“Where does Mr. Barlow sleep—in what kind of bed, with whom?” Aunt Martha chimed in.

“He has a single bed, a small one. Ray and I have a double bed, in a bigger room. We share a bathroom—it’s between the bedrooms,” I explained. This was true, too, but I was stalling.

“You’re too old to sleep with your mother, Adam,” Aunt Abigail said tiredly, for the hundredth time. “Think of your hands.”

“My mom visits Mr. Barlow—in his room, almost every night,” I said slowly, as if I were writing this sentence. A truthful sentence, nonetheless. After Ray and I had gone to bed—when we’d been whispering together, and had finally run out of things to say—my mother would slip out of bed and whisper a few more things.

“I’ll be back soon, sweetie—I’m going to visit the snowshoer,” she whispered. “I’ll leave a night-light on in the bathroom—okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered back.

I would have noticed if she wore a naughty-looking nightie, but she was always wearing her flannel pajama bottoms, or athletic shorts, and a T-shirt—nothing frisky. Sometimes I was awake when she came back to our bed, sometimes not. These are true details, notwithstanding that I knew the conniptions Little Ray’s nightly visits would cause my querulous aunts.

“She visits Mr. Barlow!” Aunt Abigail cried. “For how long?”

“It wouldn’t take long—he’s so small!” Aunt Martha chimed in.

“They’re not even engaged!” Aunt Abigail said scornfully. They soon would be, but their engagement wouldn’t matter to my aunts. The inappropriateness of my mom’s visits with Mr. Barlow would continue to rankle the two most condemning Brewster girls, long after the snowshoer and Little Ray were married.

“Those two have other bugs up their asses—more than the matrimony bug,” Nora always maintained, about her mother and Aunt Martha.

“I don’t suppose you can hear Mr. Barlow and your mom—can you, Adam?” Aunt Abigail asked me. Ah, well—that was the opportunity for fiction writing I’d been waiting for. I was experimenting as a storyteller. I was imagining I could make something up by leaving something out. Dickens would have done it better.

“I don’t hear them talking,” I started to say. The pause was deliberate. “Well, I can occasionally make out what she says—never what he says, if he ever talks. There’s just a lot of grunting and groaning, and laughing,” I told them. “The floor shakes, sometimes.” My aunts said nothing—that was a first. It was as if they were listening for the grunts or groans, and the lovers’ laughter, or they were waiting for the floor to shake.