“I can see it. And hear it. You have that voice, Dad. Even though I didn’t do anything.”

Fear.

That’s what his son heard.

And confused it with the rage.

“Maybe I’m . . . a little angry. But not at you. I’m angry with someone else.”

“Who?”

“That’s what you’re gonna help me figure out.”

Rasmus pushed away a little more, now he was loose. And Hoffmann let him go.

“Okay. I’ll help you. But you’re wrong, Dad.”

“Wrong?”

“The toy was mine. My name was on the envelope.”

“Rasmus—what are you talking about? What envelope?”

“The one in the mailbox.”

“Which mailbox?”

“Our mailbox. Out front.”

Piet Hoffmann’s son went to the kitchen window and pointed toward the gate and driveway and a black mailbox with white, spindly letters on it. Painted by Hugo on the day he learned to write the family’s last names.

KOSLOW HOFFMA

NN

“I always check it first thing when I get home. And it’s always just stuff for you and Mom. Always, always, always. But today it wasn’t. Because that’s where I found it. My new action figure. With my name on it. To Rasmus and Hugo. That’s what it said. And Hugo hardly even plays with them anymore. So it is mine. It was to me.”

“Was it . . .”

Now Piet Hoffmann also went over to the window, both stared at the mailbox.

“. . . in an envelope?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“What do you mean how?”

“Rasmus, you’re supposed to help me. How was it laying there?”

“I told you. In the mailbox. In an envelope. Like when you get something in the mail. Don’t you know anything, Dad?”

Piet Hoffmann stroked his son’s cheek, chin, grabbed his little head with both hands, and held gently as one holds the dearest thing in the world.

“I’m gonna go out to the mailbox. Take a look for myself. Tell me once more, Rasmus, exactly what it looked like when you came home and opened the mailbox. Before you took out what you thought was for you.”

“I didn’t just think that. It was for me.”

“Rasmus?”

Rasmus sighed. A little too loudly and dramatic. The way he thought you were supposed to sigh when something obvious had to be explained. Hoffmann loved that sigh. His youngest son had already started to recover.

“It looked just like it always does. Letters. Junk mail, I guess.”

“And?”

“I was looking through it. Everything else was for you. Or Mom. And then I saw it, kind of over to the side. An open envelope. It was brown. And . . .”

“Open, Rasmus?”

“As if someone peeked into it. Or didn’t close it up very well? I saw the action figure right away. But I read the envelope first. My name and Hugo’s name. That’s all. So I was allowed to take it out.”

“Was there anything else? Next to it?”