46. “FOUND YOU!”

On the New Year’s Eve when I met Grace, I assumed my mother took Em’s grocery list with her when Molly drove her and Grace home. It made sense to me that Little Ray wouldn’t want me to think about meeting my father, or to imagine I might like Paul Goode if I got to know him—“in real life,” as Em had written. And since Em and I weren’t writing to each other, a whole year would pass without our being alone together; there was nothing personal between us, not even another grocery list. When I went with Grace to New York, and we saw the snowshoer and Em for dinner, Em’s pantomimes were restrained. Did Em sense that Grace disapproved of her not speaking? When Mr. Barlow brought Em to Manchester, they stayed with Grace and me in the spec house, but my mother and Molly were always around; Em’s pantomimes were toned down then, too.

Whenever we had overnight guests in the spec house, Grace closed our bedroom door. I could still hear the pad of Em’s bare feet in the upstairs hall—when she was visiting Elliot, or on her way back to her own bedroom. I’d given Em a brighter flashlight, and she’d learned where the obstacles were; there were no more collisions with the excess furniture. But sometimes—when Em woke up alone, and she felt frightened—she ran to a bed with a body in it. Then the pad of her bare feet resounded in the upstairs hall.

“Do you miss her getting into bed with you?” Grace asked me one night, when Em sounded like she was sprinting in the hall.

“No,” I lied, but I was wondering how Grace knew what Em was up to. “There was never any fooling around,” I added.

“I know,” Grace told me; she gave me a hug and went back to sleep. I was awake, just wondering. Maybe Mr. Barlow had forewarned Grace of Em’s nighttime wanders. Knowing my mom’s fixation with Em’s bedroom visits, Molly wouldn’t have mentioned them.

That week between Christmas and New Year’s, in the last days of 1990, Em and the snowshoer stayed with us in the spec house. It was near the end of Grace’s sixth month. I was surprised to see the physical affection between Em and Grace, the hugs and the hand-holding—Em was excited to feel the fetus move. I’d seen Em’s childbirth pantomimes; they were not positive experiences. Yet Em was attentive to Grace’s pregnancy. Em did the dishes and the kitchen cleanup; she was her old self in pantomiming how she wanted Grace to lie down and call her when the fetus was acting up, so that Em could feel the kicks.