As for the enraptured conversation my mom was having with the little snowshoer, Grandaddy Lew seemed both baffled and outraged by it. The emeritus might have imagined that Elliot Barlow was another illegitimate child Little Ray had given birth to, despite Elliot’s repeated efforts to put the delusional mustache-biter at ease.

At each sighting of the indignant-looking emeritus—either peering into or slinking through the living room—Mr. Barlow would bounce to his feet and cry out: “Good afternoon, Principal Brewster!” Thereupon, the affronted old fool would scurry away.

While my grandmother was endeavoring to keep my aunts contained in the kitchen, there were periodic breakouts. Aunt Abigail offering stale crackers and a putrid-smelling cheese; Aunt Martha precariously carrying a decanter of sherry (with very small glasses, the size of eyecups) on a silver tray. I believe it was the same cheese we’d had at Thanksgiving. Only the emeritus ever had the sherry.

“All I drink is beer, and just a little,” my mother said to Elliot, as if my aunts had already left the living room or had never intruded.

“I’m just a beer drinker, too,” Elliot told her. “Sometimes I can’t finish the first one.”

“Oh, we’re perfect for each other—we could share one beer!” my mom said, batting her eyelashes.

My aunts knew Little Ray was flirting. “Keep your feet on the floor and your hands to yourselves, you two!” Aunt Abigail said to them.

“Keep your knees together, Rachel—remember Adam!” Aunt Martha chimed in. Even I had noticed that my mother was attractively dressed. It was unlike her to pay such close attention to her clothes. Perhaps the tight sweater had been borrowed for the occasion; it might have belonged to one of the girl jocks Little Ray was living with. It was also a surprise not to see my mom in jeans or sweatpants in the winter months. The skirt and the tights were most becoming—like the sweater, borrowed but fetching. That February afternoon in 1955, when my mom and the little snowshoer were first talking about where he’d lived in Austria, I had no doubt Little Ray was flirting with Elliot Barlow. Now I’m not so sure. Hadn’t my mother always idolized Austria, not least the Arlberg? Maybe my mom was flirting with the whimsical notion of being there herself. What if the flirtation was all about her imagining herself in Lech and St. Anton and St. Christoph, thus contradicting her previously expressed dislike of foreignness?