And the way he said it, the small, ugly certainty in it, went through her like cold water. She thought of the green duffel on the porch. She thought of the spiral notebook at the bottom of it, and the folded yellow page in the back. She thought of how neatly her things had been packed, every sweater folded, every book squared up. She thought: he went through it. Of course he went through it. He had all morning.
"Get out," Daniel said. He said it to her, and then he turned and said it to his mother. "Both of you. I mean it. Get out of my house."
"Daniel," Erik said.
"Stay out of it, Erik."
"Danny, she's Mom—"
"I said stay out of it!" He was shouting now, and the baby on his hip flinched and began to wail again, and the sound filled the room, high and thin and inconsolable. Linnea twisted in his arms. She twisted toward the kitchen door, toward Nora, both arms out, her small hands opening and closing on the air.
"Noni," she sobbed. "Noni. Noni."
Nora took one step forward. She could not help it. And Daniel turned his body, deliberately, so that the baby was facing the wall.
Nobody moved. Then Ruth picked up her purse from the chair and her plate of krumkake from the coffee table, and she walked across the dining room, and she put her hand on Nora's arm.
"Come on," she said gently. "Come on, now. We'll fix this. But not here."
They walked out together, past Gary and Deb, past the church couple, past the crew guys and the dental coworker and the three cakes, and Linnea's crying followed them down the hall and out onto the porch and into the snow. Nora did not look back. She knew that if she looked back she would not be able to keep walking.
On the porch she stopped, because her suitcases were still there, three white shapes in the drifting snow, and she did not think she could lift them.
Behind her the door opened again. It was Erik. He did not say anything. He stepped past her and picked up the gray roller in one hand and the green duffel in the other and carried them down the steps to his mother's Buick, and then he came back for the hard-shell case and the plastic bin. He loaded them into the trunk and closed it and came back up the walk and stood in front of Nora with snow in his hair.
"I didn't know," he said. "About any of it. He told me you were moving out. He said you wanted to go. He said you'd asked him to do it this way so you wouldn't have to say goodbye." He swallowed. "I'm sorry. I should've asked you."
"Yes," said Ruth, from the car. "You should have."
Erik flinched. Then he nodded, and went back inside, and shut the door quietly behind him.