Of course I worried about how that would go over; in such an obdurately all-boys’ atmosphere, at a revered wrestling coach’s memorial service, Mr. Barlow’s introducing herself as a woman seemed like asking for trouble. Actually, I thought it went over pretty well—I somehow managed to remain calm during the lingering silence. “My name is Elliot Barlow,” Mr. Barlow began. “Some of you may remember me when I was a man.”

She was over forty-five, but she was a knockout as a woman—pretty and small. Most of the mourners in Phillips Church didn’t recognize Elliot Barlow, but many of them recognized Little Ray. My mother was in her fifties, but she was also pretty and small. “I used to be Mr. Barlow, when I taught English and coached wrestling here, but you can still call me Elliot—I think Elliot works for a man or a woman,” the pretty snowshoer said. “I talked to Coach Dearborn about it, and he gave me his approval. Coach Dearborn’s approval was always good enough for me,” the little English teacher said, her voice suddenly sounding strained.

There were two loud wolf whistles. My mom, who was crying, started laughing—ending the sepulchral silence. “Thank you, Martin—thank you, Johan,” Elliot Barlow told my uncles, who were also laughing. Those two old Norwegians didn’t have many years left—before the curve they saw coming, before that turn in the road. The pretty snowshoer’s confidence in herself came back; she seemed uplifted by my uncles’ crude appraisal of her womanliness. Thereby enlivened as a woman, the little English teacher exhorted the mostly male congregation in Phillips Church to read my novels. “Adam Brewster isn’t just a wrestler,” Elliot Barlow told them. Even the wrestlers laughed. Thus I was warmly introduced.

Later, at a cocktail party at the Exeter Inn, almost everyone was nice to the snowshoer; my teammates, also Matthew Zimmermann’s teammates, were friendly to Mr. Barlow, who used to be Zim’s principal workout partner. Of course, they were Exeter men; Exeter would expect them to be reserved. Maybe their homophobia was reserved.

When we were on our way back to New York together, Elliot and I talked about the physical standoffishness of some of our fellow wrestlers. “The guys hugged me more when I was a guy,” the snowshoer said; she sounded a little melancholic about it. The standoffishness was strictly physical—not necessarily cold or unfriendly, we kept saying. Yet we both knew that wrestlers were not inclined to physical standoffishness with one another. “Maybe some of the guys were just being respectful of me as a woman,” Mr. Barlow said. I tried to agree with her; I could see she was feeling a little let down, an almost physical disappointment.