Skiers are always talking about a last run, as if the last run they take is the one that’s going to kill them. My last run that first day was with Molly. The old ski patroller was almost seventy; she was waiting for us at the top of the Blue Ribbon Quad, as if she’d been expecting us. “I’ll take the kid from here, Ray,” the trail groomer told my mother.

“My one and only is a blue-run boy, Molly,” my mom cautioned her.

“The last run should be a good one, Kid,” the ski patroller said. She took me down black diamonds, definitely. We took Corkscrew to Pabst Panic or Pabst Peril; I can’t remember if there was a No Name Chute then. If the names of ski trails were better, I might remember them. The management of Bromley kept changing hands. Before he died, Fred Pabst, Jr., the beer guy, had named some trails for his family’s brewery and his Blue Ribbon beer.

Molly didn’t give me any tips about my skiing; the trail groomer wanted to warn me about hotshots. “If you’re skiing with people who ski better than you do, don’t let them push you into anything,” the ski patroller said. “Here’s the thing about hotshots, Kid—assholes are assholes, no matter how good they are at something.” For the rest of my life, it would be easier to remember Molly’s warning about hotshots than the names of ski trails.

There was a lot to like about my first day back on skis. I had upheld my status as an intermediate skier, and I had a good time. I couldn’t remember when I had last gone skiing, but I probably had hated it. Skiing with my mom and Molly, I knew I would get a little better, but not a lot. I would always be a blue-run guy. I didn’t have a problem with that. I was living in a ski town with a great bookstore; everybody I met already knew I was a writer, whether they’d read me or not. I was going to get a lot of writing done, I was thinking. I didn’t have a problem with that.

Nora had surmised the Barretts were likely to be Irish. I was so out of it, I’d not paid any attention to Grace’s last name. “I suppose the Barretts go back to the Norman invasion,” the snowshoer had said, but Nora hadn’t been worried about the Normans.

“We originally came from County Cork, but our branch of Barretts were from Norfolk County in East Anglia—we were from the East of England,” Grace’s father, Arthur Barrett, had told my mother.

“I was just wondering if Grace is Catholic, Ray,” Nora said.

“Goodness! Not that I’ve noticed,” my mom said.