The dining room went silent in a way that felt louder than any shouting could have. Thomas stood frozen at the table, his hand still half-extended toward where the gift had been seconds earlier, his mind struggling to catch up to what he had just watched happen. Lily's face crumpled first slowly, then all at once — the particular, total collapse of a child who has just watched something she made with her whole heart get treated like garbage in front of the one person she'd made it for. Her sobs came hard and immediate, the kind of crying that comes from somewhere deeper than embarrassment, somewhere close to a first real heartbreak. Diane stood over her, arms crossed, unmoved by her daughter's tears in a way that had become disturbingly familiar to Thomas over the last several years, though he had never let himself examine it this closely before. "It's just paper, Lily," Diane said, voice flat. "You can make him something else." Thomas found his voice at last, though it came out smaller than he wanted it to. "Diane, you didn't even look at it—" "Thomas, please. It's a six-year-old's crayon drawing. I'm sure it's very sweet, but the kitchen already looks like a disaster from her mess this week, and I am not decorating our home with construction paper for the next month." Lily, still sobbing, had already slipped out of her chair and crossed the kitchen tile on unsteady legs, small hands reaching up toward the trash can's lid with a determination that cut through her own tears.