The table went quiet in the particular way of people absorbing information that was larger than the words carrying it.
Caleb took his glasses off.
Cleaned them on his shirt, something he did when he was processing something significant.
Put them back on.
And looked at Gideon, who was at the far end of the table with his coffee.
The look said plainly, "I told you so," without any of the unpleasantness that phrase usually carried.
Just the satisfaction of a boy whose analysis had proven correct.
Miles set his book face down on the table, which was more of a reaction than Miles typically showed.
Ethan looked at his mother.
His jaw did the complicated thing it sometimes did when he was managing something.
Then he looked at the table.
Then he picked up his plate and took it to the basin without saying anything.
Which, from Ethan, was its own language.
The language of a boy who needed to do something with his hands because the alternative was feeling too much in front of people.
Noah, who had not inherited his oldest brother's restraint, said, "Yes!" at a volume that was inappropriate for indoors.
He slid off his chair, ran around the table, and put both arms around Clara's middle with the full-body commitment of a child who had not yet learned to protect himself from wanting things.
Clara put her hand on the back of his head.
"Sticky," she said, looking at his chin.
"I don't care," Noah said, muffled against her.
"I know," she said. "I'm telling you anyway."
The letter to the agency went out that same day.
Folded into an envelope and given to Dermit when he made the supply run to town.
Clara wrote it at the kitchen table while Gideon was out checking the fence line.
Not because she needed privacy from him.
But because it was her letter to write.
And she wrote it alone, the way she did everything that was hers.
When Dermit came back, she handed it to him without comment.
Dermit took it.
Looked at the agency's address on the envelope.
Looked at Clara.
And said nothing.
He put it in his coat pocket with the supply invoices and went to the barn.
Twenty minutes later, he came to the back door and said, "The flue cap on the north side of the bunkhouse is loose. Been meaning to mention it."
"I'll tell Gideon," Clara said.
"Right," Dermit said.
He turned to go.
Then stopped.
"Mrs. Whitmore."
She looked at him.
He appeared to be having some kind of internal struggle, which was unusual for Dermit, who was not a man who typically showed his process.
"This place..."
He stopped.
Tried again.
"It's been a better winter than the last three. I want you to know that."
Clara looked at him for a moment.
"Thank you, Dermit," she said.
He nodded once.