I’m doing this so one day you’ll have a place like this of your own, Theresa Ann, my mother had said when she took me with her to clean houses. For now, though, you just look.

I’d been looking all my life. Now it was time to be on the other side. On the inside.

I was still nervous. I’d exposed myself when I couldn’t afford to.

But power came with a price. I knew that.

Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween

TWENTY-FIVE DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

THIRTEEN

Theresa

Lily was getting anxious to put up the Halloween decorations. It was the first week of October, after all, and she and Adam wouldn’t be around over the weekend. They were driving to Philly—the real estate agent had finally sold our condo and Adam was going to handle the paperwork. Normally, I’d have jumped at the chance to get back and see my brother and sister-in-law, but I’d already volunteered to help out at a Parent Team event. Plus, as Adam pointed out, the time alone would give me a chance to prep for my interview.

We’d already gone to several stores for graveyard supplies. Adam had splurged and bought a smoke machine, rigging up a timer so it would start spewing fog just as dusk hit. I wanted to make sure everyone knew we were taking our first Halloween here in Ivy Woods very seriously. Though I’d drawn the line at digging holes in the yard to make the graves look “realistic.” We’d bought a few extra-large bags of potting soil at the garden store for dirt piles instead.

My mom had always loved Halloween, but we’d never been able to afford much in the way of decorations. I remembered stringing up orange and black streamers from corner to corner of our living room and clustering unscented white pillar candles on the fireplace. We always had a pumpkin—Mom would spend a long time walking around the patch, rolling over gourd after gourd to find the right one, the perfect one, and then she’d carve it into something amazing, a gruesome face or a black cat that sat on our front stoop until it grew white fuzzy mold.

I didn’t have that kind of talent, which I’m sure would’ve disappointed my mother. But when Bettina had brought one of her treasured Autumn Golds over yesterday, Adam had promised he would turn it into a work of art. Until then, it sat on our porch step like a contented little orange pet.

I moved the wireless speaker to the porch, and we listened to a Halloween playlist while we worked in the yard, warm breeze, no clouds in the sky. As soon as Adam got home from the school, he cranked open the garage door and set up a table saw in the driveway to take advantage of what daylight was left.