Satisfied the creature isn’t either of his two biggest nemeses, Lassie jumps off my shoulder and darts from the shed in pursuit.

The two boxes are stacked next to three slightly larger boxes.

My mom’s stuff.

I peel the tape off of Box #1.

Clothes.

Eight sweaters and two winter jackets.

Box #2 is even less exotic.

Jeans and a couple blouses.

I shake them out, then stuff them back in the box.

Why would my dad keep this stuff?

Did he silently hope the woman who walked out on him over thirty years ago might come back?

Box #3 is full of shoes. Heels, flats, boots. Twelve pairs altogether. I pull out a pair of brown boots. They are the boots my mother was wearing the last time I saw her. She put them on, then helped me to ride the new Huffy I just got for my sixth birthday.

I replace the shoes, then move to the two smaller boxes, opening the first.

It is filled with two enormous bags of Tootsie Rolls. Thirty-year-old Tootsie Rolls. I shine the flashlight through a thick layer of dust expecting to see mounds of mold, but they look pristine, which speaks volumes to whatever ingredients and preservatives comprise the candy.

I’m guessing she bought the candy for Halloween the year before she left. I would have been five then. My mother was gone that year, though she was often gone for long stretches. I try to remember what I dressed up as for Halloween when I was five.

A skeleton.

My dad painted my face like a skeleton while I slept and dressed me in a black costume with glow-in-the-dark skeleton bones. The moment I woke up, we hit the streets. My dad paid the neighbors, sometimes hundreds of dollars — of course, a few did it for free — to wake up at three in the morning and turn their porch lights on so that I could go trick-or-treating.

I gaze over my shoulder, out the door of the shed and to the blanket of light cascading onto the grass from the back floodlights. Did I really just scream at the man who went through all this trouble so his little boy could have a taste of what Halloween was like?

I replace the candy, then open the second of the small boxes.

Probably my Easter basket.

Nope.

More sweaters.

“Shit.”

I check the time on my cell phone.

3:46 a.m.

I let out a deep exhale.

What a waste of a day.

A shadow moves into the doorway.

Lassie.

Meow.

“Nope, just a bunch of clothes and some thirty-year-old candy.”

“You find what you were looking for?” I ask.

Meow.

“But you love rabbits.”

Meow.

“A boyfriend? Really? Well, you win some, you lose some.”

He jumps up on one of the boxes.

I stare at him, then stare at the box he’s standing on.

The box full of shoes.

I tell him to jump off.

He does.