Summary

John describes his mother, Tabitha (nickname Tabby). She dressed to accentuate her looks without showing them off and exuded a “touchability”—everyone who knew her wanted to touch her. He describes her response to this contact “catlike”—she froze, ducked, or luxuriated in it. He does not recall Tabby openly flirting, but posits she must have as she traveled on the train to Boston and back, as it was on this train that she met Jolhn’s father as well as Dan Needham, the man she eventually married. John recounts the night his mother told the family about her beau at the dinner table, reassuring her mother she was not once again pregnant and telling John the man is not his father. Tabby tells the family her new paramour is a drama teacher with a Harvard degree—a fact that impresses John’s grandmother—who is...