“A basket?”
“My brother has a basket by the door. It’s a Hawthorne House custom. We put ours in. The boys put theirs in. No phones at the party. It’s a thing.”
“Really?”
She nods. “It’s been a thing. They don’t do it every single time, but yeah. I forgot you’re new here.”
I grin at her.
Penelope says, “It actually does help.”
Mara agrees. “It does. Phones away. You’re present. You’re with the people you are with. You don’t spend the whole night looking at your hand.”
I hand my phone over to Mila. She puts it in her purse.
“Now you don’t have to worry,” she says.
Penelope asks, “Are the boys handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters this year?”
“Yeah,” Gianna answers. “They’re set up out front.”
Lucy says, “Benson and Blue are out there right now. Stanley will rotate in. They have a system.”
Mila’s head turns slowly to me.
I don’t look back. I look out the window at the trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk. There’s a kid in a Spider-Man costume on someone’s lawn with a pillowcase. There’s a porch with a fog machine that doesn’t seem to be working but is trying.
I close my hand into a fist on top of the pretzel platter, and I take a breath.
I’m going to be fine.
That is the deal.
Daniel pulls up to the house shortly after. There are pumpkins on the porch railing. There’s a fog machine here, too, and unlike the one on the corner, this one is fully operational. Low white fog rolls down the front steps, pools at the walk, and dissipates against the cold ground.
Three guys are standing on the porch in identical devilish masks that would be terrifying for kids. One of them is leaning against a porch column. Another is sitting on the railing. The third is standing in the doorway holding a bowl of candy.
They’re handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.
“Oh my God,” Mara says. “Oh my God, oh my God.” Her voice goes up a register. Her excitement is the kind that is genuinely infectious — Mara is the most easily delighted person I have ever met, and I am realizing that being around her means I get excited too.
We pile out of Daniel’s car. Daniel tells us to be safe and drives off.
We walk up as a couple of families walk down the path away from the house. I clutch onto my platter of pretzels for dear life. The cold is biting at the back of my knees where the nylons are thin, and I can see my breath in front of me, and the whole front yard smells like fog machine fog and pumpkin spice candles and old leaves.
A mom passes us, looking up at our group, and her face breaks into a smile. “Look at the angels.”
Her daughter in a bumblebee costume with a tutu is staring up at me with her mouth open. She’s eyeing the platter.
“Do you want one?” I ask her. I look up at the mom. “Sorry. Is that okay?”
The mom smiles. “Of course. They look great. Thank you.”
I lift the cover off the platter, and I tilt it down so the bumblebee can reach. Her little fingers grab the closest pretzel.
“I made them myself,” I say softly. “Happy Halloween.”
She smiles at me and says, “Happy Halloween.”
