For Christmas Eve dinner, Mr. Barlow made her beloved stuffed peppers. Molly and my mother came to dinner. I had a much bigger dining-room table in the spec house than the one Molly and my mom had; that was when Molly saw I had a bigger oven, too. Molly decided she should roast the turkey for our Christmas Day dinner in my kitchen; the snowshoer applauded this idea, because we could take turns basting the turkey. And on Christmas Day, Em entertained us with a funny pantomime enacting her furniture injuries, showing us the damage she’d incurred in her bedroom wanders: her swollen big toe, her scraped shoulder, her bruised knee. It’s true that we saw Em’s bra, and part of one breast when she showed us her shoulder, and Em just dropped her jeans when she showed us her knee. I knew when my mom was only pretending to laugh; I could tell she was inwardly seething. When she got me alone—I was basting the turkey—my mother cautioned me along these lines. “An outsider to our family, such as Grace, might misunderstand the unusual houseguest behavior of someone like Em, sweetie,” my mom said.

“What are you saying, exactly?” I asked my mother.

It discomfited me to hear her say that Grace came from a conventional family—even more so, to hear that Grace sought to have such a family for herself. Yet I was unprepared to hear what my mother had to say about Em. “It’s weird enough, sweetie, that Em is unable or unwilling to speak, and her pantomiming doesn’t work so well offstage. Em needed Nora to be understandable, sweetie. But what really wouldn’t work for Grace is Em’s nocturnal wanderings—I know Em isn’t sleeping around, sweetie, but Grace might misunderstand what looks like bed-hopping. If you know what I mean,” my mom said.

After Christmas Day dinner, when Molly and my mom had gone home—and Em had gone to bed, alone, or she was starting out that way—the snowshoer and I did the dishes. I asked Elliot Barlow what she made of my mom’s micromanaging of my meeting Grace. “You know your mother, Adam—she just doesn’t want Grace to think you’re one of those older writers who has been living a bohemian lifestyle,” Mr. Barlow said.