I would wonder, later, if I might have been happier living in Manchester Village or Manchester Center rather than on that uphill piece of land so far from town. I was brand new in town; I’d just moved into the spec house, but I already liked living in town. I could put on my hiking boots and walk everywhere; I loved putting on my backpack and walking to the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center. It’s a terrific bookstore—in the same league with Prairie Lights, in Iowa City. The first time I went to the Northshire, they treated me like a local author; the staff had read my novels. At first, I didn’t realize that my mother had prepared the Northshire booksellers for my moving to town. And before my mom knew I was moving to Manchester, she and Molly had been buying my novels at the Northshire. I suddenly saw Grace from a new perspective: my mother had been giving my novels to all her ski-school students. As one of the booksellers at the Northshire told me: “Your two moms have been giving your books to everyone who works at Bromley, for years.”

Not only at the Northshire, but at other places in Manchester, they knew who I was; they’d been expecting me to show up. I was happy that everyone already knew my two moms’ story. I should have known that Little Ray was a local celebrity, and that the night groomer was no one you could overlook. I saw Molly’s perspective on my underage dad in a new light; the story of the local author with two moms who worked at Bromley was a better story.

I would wonder, later, if it might have worked out if I’d stayed in town and bought the spec house. After all, it was for sale. As for the land off Dorset Hill Road in East Dorset, Molly said I could always sell it. I should have sold it. I should have bought the spec house with the excess furniture; I could have put books in the second hutch. But when something doesn’t work out, you don’t know what might have worked. I don’t believe that my staying in town would have helped.

The lies of omission were insurmountable. Once you start to acquiesce, there’s no stopping the acquiescence. Passive resistance didn’t work with Little Ray, and I wasn’t capable of winning a full-on fight with my mother. Of course I didn’t need a five-bedroom house with a view of the top of Bromley Mountain—nor did Grace. The three bedrooms in the spec house in Manchester would have sufficed for what went wrong.

44. MEN WHO SHOULD BE CASTRATED