It is Kitty who pulls away and Laura is assailed by a panic. She feels she will be perceived as the predator in this astounding development, and indeed "Laura and Kitty agree, silently, that this is true." She also realizes her son, Richie, has been watching everything. However Kitty is already on her way out the door, her momentary lapse of character wiped from memory. Nothing is mentioned of the kiss, she brushes off Laura's continued overtures of help politely, and leaves. Laura's world has been jolted. It is too much. It is like a Virginia Woolf novel, too full. Attempting to return to the world she knows, she attends to her son and, without hesitation, dumps her freshly made cake in the bin. She will make another cake, a better one.