I had purposely closed my heart to my mom’s attempts to teach me to ski. I’d spurned her efforts to make me the kind of athlete she was. I’d shunned the jock in her by not being a jock, but being a jock was a big part of who my mother was. I’d overlooked the jock in her—hence I was always surprised and disarmed by any sudden, explosive display of her athleticism. Even when she’d had a few beers, when I should have been on guard, I was unprepared for the split-second coordination of her strength, her balance, her catlike quickness.

From her back, my mom threw her far leg over me, this time bringing the rest of her body with it. She was suddenly sitting in my lap, with her legs straddling my hips and her hands pressing my shoulders into the bed. I saw only the silhouette of her head and shoulders—now backlit by the diminishing light from the disappearing skylight, blanketed with snow.

“Can you still see me, sweetie?” she whispered.

“I can see you a little,” I told her.

“Tell me when you can’t see me—tell me when I’m gone,” my mother whispered.

“Okay,” I whispered back.

“Has anyone ever kissed you, Adam?” she asked me.

“Not like you kissed the snowshoer,” I told her.

“I should hope not,” she whispered. She’d stopped giggling. “The knowing how much, or how little—that’s where the judgment comes in, that’s where you have to know what you’re offering, or what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I can still see you,” I whispered. I didn’t want her to kiss me, but I also did. I wanted the kiss she’d given the snowshoer, but I didn’t want that kiss from her. Yet how could it have been that exact same kiss if it wasn’t hers?

“You’re not fooling around when you kiss someone like that,” my mom whispered, as she was disappearing in the darkness. “You better know what you mean—you better mean what you’re promising—when you kiss someone like that.”

“I can’t see you—you’re gone,” I whispered. I know—I might as well have told her to kiss me—I know, I know. And while I truly had lost sight of her in the darkness, I could still see her in my mind’s eye, as I will forever see her—the way she stretched her body full-length on top of mine, and the way she kissed me. I have no doubt it was the exact same kiss she gave the snowshoer.

“Like that—that’s how you do it,” she said, in her girl-jock way, as if the kiss had been routine business for her, as perfunctory as her showing me (again and again) a stem christie or a parallel turn.