Ruth sat in the rocking chair by the window, the one where she had held the sleeping baby in February, and drank coffee and said almost nothing. Her plate of krumkake sat on the coffee table, untouched.
At three o'clock Brooke clapped her hands and announced that it was time for cake.
They put Linnea in the high chair. They lit the single candle in the Costco cake, a fat gold number one. Everyone gathered around in the dining room, with its old built-in sideboard that Daniel had stripped and refinished the first summer they owned the house, and somebody turned off the overhead light, and in the gray snow-light from the windows everyone sang. Linnea stared at the candle flame with enormous eyes, and then at the singing faces, and then, unsure, she turned in her high chair and looked for Nora, who was standing at the back of the group near the kitchen door, and held out her arms.
Daniel stepped in front of the high chair. He blew out the candle himself, with a big comic puff, and everyone laughed and clapped, and Linnea, startled, began to cry.
"Oh, no, no, sweetie," Brooke said, and picked her up, and bounced her, and Linnea cried harder and arched her back in that stiff, outraged way that meant the bottle was the wrong temperature and the world was the wrong shape. Brooke bounced her more. Brooke looked at Daniel helplessly.
"She just needs a minute," Daniel said. "She's overstimulated. Here. Babe, give her here."
He took the baby. Linnea screamed. Nora's hands were clenched so tightly at her sides that her nails were cutting into her palms.
And then, because he was the kind of man who handled a bad moment by talking over it, the kind of man who told the guy at the lumber yard busy, so busy, can't keep up, Daniel bounced his screaming daughter on his hip and raised his voice to be heard above her, and gave a speech.
"Okay! Okay. Everybody, while we've got you here. Just real quick." He smiled around the room, the trustworthy smile, the weather-delay smile. "I just want to say thank you to everybody for coming out in this. First snow, right? Welcome to Duluth, Gary, Deb." Laughter. "It's been a hard year. Everybody here knows that. When Tess got sick, I honestly didn't know if we were going to make it. And we did. We made it. And a big part of that is this lady right here." He put his free arm around Brooke, who flushed. "Brooke came into our lives when we really, really needed somebody. She's been amazing with Linnea. And I'm really proud to tell you all that, as of this week, she's officially moving in. So this house is going to be a real home again. A real family."
People clapped. Deb put her hand on her heart. Gary said, "Atta boy." Brooke smiled down at the floor.