I carried both girls down the narrow hall into the master bedroom, where the one bare bulb in the ceiling threw long yellow shadows over our unmade bed.

The green canvas duffel bag lay wide open across the foot of the quilt, its heavy steel zipper pulled all the way back to the corner seam.

Jason stood at the oak dresser, taking out three pairs of thick gray wool socks and dropping them into the bottom of the bag.

“What’s the green duffel for?” I asked, laying Hannah down gently in the center of the mattress while keeping Nora against my chest.

“Miller and the guys from the framing crew are driving down to the Snake River,” he said, lifting a folded flannel shirt out of the second drawer.