You can imagine how clumsily I must have formed the words, in order to ask my grandmother exactly what she meant about my being an Adam. I can’t remember the tortured way I would have phrased the question; I can’t see myself asking my grandmother such a thing in a clear and forthright manner. Such as: “Nana, are you telling me my mother had sex just once—because she wanted a child, just one—and now that she has me, she’s never doing it again?”

Can you imagine asking your grandmother that? Well, I did—in no comprehensible sequence of words I can recall.

It’s not hard, on the other hand, to summon to memory my grandmother’s answer. In a way, I’d already heard it, when I asked her to read Moby-Dick again—the whole story.

“When you’re old enough, Adam,” Nana began, “I’m sure Little Ray would prefer to tell you the story herself—the whole story.”

7. ALL ABOUT SEX

Keep in mind that my mother was the baby in the Brewster family, and then I was—hence the alleged accident of Little Ray’s birth was perceived as a precursor to the unplanned nature of my own coming into this world. This was the threefold, presumptive opinion of my aunts: that Little Ray and I were both unplanned; that a resultant chaos attended our births; that an ongoing haplessness would doom the rest of our lives.

To this joyless conviction, steadfastly upheld by Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha, my grandmother had (albeit briefly) shone on my birth an unverified but undimming light—namely, what if I had been planned? What if I were no accident at all? If Rachel Brewster had intended to have me, didn’t that make me the sole reason for my existence? Since I had a mom who chose to spend six months of the year away from me, you can perhaps appreciate why I would cling to this hope.

I don’t mean I never saw my mother in the ski season. She never came home for Christmas and New Year’s, or for my March break; she was working as a ski instructor, and those were the busiest times in the ski season. However, she came to North Conway to see me—in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and again for the week of my March break.

My Christmases and New Years were spent “up north,” in the hearty companionship of the New Hampshire Norwegians. The Vinter side of my family was not universally positive. Uncle Martin and Uncle Johan were ceaselessly optimistic. Robustly busy men, they took charge of us kids—not just waxing or sharpening our skis, and fussing over our boots and bindings, but rallying our spirits when we were tired or hungry or cold. Martin and Johan were endlessly active and cheerful outdoorsmen; they were not the suicidal Norwegians Ibsen brings to mind.