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“Yup!”
I sat on the bench in front of the window in my parents’ bedroom, watching my mom apply Finley’s Halloween make-up. I hadn’t thought a 5-year-old dressed like a jellyfish needed make-up, but what did I know? “And she didn’t ask any of the other kids? She only said this to you?”
“Yup!” Finley repeated, clenching her eyes shut as my mom applied glitter to her eyelids. “I can’t wait to meet Titus!”
I reread the text from Kendall, feeling like the middle-man in this arrangement. Why hadn’t she mentioned this to me in person? I wished Finley could remember more details from their conversation, but trying to get more out of her would only waste my time. I sighed. “I guess we’ll add another stop to our list.”
My mom stepped back from Finley to admire her work before giving me the side eye. “I bet Ms. Devin’s got a treat for both of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I could feel my face getting hot. Why the hell would she say that? She just peered at me over the top of her reading glasses before pulling a tube of shiny lip gloss from the basket on her vanity. I looked down at my phone and absentmindedly scrolled, trying to appear as casual as possible.
She quickly applied Finley’s lip gloss and asked her to rub her lips together. “You better go get your shoes on,” she said, lovingly swatting at Finley’s butt as she skipped away, stopping to pick up her pumpkin bucket on the way out of the bedroom. I folded my arms and stared at my mom, awaiting some kind of explanation. She just laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. I may be old, but my observational skills are still top-notch.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh bologna,” she said with a laugh, turning to face her mirror as she applied her own lipstick. “I know my son. And I know when he’s trying to be sneaky.”
“You think I’d really get involved with Finley’s teacher?” Sometimes I hated her for being so observant. She had a knack for figuring out when I was up to something—like the time she came into my room with a basket of folded laundry when I had a girl hiding in my closet when I was fourteen. I thought I’d gotten away with it, too, until she was on her way out and turned around to say, “And if she’s not gone in the next five minutes, I’m calling her parents.”
Christine always knew.
“I’m sure you’re just really passionate about volunteer work all of a sudden.”
I shook my head and looked down at my lap, but I couldn’t control the way my face softened into a smile. “There’s nothing going on.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “She can’t date one of her students’ parents, anyway.”
My mom turned off the lighted mirror on her vanity and grabbed a jacket from the back of her bedroom door. “I imagine not. And it could really affect Finley if you start messing around with this woman and break her heart. She could pick on Finley—you know, single her out because she’s got a vendetta against you.”
“Mom. Kendall wouldn’t do that.”
She turned toward me with a few overdramatic blinks, tilting her head to the side, and it took a few seconds for me to figure out why.
“I mean—Ms. Devin.” Whoops. I covered my eyes with my hands, knowing I’d just exposed myself. My mom laughed. “Damn it.”
“Do I know my son, or do I know my son?” My mom asked, slipping into her jacket. “I’ll see you at the trunk-or-treat.”
* *
Finley and I may have overcommitted ourselves. We hit the two trunk-or-treats first—starting with my mom’s church, and then Traci’s church. Finley’s bucket was already full after the first stop, and she had to dump her candy into a grocery sack in my backseat on the way to the next one. “Not even one freakin’ Kit Kat,” she grumbled.
“Hey! Don’t say ‘freakin’.”
“It’s a lot better than what you say,” she muttered. She had me there.
I was dreading the trunk-or-treat at Traci’s church the most. I thought about skipping it altogether, but I’d get an earful about that on Sunday. Still, I was feeling wary about it. Traci’s behavior was so unpredictable, and this was outside of our usual, safe routine. When Traci saw us approaching her car—which was made to look like a monster with teeth around the open trunk—she clapped her hands together and yelled, “There’s my jellyfish girl!”
“Trick or treat!” Finley held up her bucket.
Traci turned to the teenage boy wearing a black hoodie standing next to her. “Look, Finley! Say hi to Uncle Levi.”
I wasn’t aware Finley even had an Uncle Levi. Judging from the apprehensive look on her face, neither was she. “She’s really shy,” Traci said to him. I couldn’t help but laugh in response—that may have been the first time I’d ever heard that word used to describe my kid.
She wasn’t shy. She was uncomfortable.
I took a deep breath, gently nudging Finley closer to the plastic cauldron full of candy so we could get through this and move onto the next car. And that’s when Traci turned to me and muttered, “She doesn’t even remember her own family because you only let me have her a couple hours a week.”
“Oh, is that the reason?” I stared into Traci’s eyes. No—into her soul. She had nothing to say in response as she dropped a generous handful of candy into Finley’s bucket.
“Wow. She really does look exactly like those old pictures of Whitney,” Levi said, amplifying the awkwardness. Thankfully, Finley was too distracted by the Tootsie Roll she was attempting to unwrap that she didn’t hear this comment. But to my utter horror, Levi lifted his phone like he was about to snap a picture of her.
