I declined to be a Madeline reader when Em suggested to Matthew that I should have a chance to read to him. I could see Grace stiffen. I said that Matthew and I would soon be alone—when the weekend was over and Matthew’s mom and our guests went back to New York. I told Matthew I was looking forward to reading Madeline many times during the coming week. That must have been when Grace decided to take the book with her when she went back to the city.

On Monday, when one of the nannies brought him home from preschool, Matthew couldn’t find Madeline; we looked everywhere for it. When Matthew was searching upstairs, I looked for the book in the trash, but I couldn’t find it. I called the Northshire Bookstore to see if they had a copy; they had a good children’s section, but the book was on backorder. I was told that they would have it in a couple of days.

The prospect of a couple of days was no consolation to Matthew. “Maybe Mommy took it,” Matthew said, when I was putting him to bed. I tried to assure him that his mother wouldn’t have taken the book—it was just lost, somehow, and a new copy was coming. Yet it had been apparent, even to a four-year-old, that his mother had it in for Madeline.

I raised that point with Grace when I called her Monday night in New York—after I knew Matthew was sound asleep.

“Maybe Em took it—she might have realized that Madeline is too young for Matthew,” Grace told me.

I tried to say what Em had said to me. “Forget Madeline—Matthew is the littlest one, and our biggest priority,” I said to Grace.

“I know that,” Grace said, hanging up.

I sat on the floor of Matthew’s bedroom and watched him sleeping, for about an hour. I went to bed in Grace’s and my bedroom, now that I was alone again. This didn’t diminish Matthew’s greeting when he woke me up in the morning. “Found you!” the littlest one cried, climbing into bed with me. Matthew sounded so happy, as if our being apart was the only thing wrong with the universe—or rrr-rong, as Em had ad-libbed when she found her voice.

47. WRITTEN IN THE SNOW

“You don’t want to end up at the Jerome, sweetie,” my mom had told me. Molly and I hadn’t heard her say that before; we let it go. In Vermont, in mid-August, some nights already felt like the fall; a few of the maple trees changed color early. “Every year, the same dumb trees jump the gun,” my mom said.

“The smart trees, Ray—they know what’s coming,” Molly told her.