I didn’t tell them that Little Ray and the snowshoer were in the habit of doing her ski exercises together. Their single-leg lunges made the floor shake, and she could hold her lunges longer than he could hold his. Little Ray could also hold her wall sits longer than the snowshoer could hold his. It was during the lunges and the wall sits that she would urge him to hang on a little longer. “Come on, don’t quit,” I could hear her say.

I also didn’t tell my aunts that my mother had found a way to make the squats harder. She made the snowshoer lace his fingers behind her neck, and lock his legs around her waist; then she squatted. She was a big believer in deep squats, but she outweighed the snowshoer by ten or fifteen pounds. When he squatted—with her fingers laced behind his neck, and her legs locked around his waist—he really strained to finish his squats. He couldn’t go as deep as she did. “Deeper!” I could hear her urging him. When I could hear them laughing, I knew he’d collapsed or lost his balance—with her still clinging to him—trying to finish too deep a squat.

I thought the way I imitated her overheard dialogue—the “Come on, don’t quit” and the “Deeper!”—had the desired effect on my easily scandalized aunts, but their speechlessness deceived me. My early efforts at fiction writing failed. As Nora would tell me later, her mother and Aunt Martha didn’t believe me.

“For Christ’s sake, Adam—everyone’s heard Ray doing her lunges, her wall sits, and her squats,” Nora told me. “Ray tries to get anyone to do them with her—even I’ve done them with her!”

I was ashamed. I thought I’d been creative. I had refrained from telling Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha how I overheard Little Ray’s instructions to the snowshoer concerning the wall sits: “If you can’t see your big toes, you’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t try to make them believe the wall sits were sexual, too,” Nora told me. “My mother and Aunt Martha are convinced that Ray and the little snowshoer are faking it. My mother and Aunt Martha think Ray is looking for a situation that will get you out of the Front Street house, before Nana goes off the rails and the diaper man becomes a fetus emeritus. They say the snowshoer is looking for a way to keep his job. They think Ray is Mr. Barlow’s beard, Adam,” Nora said.

“His what?” I asked her.

“Jesus, Adam—I forget you’re only twelve or thirteen, or something,” Nora said.

“I’m thirteen,” I told her.

“A beard is a front, Adam. In Ray’s case, she’s pretending to be the girlfriend of a homosexual,” Nora told me.