molly drove the snowmobile up Lower Twister. In our single headlight, the fresh tracks were easy to see in the corduroy the groomers left behind—a snowshoer and a telemark skier, on a mission. There was no one around. We passed the first steep part of Twister, with no sign from the tracks that the telemark skier was slowing down or had lagged behind. “Your mom must be running on Prednisone, Kid,” Molly said.

I understood this was what the Prednisone was for—this burst of energy that wouldn’t last long. It could actually hasten her ultimate demise. “It’ll make her feel very good, even euphoric,” the snowshoer had told me.

Near the top of Upper Twister, Molly gunned the snowmobile—to get over what she called the Rock Garden. That was where we noticed how the climbers’ tracks changed. My mother must have had some trouble on the second steep part of Twister. We saw only the snowshoer’s tracks, the rest of the way. Elliot Barlow had carried her piggyback to the top. Little Ray must have held her skis and poles. “At the end, Ray would want her skis on, Kid,” Molly said. We got to the top of Bromley just barely ahead of the sunrise, but my mom and Mr. Barlow were way ahead of us; they’d been there for five hours, or more, in the freezing cold. The old ski patroller knew exactly where she would find them.

Little Ray liked the Number Ten chairlift, the Blue Ribbon Quad, the best. My mother also liked drama, and she was good at it. In the predawn light, we saw my mom and Elliot Barlow sitting together in the foremost downhill-facing chair of Number Ten. They’d had a six-pack between them, a lot of beer for those two. The empties were lined up on the east side of the unloading platform, the sunrise side, between the sign that said NO DOWNHILL LOADING and the drop-off edge of the platform—where the safety net was.

“I’m guessing the Valium was for both of them, Kid,” Molly told me. The sedative would increase the effects of the alcohol, making it easier and faster for them to freeze to death—comfortably and peacefully, the old ski patroller explained. “I’ll bet it wasn’t exactly a suicide pact,” Molly insistently said. She meant that my mother probably didn’t know the snowshoer intended to die with her. In the chairlift, my mother was fully dressed for skiing—her parka zipped up to her chin, her gloves on, her ski hat covering her ears. Not the snowshoer, who was paradoxically undressed; her parka, gloves, and ski hat were strewn all over the unloading platform; she’d frozen to death somewhat undressed.

“The snowshoer assisted your mom’s suicide—I’ll bet that was the pact between them, Kid,” Molly explained, as she was dressing the snowshoer. “But Mr. Barlow always meant to go with her—she just helped Ray go first,” the old patroller said. This was what Molly meant about my mom and the snowshoer lasting the longest—“I’m betting they go the distance,” the trail groomer had always said.

I was searching for a note in the pockets of my mother’s ski parka, but she’d left nothing in writing for me—not even a familiar quip. “When the time is right, sweetie,” she might have written, but I couldn’t find anything. I asked Molly to take a look in the snowshoer’s pockets. Surely the little English teacher would have written something, I thought, but the ski patroller said the snowshoer’s pockets were empty.

There was fresh snow all around; nothing was written in the snow. “What are you looking for, Kid?” Molly asked me.

“Writing in the snow—one of them might have written something,” I said.

“Look at them, Kid—they left room for you to sit with them, for the ride down the mountain,” the old patroller told me. “You’re supposed to ride with them, Kid—clear as written in the snow,” Molly said. “You sit between them, so they don’t slump in the chair, and I’ll bring you down—that’s what I’m supposed to do, Kid,” she said.

She went into the lift-station shack. God knows what went on in there; I never knew. Molly said she would make sure the safety gate on the unloading platform was set in the right position. “I’m also checking the stop button,” she called to me. I saw her check the bull wheel for ice. I watched her leaving me, over my right shoulder. I saw the rising sun strike the left side of my mom’s face, but her face was the same grayish white as the hoarfrost on the seats and the safety bar of the chairlift; I put my arm around her shoulders, and the snowshoer’s, but it was hard to look at them.

I could hear Molly’s snowmobile; she didn’t gun it, going downhill. I knew she would go down Twister to Yodeler, to the base of the Blue Ribbon Quad. It wouldn’t take her more than five minutes to get down the mountain. I had only a vague idea of what she had to do at the base of Number Ten. She would climb up the ladder to the motor room and start the drive motor; then I think she had to go into the lift station and turn on the safety system. I sat with the snowshoer and my mother for ten or fifteen minutes; it was a peaceful time.

That chairlift was a four-seater, and we were three small people. I sat close between my mom and Mr. Barlow, holding them tight. To the east, where the sun had risen, was Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, but I wasn’t squinting into the sun. I made myself look at my mother and the snowshoer. It was a wonderful, uninterrupted time. I admired the life they’d made together, and how they’d chosen to end it. I admired Molly for not interfering.

The chair started moving, without warning. It was a quiet ride, going down. You feel exposed on a chairlift going down a mountain; some people feel queasy. But I just held tight to my loved ones. The ride couldn’t have been long enough for me—I had so much to say to them. “You’re my one and only, too—you know that, don’t you?” I asked my mom. “You really are the only hero, you know—not just because of the Gallows Lounge shooting, not to me,” I said to the snowshoer. They were just enjoying the ride; they were done explaining.

Molly was there to stop the chair at the bottom. I saw one of the lift mechanics barreling down Peril in a snowmobile. Molly and the mechanic must have been talking on the radio. You can see the Blue Ribbon Quad from the top of Number One; the lift mechanic had probably noticed that Number Ten was moving.

“I’ve got two bodies in the chair, Willy,” Molly told the mechanic. “I need the Spryte to take them the rest of the way to the first-aid room.”

“Is that Ray and the snowshoer, Molly?” Willy asked her.

“It is, Willy,” Molly said. “And Ray’s son, Adam, is with them—the Kid’s okay,” Molly assured him.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Kid. I’ll go get the Spryte for you, Molly,” the lift mechanic told her. The Spryte, I knew, was an ugly thing—a flat-nosed pickup truck on two caterpillar tracks.

In the first-aid room, Molly and I would wait for the ambulance to arrive. The patrollers working that day would start showing up in the room at seven—just a couple at first, half a dozen by eight, a dozen by eight-thirty. The patrollers were “a nosy bunch,” Molly warned me. “They’ll be asking questions, Kid. We’ll be glad when the ambulance gets here—it’ll be coming from Londonderry,” the old patroller told me. “The state police will be involved,” Molly was saying, but I tuned out the rest. I didn’t need to know how the coroner had to “release the bodies”—Release them where? I wondered. The Blue Ribbon Quad, Number Ten, wouldn’t be open for business till nine, Molly was saying—just to hear herself say something. Being alone with their silent bodies was killing her. I just hugged her. Molly recited the protocol, but she knew the rest of the details didn’t matter.