There would be no follow-through to all the talk about lies of omission. As of Christmas Day, 1989, I still hadn’t met Grace; I was beginning to wonder if my mother had changed her mind about my meeting her. I hadn’t even gone skiing with my mom, as if she’d changed her mind about skiing with me, too. “What are you waiting for, Ray?” Molly asked. “Are you waiting for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when so many assholes are on skis that Adam will surely be struck and killed by an asshole skiing out of control?”

“Smarty-pants, Molly,” my mother said, not answering the question.

I didn’t delay in renting the spec house off West Road in Manchester, nor did my mom and Molly delay in furnishing it. They went overboard; the spec house had three bedrooms, and all the beds were in place before I even moved in. I found out, only after the fact, that the snowshoer was helping to pay for it. The death of the little Barlows was a windfall for Elliot, who’d been very generous to my mother—sharing with her the writing team’s royalties and the profits from their properties in Austria.

“What a breadwinner Mr. Barlow has turned out to be—I couldn’t have asked for a better husband!” my mom was fond of declaring.

And I couldn’t have asked for a better father, I would always think—while the furniture kept coming to the spec house. Every two or three days, a new piece would show up. There were two hutches, but I had only one dining room, and the second hutch was even bigger than the first one—a giant cupboard or dresser, with open shelves above. I had the deliverymen put the huge hutch in one of the bedrooms—a guest bedroom, I was calling it. I knew Molly had to restrain my mother from buying a fourth bed. “This furniture isn’t just for the spec house, sweetie—you’ll need more than three bedrooms one day,” my mom assured me.