There was a certain comfort, and a no less certain sadness, in hearing I was the love of my mom’s life. I didn’t doubt that she was the love of Molly’s life, and the snowshoer’s, but I wondered if my mother would be the love of my life, too; at the time, it seemed unlikely that this position could conceivably be occupied by anybody else. I was still crying when Em came to bed, and we talked about it. Nora was the love of Em’s life; Em said she had no higher expectations, no other prospects. Upon saying this, even in the dark, Em must have sensed I was ever hopeful I might be a lowly prospect. “You’re still stuck on me?” Em asked me. I couldn’t speak. I just nodded my head against her, as I’d felt her do to me. “Well, now is not the time, but we’ll have to consider what we can do about that,” Em said.

It was still dark when Molly shook me awake in the morning, waking up Em, too. “Get your ski clothes on, Kid, though we’re not going skiing—any warm boots will do,” the old patroller told me. She’d seen the headlights and heard the car, as those two drove out the driveway. Molly knew—she must have known for a while—where my mom and the snowshoer were going.

It had stopped snowing the afternoon of the day before. By five the following morning, when Molly woke me, the night groomers would have gone home—they were long gone. The lift-maintenance mechanics would show up at six, Molly told me, as she drove us to Bromley; it was still pretty dark. “It was right around midnight when I saw the headlights and heard their car in the driveway, but I thought I was dreaming and went back to sleep—I’ve been dreaming about this for so long, Kid,” Molly said.

The snowshoer and Little Ray would have started their climb after midnight, when the night groomers had already gone. There had been sufficient moonlight, Molly knew. “Ray could find her way up Twister in the dark, Kid,” the old ski patroller said. It was a mile, straight up Twister, to the top of Bromley. Molly drove to the maintenance shed, where she started up one of the snowmobiles that were parked there overnight. The lift-maintenance mechanics used the snowmobiles for their morning opening routines. Molly drove the snowmobile up Lower Twister. In our single headlight, the fresh tracks were easy to see in the corduroy the groomers left behind—a snowshoer and a telemark skier, on a mission. There was no one around. We passed the first steep part of Twister, with no sign from the tracks that the telemark skier was slowing down or had lagged behind. “Your mom must be running on Prednisone, Kid,” Molly said.