‘Cake!’ Faye calls out from downstairs. ‘Cake while it’s still only two weeks after your birthday.’

‘Who’d have thought it,’ Lacy says as she scrubs a baking tray. ‘Who’d have thought a little piece of old metal brought from Girdwood could make a grown man so excited? And up against clear-vinyl limited-edition Tom Petty, too?’ She shakes her head. ‘Maybe there’s an age people get to when I don’t understand them. Some age between yours and his.’

‘I think this was pretty Simon-specific.’ I’m down on my good knee, stacking the cake plates into the dishwasher. ‘Nice, though.’

I was bracing myself for the shabby Napoleon to be dismissed as a worthless dime-store toy, but all the time needing it not to be. All over eBay, people are selling bags of used toy soldiers for less than the cost of postage, or trying to. I don’t know that anyone’s buying. I don’t know what things are worth. I know how to price a toolbox, and a house in Girdwood.

We have driven Faye out of her kitchen to do our share of the tidying up, and Simon is upstairs too, with the last of the bottle of red, perhaps already deep in research. It’s just the two of us, Lacy and me, and we have turned off the TV. She’s barefoot and I’m kneeling next to her painted toenails, each one a different colour, painted by Cedar, who did the job with great attention to detail.

I have two more plates than I have spaces on the bottom level, but filling a dishwasher is a Tetris game at the best of times.

I can imagine Simon up there in his study, putting ‘Napoleon figurine’ into Google, flicking past all the hand-in-coat versions. Or perhaps he has smarter search terms. Or more specific places to search than the universe, via the world’s most obvious search engine.

I stand up, to straighten my knee, set the plates down and pull out the upper rack of the dishwasher to see if I can make space there.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

‘Who can that be?’ Lacy says, looking towards the sound. ‘Middle of the night in LA. And Alaska.’

It’s her father. I show her the screen so she can see his name.

‘Mike,’ Wade says when I answer. He’s making sure his voice sounds calm.

‘Speaker, speaker,’ Lacy tells me.

I tap the button. ‘What’s up, Wade?’

‘Nothing catastrophic. Let me tell you that straight up,’ he says. ‘Is this a good time for you? I did the math, and I think it’s good. We have ourselves a sleeping problem.’

Lacy puts her hand on her chest and breathes out.