In a book almost no one read, I told the zebra-fucking story—only I had someone else’s mother say it. I thought my mom would appreciate that I’d changed the story to protect her. But Molly later told me that I’d hurt my mother’s feelings. “Ray thought you didn’t give her credit, Kid,” the snowcat operator said.

Over time, a pattern was established. Molly would be the one to tell me what my mom thought of something I’d written. Apparently, Little Ray wondered why I didn’t write about her. “Who are all these other mothers? They’re not me!” she would wail to the night groomer. “There are always mothers, but who are these women? Did I make no impression at all on him?” my mom asked Molly, who would report to me.

“Does my mother really want me to write about her?” I asked Molly repeatedly.

“No, of course not, Kid,” the trail groomer told me. “Ray doesn’t understand fiction. Ray doesn’t read fiction. Except yours.”

This pattern of behavior was a two-way street. I learned I could complain to Molly about those things my mom wouldn’t tell me about; for example, I thought Molly could persuade my mother to tell me who my father was. Or suppose Little Ray told the night groomer first? Maybe then my mom would let Molly tell me.

The night after Not even a zebra was when the idea of Molly as a go-between blossomed. When Molly and my mom came back to Exeter together—usually, to see me wrestle—the sleeping arrangements were different. The snowshoer’s apartment in Amen Hall didn’t work with four of us. If my mother and Elliot slept together, that meant Molly had to sleep with me. After the wedding night, there seemed to be some ambiguity concerning the consequences of my being in the same bed with the snowcat operator—perhaps not the healthiest thing for a teenage boy.

In those years, when my mom and Molly had an overnight in Exeter, they stayed in my mother’s bedroom at the Front Street house. Naturally, my mom slept in my attic bedroom with me. Of course I knew Little Ray would leave me alone, at times—when she was visiting Molly, or when we were disturbed by an impromptu punctuation lesson from the ghost of the semicolon emeritus. My mother didn’t enjoy Granddaddy’s ghostly visits. It was hard for her to be reminded of the time when he still talked. I understood why his monologues upset her. She didn’t care to remember how the faculty emeritus had doted on his Little Ray, before her pregnancy rendered him speechless. It was after one such haunting—“Boys, boys,” the ghostly grammarian began—when my mom got out of my bed and stomped down the attic stairs.