I went looking for my mom, who was pretending to be asleep when I found her. “Is that my one and only?” she asked me, but there was nothing tentative about the way she threw an arm and a leg over me. My history of being in bed with my mother was not something Grace could ever take away from me. “Oh, don’t cry, sweetie,” my mom said. “Look how lucky I’ve been. I have the best husband and the best wife—I have the two best wives, really—and I get to be with my one and only. There’s nothing to cry about, sweetie—I’ve had a pretty long run, too,” the old skier told me. The former slalom racer was not given to complain about finishing off the podium, but it made me cry that my mom would not complain about dying. To Little Ray, the ovarian cancer was as fair an outcome as the competition she hadn’t measured up to as a slalom skier.

Matthew was excited to find me and his grandmother together. “Found you, and Grandma!” he cried, climbing into bed with us. “And Em is in your bed!” Matthew exclaimed—to a four-year-old, a morning of wonders. He didn’t stay long. “Going to see Em,” he told us, as he was leaving.

“I’ve been thinking about you and Em, sweetie,” my mother said, when we were alone again. “I know Nora thought everything was about sex,” my mom began.

“Sex was all-important to Nora,” I agreed.

“Sex isn’t that important—not in the long run, sweetie,” my mother told me. “You and Em should try living together—you might like it.” We could hear Matthew shrieking in the guest bedroom—the one with my lifetime supply of clothes, the one Em chose to sleep in.

“It sounds like you’ve decided everyone is awake, or that everyone should be awake,” we could hear Em saying to Matthew.

“I know Grace can be a pain in the ass, sweetie,” my mom was whispering, “but isn’t everyone happy that Em is speaking?”

Given the absolute certainty of the ovarian cancer, it was unrealistic to say that everyone was happy, but I didn’t hesitate to whisper back: “Everyone is happy that Em is speaking.”

“Me, too, sweetie,” my mother whispered, notwithstanding that she was dying—with an arm and a leg thrown over me.

Molly told me that my mom had requested a “rescue medication”—those were the night groomer’s words. It was just something to have on hand, “to use at her own discretion,” Molly said—meaning, my mother’s.

“If or when it’s needed, it’ll give her a boost—that’s all,” the snowshoer said.