Cody picked up the Thunder Haul. It was heavier than it looked. He carried it to Charlie and held it out with both arms, a formal transfer. Charlie took it. His arms dipped under the weight. His face did something complicated—joy and leftover hurt braided together. He hugged the truck against his birthday shirt, red plastic against blue cotton, and for a moment the room remembered what birthdays were for.
"Thank you," Charlie told Cody, solemn as a handshake.
"You don't thank me for giving back what was yours," Cody said. "You just... take it."
Charlie nodded, accepting the correction as seriously as he had accepted the truck.
Heidi set the frosting knife down harder than she meant to. "Can we please remember there are children here who came for cake, not for a tribunal?"
"The children can eat cake," Frank said. "The adults can stop pretending a name on a tag is decoration."
Rhea herded the twins toward the kitchen with the skill of a woman who had broken up worse fights with softer voices. Janelle followed with the ice bag, murmuring something about finding more cups. Mr. Kenwood took his cookie plate and his dignity out the front door with a wave that meant he would bring the plate back tomorrow and ask no questions.
The living room narrowed to family.
Frank sat on the grey sofa, the sunlight rectangle now fallen across his knees. Charlie climbed up beside him with the truck on his lap, tires pressing little circles into Frank's trousers. Cody remained standing, arms crossed, then uncrossed, then shoved into his pockets. Heidi stayed by the coffee table as if the table were a border she refused to surrender.
"Explain it," Frank said to Heidi. "Not the practical version. The true one."
Heidi's mouth worked. The gold hoops trembled when she shook her head. "You always do this. You swoop in and make me the villain in front of my kids."
"I asked for an explanation," Frank said. "Villain is a conclusion. You can still change the evidence."
Heidi looked at Cody, then at Charlie, then at the framed photos on the bookshelf as if the earlier versions of her family might testify on her behalf. "Cody has been talking about trucks for months. Real ones, toy ones, the kind with the big tires. Charlie is four. He gets excited about a box for ten minutes and then he wants bubbles. I thought— I thought if the nice truck went to Cody, it would last. It would be appreciated. Charlie wouldn't know the difference if I got him something else later."
"I knew," Charlie said from the sofa, small and clear. "It had my name."
Heidi's eyes filled, anger and shame braided as tightly as Charlie's earlier joy-and-hurt. "I wrote the name because it was your birthday. For the pictures. For Grandpa's call. I was going to make it look right."
Frank's voice dropped. "You were going to make a lie look right."
"I was trying to manage a household," Heidi snapped. "You send expensive toys without asking me. You pick favorites. You always preferred—" She stopped herself, but the unfinished sentence hung in the air like a balloon that had lost its ribbon.