My swings bounced off the log in a manner that, I was fairly certain, would soon result in the loss of my foot. Meanwhile, Bud’s blade bit into the wood with gaudy cracks. He was paying me no mind.

And then suddenly Paco was standing off to my left, like a grim apparition. He looked at me with something that didn’t quite qualify as contempt and took the axe from my blistered palm.

They went at the wood with a frantic devotion. These were full-bodied whacks, of the sort I associated with Paul Bunyan, extended backswings, clean strokes. Their cheeks marbled with the exertion, the rapture of hard labor. They moved from the ends of the log toward the center, till they were nearly touching at the flanks, their puffs and grunts fallen into a steady rhythm.

Dria and I were in the pantry, grinding pelvic bones and discussing sleeping arrangements. They had stashed me in the basement, while Dria was on the third floor, next to the master bedroom.

“It’ll be a secret mission,” she said. “You’ll have to be cunning, like Odysseus.”

“But your parents—”

“Wait until after midnight. They sleep like the dead.” She looked up at me with her chin flashing. “I’ll be ready for you, Jay.” She lifted her skirt and showed me the long white thighs. Her tongue was hot with eggnog.

Then we heard footsteps and jumped away from each other just as Madelina opened the pantry door. She was in a silent ecstasy, pretending to be surprised, pretending not to understand the scene before her.

“We were checking something,” Dria said.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What were you checking, Dria?” Madelina said, in her merciless accent. “Were you checking if we had beef bouillon? Or maybe you were checking if we had saltines. And you needed someone to help, a tall boy to see on those high shelves? But, of course, that is none of my business.”

“That’s right,” Dria said sharply. “There are some things that are nobody’s business. You of all people should know that.”

The two of them exchanged a look of accumulated recrimination.

“Your mother is in the sitting room,” Madelina said slowly.

We made our way back and listened to Suzanne Blacet as she detailed the legacy of her forebears, who had served in the court of Louis Quatorze, Napoleon’s army, the Académie Scientifique. Dria had mentioned none of this. It was unnecessary. Her very manner, the grace, the formal gestures announced her lineage.

I felt as if I were in the midst of many confusing secrets. It hadn’t occurred to me that this was the central purpose of family: the production of secrets, the elaborate concealment of unbearable truths. I still thought of my family in childish terms, as a lovable inconvenience.

Suzanne talked on and on. The fire snapped. Dria sat listening to her maman and licking her lips.