"No," Cody said. "I'm not going to take it. Not when Grandpa goes home. Not tonight. Not ever. It's yours. If I want a truck, I'll ask Mom to buy me one with my own birthday money, or I'll save from mowing Kenwood's lawn. But I don't get yours. Okay?"
Charlie held out his pinky. Cody had taught him pinky promises last winter during a fight about the last cookie. Cody hooked his own pinky around Charlie's. They shook once, solemn.
"Okay," Charlie said. Then, because he was four and recovery came in uneven weather, he added, "You can have a turn. A real turn. Not a keeping turn."
Cody smiled, small and real. "A real turn sounds good. You go first for ten pushes. Then me for ten. Then you again."
They counted together, badly. Charlie's tens sometimes became twelves. Cody did not correct the math. When it was Cody's turn, he drove the truck gently, no showing off, no launching it off the patio edge the way his hands itched to. When he gave it back, Charlie received it like a crown.
Inside, Heidi washed the same plate twice. Frank leaned against the counter with a dish towel over his shoulder.
"You wrote his name on the tag while planning to give it away," Frank said, not as an attack this time, as a fact that still needed air. "I keep circling that. The planning."
Heidi's hands stilled in the soapy water. "I ordered a cheaper toy for Charlie last week. A little pull-back car. It came yesterday. It's in my closet in a bag. I told myself the monster truck was too much for him. Too big. Too breakable. Cody would keep it nice."
"Charlie is allowed to break his own toys," Frank said. "That is part of being four. Breaking Cody's toys is a different lesson. You mixed them up."
Heidi dried her hands. The gold bracelet left a faint pink line on her skin where she had scrubbed too hard. "When I was little, you used to say I was careful and my brother was the one who got the tools. Remember? You said I wouldn't use the good hammer. You gave him the toolbox for Christmas and gave me art supplies I didn't ask for."
Frank's face changed—not collapsing, not defending, just aging a year in a second. "Your uncle Ray got the toolbox because he asked for it every day for six months. You asked for paint. I bought paint. If I got that wrong—if I made you feel unseen—then I am sorry for that, Heidi. I am. But my old mistake does not give you a license to reprint it on Charlie."
Heidi laughed once, without humor. "So you're perfect now? The enlightened grandfather?"
"I am a man who ordered a truck for a four-year-old and watched his daughter turn the opening into a lesson about who matters more," Frank said. "I am not perfect. I am present. There is a difference, and today you needed the difference."
Heidi looked toward the back door, where the muffled sounds of engine impressions floated in. "Cody looked so happy when he tore the paper. I wanted him to have that face. He has been... distant. Headphones on. Door closed. I thought a big gift might pull him back into the room."
"Then give him your attention," Frank said. "Not Charlie's birthday."
The sentence was simple enough to hurt. Heidi nodded, short, like accepting a diagnosis she already suspected.