“No,” I said. “I took back mine.”

He made a disgusted noise. “Are you actually insane?”

I leaned back in my chair. “Was Dad insane when he called me an idiot in front of thirty people?”

“It was a joke.”

“Then he should be laughing.”

Silence.

Then the expected pivot. “You embarrassed him.”

I almost smiled. “Good. Maybe now he remembers what it feels like.”

Dean exhaled sharply. “You gave it to him.”

“I presented it to him. He rejected the spirit of the gift before accepting the legal transfer.”

“That’s the most lawyer-brained nonsense I’ve ever heard.”

“Interesting, since the dealership agrees with me.”

That stopped him for a moment.

Because here was what my family never understood about me: I wasn’t a lawyer, but I managed procurement and vendor contracts for a large energy services company. Eight-figure equipment agreements, asset custody language, delivery liability, transfer conditions. I read every line because people get generous with other people’s money and careless with their own pride.

My father had built his identity around treating me like the oversensitive daughter with “some office numbers job.” He never noticed that the same skill set he mocked was exactly why the truck disappeared legally before breakfast.

When I hung up, my mother called again immediately.

This time her voice was different. Tighter. Colder. “Bring it back.”

“No.”

“Your father is humiliated.”

I laughed once. “Now he cares?”

Her tone sharpened. “You do not punish your father over one stupid toast.”

I stood and walked to the window. “No. I respond to a lifetime of them.”

That quieted her.

Because she knew it was true.

The jokes had started when I was fourteen and earned a scholarship to a private summer program Dean didn’t get into. My father called me “the family calculator.” When I bought my first condo at twenty-eight, he asked if I planned to marry it. When I paid his medical bill after back surgery, he told relatives I was “auditioning for sainthood.” Every achievement became either luck, overcompensation, or emotional bribery.

Last night wasn’t unusual.