Frank did not rise to it immediately. He rubbed a thumb along the seam of Charlie's truck, thoughtful. "I send gifts to the child whose birthday it is. That is not favoritism. That is arithmetic. When it was Cody's birthday in March, I sent Cody the headphones he asked for. When it is Heidi's birthday, I take Heidi to lunch. When it is Charlie's birthday, Charlie gets the truck Charlie was promised."
Cody's head lifted. "You got me headphones?"
"You wore them for three weeks straight," Frank said, almost smiling. "Your mother knows this."
Heidi sat down on the edge of the armchair as if her knees had filed a complaint. "Fine. I mishandled it. Is that what you want? A public apology so we can all go back to frosting?"
"I want Charlie to hear you say the truck is his because it is his," Frank said. "Not because I arrived. Not because guests left. Because you understand the difference between sharing and taking."
Heidi looked at Charlie. The cream sweater suddenly seemed too warm for the room. She swallowed. "Charlie. The truck is yours. Mommy made a mistake. Mommy should not have given it to Cody. Mommy should not have pulled your hands away."
Charlie listened with the fierce attention of a child who has learned that adult words sometimes evaporate after cake. "And don't grab?" he asked. "Was don't grab a mistake?"
The question was a small knife. Heidi flinched around it.
"Don't grab was about manners," she tried.
"No," Cody said, and his voice cracked on the single syllable. "Don't grab was about making him stop reaching for what was his so I could keep it. That wasn't manners. That was... us being wrong."
Frank nodded once, slow. "Listen to your brother, Heidi. He is fourteen and already closer to the truth than you were at noon."
Heidi pressed her lips together until the color thinned. "I said I made a mistake."
"Say it to him without the party voice," Frank said.
Heidi slid from the chair to the carpet in front of the sofa, gold bracelet whispering against itself. She was eye-level with Charlie now. Up close, her son smelled like frosting and new plastic and the clean sweat of a morning spent waiting.
"I am sorry," she said, and the party voice fell off her like a coat. What remained was quieter, rougher. "I told myself a story about who would use the truck better, and I used that story to hurt you. You were right to be upset. Your name means something. I will not do that again."
Charlie studied her face the way he had studied the puzzle edges. He reached out—not for the truck, which was already his again, but for her earring, the gold hoop he always wanted to touch and was usually told not to. Heidi held still. He flicked it gently with one finger, a private test of whether she was still reachable.
"Okay," he said.