They ate lunch on the patio: sandwiches, apple slices, the last corners of birthday cake that had somehow survived. Charlie explained ramp physics incorrectly and with passion. Cody revised the physics gently. Frank asked questions that made both boys feel expert. Heidi mostly listened, and the listening felt like work she had skipped for months without noticing the deficit.
When the ramp collapsed for the third time, Charlie frowned at the cardboard as if it had broken a promise. Cody said, "We can rebuild it stronger," and Charlie's frown eased, because stronger was a word that made failure temporary.
Heidi caught Frank watching her watch them. She raised an eyebrow. Frank mouthed, later. She nodded.
Later came when Charlie went down for an early afternoon nap, truck under the bed, one hand dangling toward the grille. Cody retreated to his room with headphones on for a legitimate homework stretch, door half open as a quiet signal. Heidi and Frank remained at the patio table with the crumbs and the cooling sun.
"I keep wanting a clean ending," Heidi said. "Like a show where the mother cries, the child hugs her, the grandfather nods, and the music tells everyone morality has been restored."
"Life is poorly scored," Frank said. "That is why we have to do the work without a soundtrack."
Heidi picked at a splinter on the table edge. "I almost told Charlie the truck was too grown-up for him. I almost made his age the villain so I wouldn't have to be."
"Age is a fact," Frank said. "It is not a verdict on deserving."
"I know that in my head. Yesterday my hands didn't know it."
Frank folded his napkin into a smaller and smaller square. "When you put me on speaker, I saw your face. Panic. Not just at being caught. Panic at being known. I have worn that face. It is miserable. It is also useful if you let it teach you."
Heidi huffed a breath that might have been a laugh in better weather. "You are relentless."
"I am your father," Frank said. "And Charlie's grandfather. And Cody's. Relentless is in the job description when a name on a gift becomes optional."
A bee investigated an apple core and left unimpressed. Heidi watched it go.
"I'm going to buy Cody something this week," she said. "Not a truck. Something he actually asked for—those sketch markers for his history poster. And I am going to tell him it is because I want him to have what he needs, not because I am balancing scales."
"Good," Frank said. "Balancing scales is how you got into yesterday. Attention is different from compensation."
"And Charlie," Heidi continued, "I will let him use the truck hard. If a wheel breaks, we fix it or we mourn it and we do not say I told you so."