The party had started like any other: folding chairs on the lawn, paper plates stacked beside a sheet cake, kids racing through sprinklers as adults argued good-naturedly over music and parking. No one noticed the unfamiliar car slowing at the corner, or the way conversation dipped for just a second before the first shot tore the afternoon apart. In the chaos that followed, parents threw themselves over children, strangers dragged the wounded behind cars, and someone’s shaking hands dialed 911 again and again, as if more calls might make help arrive faster.

Now, Stockton moves carefully, as if the whole city is afraid of making a sound. People who never locked their doors now double-check them at noon. At vigils, neighbors who barely nodded before now cling to each other and cry. There is anger, and fear, but also a quiet defiance: a refusal to let a child’s birthday be remembered only for gunfire.