Em wrote me that my moving to Vermont amounted to my “consenting to an arranged marriage”; Em was kidding, but not entirely. Everyone knew I’d agreed to meet Grace, and that Grace was my mom’s idea. I still hadn’t met Grace, but my meeting her was as much in the offing as my going skiing with my mother. And everyone knew I’d stopped seeing Wilson, which had also been my mom’s idea—not that anyone really liked Wilson. “Not even Wilson liked Wilson, but you know your mother is setting you up to fall in love with Grace—and you know I love your mom,” Em wrote me.

The snowshoer, ever a good stepfather, teased me a little. “I said you should ski with your mother, not move in with her. You’re almost fifty, Adam, a little old to live with your mom,” the snowshoer said. She was just teasing me; Elliot knew I was looking for a place of my own in Vermont. I was staying with my mother and Molly until something turned up. There were some brand-new houses for sale in Manchester—large, empty houses that had been built on spec. I’d thought about renting one of the spec houses that hadn’t been sold, but the Realtor forewarned me they would still be showing the house to prospective buyers, and it was an unfurnished house. I had no furniture, befitting a vagabond.

“Molly and I will get you what you need for furniture, sweetie. When you buy some land and build your own house, the furniture that we get for you can go in your own house,” my mother said. That was when I realized my mom was imagining my moving to Vermont for the long haul; she’d already been looking at land for sale. Molly was no pantomimist. Em would have been clearer, but the look Molly gave me was clear enough: my mom didn’t tell Molly everything she was up to. “I saw an uphill piece of land, off Dorset Hill Road. If you cut down some trees, sweetie, you could see the top of Bromley from there,” my mom said. I wondered how uphill she meant, and why seeing the top of Bromley Mountain would necessarily be of interest to me. “So you can see how hard the wind is blowing, sweetie. Then you’ll know how to dress, for skiing,” my mother told me. As for the uphill part about the land for sale: “You should have all-wheel drive if you’re going to live anywhere in Vermont, sweetie.”

Molly tried to say I should wait and see if I was going to like skiing—that is, before I bought a piece of land with a view of Bromley Mountain. “As I recall, Ray, Adam didn’t much care for skiing the last time he tried it,” the ski patroller said.