“Was it my fault, Grandma, that she died?”
“Oh, come here.”
I jumped off the couch and bounced over to Grandma, who was sitting in her favorite rocker. She sat up straight, brushed the curls off my face, put her hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. “Don’t you ever, ever think that it was your fault. Your mother wanted you more than anything. When she got sick, instead of saving herself, she saved you. And just like Bambi, you’re going to grow up and experience great things. Promise me that, Sarah.”
“I promise.”
I had forgotten about our Bambi discussion and my promise. In a matter of seconds I had broken my promise to Grandma, and a raging fire of guilt consumed me.
Olivia and Emma approach a two-story brick house with its porch light on. Just as Olivia is about to ring the doorbell, a short woman with salt and pepper hair and pointy glasses opens the door.
“Trick or treat,” the girls say.
“What do we have here?” the lady says.
“I’m a cat,” Olivia says. “See?” And she turns in a circle to show her long black tail.
“And I’m a cheerleader,” Emma says. She shakes her blue and white pom-poms.
“You’re a very pretty cat,” the lady says, “and you’re a very pretty cheerleader.” She puts a chocolate bar in each of their plastic Halloween bags.
Olivia’s dad waits on the sidewalk as the eight-year-olds go from house to house. Olivia’s neighborhood is the type of neighborhood I would have loved to have gone trick or treating in when I was her age. She gets full-size candy bars at nearly every house. One couple even fires up the grill and gives away hot dogs and orange drinks to kids and parents.
In the apartment complex where Grandma and I lived, most people gave out lollipops or Smarties. Chocolate was a real treat. And when you got it, it was the miniature candy bars, never the full-size ones.
Olivia and Emma skip up the sidewalk to the next house. As they approach the porch they see three older boys standing in front of a bench with a big black plastic cauldron filled with giant Reese’s peanut butter cups. One boy is dressed as a pirate, one as a ninja and the other is wearing a scary mask that looks as if it got caught in a meat slicer. With its cuts and gashes and blood, it’s the scariest mask Olivia and Emma have ever seen.
Olivia sees the sign taped to the candy bowl. It says: Take one, please.
“Look at all that candy,” Scary Mask says. “We could take it all. They’d never know.”
Olivia and Emma look at each other. Olivia swallows hard. “No, that’s wrong.”
Scary Mask turns around. “Says who?”
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