While I’d been reading, I could hear Em taking a bath. When I’d finished the new pages, I could tell that she had gone to bed. She was starting out the night in the snowshoer’s bedroom, not with me—that was clear. I certainly understood what was private about the new pages of Em’s letter, but I showed the pages to Elliot Barlow. “Am I crazy, or is Em crazy?” I asked Mr. Barlow, handing her the pages. My good stepfather had always been my first reader; now the little English teacher was my copy editor, too. Here I was, in my late forties, still seeking her advice. According to Em, I still wasn’t a grown-up.

I saw Elliot frown when she was reading the pages; she sighed when she gave them back to me. “This is between you and Em. Of course you’re crazy—you’re both crazy,” the snowshoer said. The little English teacher revealed she had more to say when she began to pace, as if a classroom of students sat in front of her, and behind her was a blackboard where she’d already written something of importance—something she was poised to say. “I didn’t see you, Adam, or your jumping jacks—I was on all fours, you’ll recall; I wasn’t looking in the direction of the stage. But I certainly heard you taunting Trowbridge. ‘You were never in the Marine Corps—you never did anything!’ I heard you tell him. You certainly sounded like you wanted him to shoot you, Adam,” Mr. Barlow said.

“I just knew it would have killed me if he shot Em,” I told the little English teacher.

“The way you looked at her must have made this clear to Em,” the snowshoer said.

“If she were only halfway interested, I would ask Em to marry me!” I blurted out.

“I believe Em knows this, Adam—I think this is the problem,” Mr. Barlow said.

“I don’t know how I look when I’m looking at Em—I can’t see myself when I’m seeing her,” I said to the snowshoer.

“I’ve seen you when you’re imagining, Adam—mostly, when you’re writing,” the little English teacher told me. “I know how you look when you look at Em—like you’re writing the end of the story. You’re imagining that you and Em are a couple, that you’re already together—this is how you look at her,” the snowshoer said.