What he hadn’t pictured was the contents of their home spread out in the yard like that. There was the sofa he and Junie always sat on, watching their shows; the yellow Formica kitchen table where they ate; his mother’s pots and pans; and his father’s rocker, where his dad had spent the long, dark months from fall into winter, rocking back and forth, looking out the window to the snow-blanketed fields. There was his sister’s old wagon that he used to pull her around in when she was little; Bucky’s blue blanket; his mother’s sewing machine. They weren’t selling his mother’s piano, but it had been set out on the porch for the movers to pick up the next day. A bunch of kids had gathered around it and were playing “Chopsticks.” Someone must have opened the bench earlier and taken out his mother’s sheet music. Now the pages were blowing over the field like old dry leaves.

Poppa had planted himself in the doorway to the barn, staring straight ahead like he was standing guard. Nate knew that he was feeling badly for not having been able to bail Nate’s mother out from her debt to Sam Carter.

In the kitchen Grandma put an arm around Junie, who was quiet. “Your mother has things saved for you kids,” she said. “She’s got everything you need in boxes, don’t you fret. Every one of those precious model horses of yours, honey.”

The kitchen was bare—even the stove and the refrigerator gone, with a white spot on the wall where the clock had been. His mother’s typewriter still sat on the counter, and the empty gold box from the chocolates, which Junie had wanted to save—to hold her “special jewels.” The living room was also bare, except for the TV and a couple of smaller chairs. They’d be taking those to Billings.

Upstairs Mom was vacuuming. She was in Junie’s room now—also stripped, except for the bed and Junie’s night table. A suitcase was open on the bed with Junie’s clothes inside. It was pretty much the same in Nate’s room, except for his baseball cards, his bat and glove, and a box of his books. “The movers will be over for the rest of our stuff tomorrow,” his mom had told them. The beds. The dishes. The photograph album. The encyclopedias. Those had been his father’s idea—bought from a traveling salesman who’d come by one afternoon when their mother was in town. She had burst into tears when she heard the price.

“How does a person place a value on knowledge, Helen?” he’d said. “Look at the name on the spine: World Book. These books will show our children the world.”

Encyclopedias and binoculars, they had those. Just no home.