It would not be a surprise to me to learn that the woman with the baby carriage wasn’t a ghost. And if my mother had interjected, about Paul Goode, He was just a boy who couldn’t take his eyes off me—well, that would have been okay with me. He would have been a pretty girl, I wished she’d said, again—she didn’t. My mom wasn’t saying a word.

Maybe I could begin the story with the ghosts, I was thinking—remembering how that woman with the baby carriage never did anything but show up. Yet all I said to Grace was: “No, I don’t know what happened to the woman with the baby carriage.”

“She threatened to commit suicide after a restraining order was issued against her—prohibiting her from approaching or contacting Paul Goode,” Grace said. I learned that the woman with the baby carriage never had a romantic relationship with Paul Goode—they weren’t even lovers in the film. The woman had stalked Paul Goode; she’d sought to have a relationship with him, she spied on every woman who ever knew him. “Career-wise, she might as well have committed suicide,” Grace said. That was when I wished I was in Aspen, at the Hotel Jerome—waiting for the ball to drop, among the ghosts. I said nothing to Grace about the ghosts, or about my father. I just watched my mother, never knowing what she might do or say.

Little Ray glared at the grocery list on the fridge door before she took out two beers, giving one to me. The solemnness that had greeted Grace’s virginity story gripped us again; there was nothing lighthearted about the suicide threat of that woman with the baby carriage. I knew the night groomer’s good intentions when she decided to dispel our gloom with a little levity. Molly’s mischief lifted our New Year’s Eve out of the doldrums, just before the ball drop in Times Square.

“We should tell you two virginity stories, Grace—Adam played a part in losing two virginities,” the trail groomer told the woman I would marry in June. “Didn’t you, Kid?” Molly asked me. I knew the lost virginities Molly meant—mine and Maud’s—and my mom was shrieking with laughter. Grace knew this wasn’t to be taken seriously.

“You lost your virginity twice?” Grace asked me; she was already laughing. I was grateful to the night groomer for making Grace feel happy. We watched the stupid ball drop on the TV in the living room, while my mother and Molly did most of the storytelling.