He looks around slowly. Not embarrassed. Not defensive. Just… resigned, maybe.
“Well,” he says lightly, “this is not where I thought you would end up tonight.”
“I,” I manage. “I had no idea.”
He shrugs like it is no big deal. Like these hundreds of bags are not evidence of private goodness. “It’s just something I do.”
“Just something you do,” I repeat, my voice a little unsteady, because no. No, it is not. Not at all.
“Just something you do,” I say, but it comes out thin, shaky, and he watches me like he feels the shift happen under my skin.
And then the words slip out before I can stop them. “I was a ghost.”
His eyebrows pinch in, head tilting. “A ghost.”
And there it is. That hot pressure behind my eyes. That old ache I never talk about. Something inside me loosens like a knot pulled too tight for too long.
“I wore sheets,” I say. “Different ones every year.” My throat tightens. I force the words out anyway. “The first was this fadedyellow one from a rental house we lived in. It already had a stain at the bottom, and the eye holes were crooked because my mom cut them after she’d locked herself in her bedroom for long enough for a smell to permeate through the place. She said ghosts are supposed to look messy anyway.” I laugh a little. It cracks, and I can’t tape it back together.
“Then there was a white sheet with little blue flowers. I loved that one, even though it made me look like a haunted grandmother instead of a ghost. The eye holes were too small, so I had a hard time seeing the whole night.”
He smiles at that, not at me, with me.
“After she died,” I continue, voice pulling thin, “I got whatever sheets were in the foster house linen closet. A floral polyester one that smelled like cigarette smoke. A microfiber one that shocked me every time I put it over my head because it held static. One year, the sheet had Disney princesses on it, and I had to walk around pretending it was ironic.”
My chest aches remembering it. Those stupid sheets. Those stupid holes. Those stupid years.
“And then there was the plaid one,” I say. “Brown and orange. Someone’s old flannel. I cut the holes unevenly and spent the whole night tripping over the hem. People laughed. I pretended I did not hear.”
Deacon’s jaw flexes. Soft anger. Protective anger. For me. For the kid I was.
I swallow. “The last one I wore was a brand new white cotton sheet the foster mom bought at a thrift store. She handed it to me like she was giving me something fancy. I cut the holes myself. Perfect circles. On purpose. Because I wanted at least one year where I looked like a ghost and not… pathetic.”
My hands twist in my lap.
“I did not even go trick-or-treating that year. I stayed home. I just sat on the bed in that sheet, thinking if I stayed very still, maybe I would disappear.”
My voice breaks on the last word, and he hears it. His expression softens in a way that makes my lungs tighten. No pity. Just understanding.
“Claudia,” he says low, stepping just a little closer, “you were doing the best you could with what you had.”
“I felt invisible,” I whisper. “Every Halloween. Every year. Just this… floating nothing with two holes cut out.”
He looks at the bags, at the bright costumes and thick coats and tiny superhero outfits, then back at me. “No kid should feel like that. Not on a day meant for fun.”
I wipe under my eyes, embarrassed and exposed yet strangely relieved.
“You do not even know what this means,” I say, motioning to the room. “Seeing all these costumes. All these choices. You give kids the thing I never had. Options. Dignity. A chance to be something other than forgotten.” I force a laugh. “What were you?”
He shakes his head, “A goalie.” Now it’s my turn to give a questioning look. “It wasn’t something we participated in,” he explains further as he looks down at Savannah in her carrier and just looks at her, with such warmth. “Small town, very generationally traditional. I was always on the ice.” He looks around the room. “This was because I saw kids around here, with masks and not Halloween ones. A teammate asked one who he was during my first year at the Bears trunk or treat, and he saidbroke. He said it as a joke, and his buddies laughed, but I knew it was a front. So, this is for the kids who do not get choices. For the ones who should never have to be a ghost unless they want to be.”
My heart twists. Hurts and somehow heals in one breath. He takes one small step, close enough to feel his warmth, but still giving me the room to choose.
“You were never invisible,” he says. “Not then. Not now.”
I look up. And he looks at me like he means it. Like he sees every version of me I tried so hard to hide. The ghost. The girl. The mother. The woman standing in front of him right now trying so hard not to fall apart.
“You deserved better,” he finishes softly.
