"Mom," he said. "Why did you tell me to take it?"
Heidi turned. For a moment her face was unguarded—tired, defensive, a little afraid. Then the mother-mask slid back into place, thinner than before.
"I didn't tell you to take it. I said you would actually use it. There's a difference."
"There isn't," Cody said. He surprised himself with how steady it came out. "Not to him."
Charlie had crawled closer to the torn wrapping. He touched the tag with one finger, tracing the C, then the H. His other hand stayed in his lap, obedient, as if Heidi's Don't grab still held the bones.
Outside, a car door slammed two houses down. Somewhere a dog barked. The balloons bobbed in the air current from the heating vent. The party decorations continued their cheerful work of pretending nothing had gone wrong.
Heidi pressed her fingertips to her temples. "Cody, go put the truck in your room for now. We'll sort this out when Grandpa gets here."
Cody did not move. "If I put it in my room, it's mine."
"That's not what I said."
"It's what it looks like," Cody answered. He stood, leaving the truck on the carpet between them like evidence. "I'm going to get Charlie water."
He walked to the kitchen. Charlie watched him go, then looked at Heidi, then at the truck. He did not reach again. He sat with his hands folded the way children sit in photographs when someone has told them to be good.
Heidi knelt. The cream sweater stretched at the elbows. She tried to smooth Charlie's hair, and Charlie leaned away—not far, not angrily, just enough to make the gesture miss.
"Baby," she whispered. "Mommy was trying to be practical. Cody will let you play with it. Sharing is—"
"It has my name," Charlie said again, and this time the words carried the weight of a courtroom.
Heidi closed her eyes.
In the kitchen, Cody ran the tap until the water was cold. He filled a plastic cup with dinosaurs on it—Charlie's cup—and stood holding it while the afternoon rearranged itself around the fact that Grandpa was coming and Mom had lied with a smile and Cody had ripped paper that did not belong to him.
He carried the cup back. Charlie took it with both hands. A little water sloshed onto the birthday shirt. Neither of them wiped it.