I want to tell Jeff I can’t forget how he is feeling, because there is nothing more important to me, that I also want to break the ice, but I also hope to spare him whatever ugly facts I might find; I want him and Becca to be okay. When Jeff was seven and ran away, I saved his note, written in red crayon on a paper towel: I’m GONE and you will miss me. I found him within 10 minutes, in the toolshed, with a bag of Cheetos and a packet of Pop-Tarts; he said he was never coming back, but as soon as it started getting cold and dark, he did. He came in just in time for Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw. This time, it might not be as easy to get him back. Like father, like son.

The trick-or-treaters are dwindling—many adults this year dressed as Ronald Reagan with his big grin and his pompadour, tagging along with the witches and ninjas and devils—and when I last peeped out, the candy was almost gone. My favorite was a little swaybacked, flare-footed guy dressed as Hulk Hogan with a long blond wig, pulled along by his sister, Tinker Bell, and it has left me completely weepy and nostalgic for days that now seem so easy, even though I know they weren’t. Still, I’d give anything right this minute to be out there trudging through the thick, damp leaves with my two, the only worry being how many more doorbells we might ring before the houses go dark.

November 4, 1985

This was left on my windshield while I was inside teaching dance this afternoon, there where a parent or one of my little students might have seen it:

Leave me alone! I know it’s you calling every day. You are pitiful and he deserves better. Blame yourself and leave me alone!

I saw the glances. I felt the shift in the air as clear as Rudolf knows a storm is coming and starts drooling and panting and scratching and digging into the floor. That’s how I feel right now—panicked and panting and needing a cave. Leave her alone? Leave her alone? What about me? That’s what I plan to ask Frank. I blame him for not thinking of me. What about me? And all this time he has continued to do all the normal things: brief hugs hello and goodbye, getting the snow tires, putting in a supply of salt, and telling me about his classes or what he has read in the paper. He’ll talk about holiday plans and what the kids will do, but he won’t look me in the eye anymore.