Halloween Morning, 2007.

“Halloween!” The kids around me squeal. I fix my cat ears atop my head and sigh. I just want this day to be over so me and Uncle Jesse can go trick or treating. I take my bucket for the candy the teachers are handing out and walk into the crowd.

“Madie! Hey Madie! Want to go trick or treating with me and my brother?” Gabriel asks as he jogs up to me. His bucket is already full to the top with candy, I think he may have cheated out some teachers for extra. I shake my head.

“Can’t. Uncle Jesse’s coming to pick me up from school and we’re going straight up to the big houses on the mountain to get the big candy,” I tell him and walk to another teacher. She smiles and places a large handful of candy into my bucket with an “I’m so happy you came to see me” and I walk to the next.

“Awe I was really hoping you’d come with us! Patrick said he wants to meet you,” he mumbles and I smile and look over at him.

“And why does he want to meet me?” I ask and reach behind me and grab my tail that’s strapped around my waist to make sure it’s still there. Gabriel smiles shyly and shrugs. As we walk around the room his cape to his outfit flutters up slightly.

“What superhero are you?” I ask him and he giggles.

“I’m Gabe Man,” he says and shakes his body toward me. I laugh and my teacher places more candy into our buckets. It’s getting heavy.

“Uncle Jesse can have all this candy,” I say with a frown. Gabriel looks down at his bucket and shrugs his shoulders.

“I thought we got quite the steal this year. Last year they only gave us Dum-Dums,” he recalls and shakes his head. I remember how disappointed he was to find his bucket full of almost all Dum-Dums last year after he dumped it onto his desk. He even cried.

“Students.” Mrs. Scheel gets up on top of a desk that is above all of the tiny heads of her students. “We’ll be going down to the gym to go and watch the cops and their dogs. Please, no chairs. You may sit where you’d like,” she says and the crowd pushes me and Gabriel through the small doorway and toward the gym. Gabriel grabs my hand so we don’t lose one another in the crowd. We get pushed into the gym and find a seat in the middle of the crowd.

“We saw this last year remember?” Gabriel asks over the rising volume around us and I nod. This is actually the only thing I’ve been looking forward to all day. The assembly is getting ready to start. The kids around me cheer loudly and I join their multiple screams and Gabriel and I throw our hands into the air. Darren in front of us turns around and grins at me.

“We’re still best friends forever right?” he asks me and I laugh. Gabriel's face contorts into something mixed with a grimace and a growl. I set my hand on his shoulder and give him a charming childish grin. A police woman steps onto the stage and taps on the microphone.

“Children, please quiet down. The loud sounds will spook the dogs and distract them,” she explains and the crowd gradually goes quiet. The principal makes his way through the crowd behind me and taps my shoulder. I turn toward him and smile. He’s quite a close friend to my family.

“I need you to come with me, please,” he says quickly and puts his hands under my arms and lifts me to my feet. Gabriel tugs gently on my pant leg with a worried look plastered against his usually dimpled, smiling face. I give him a reassuring nod and Darren turns toward the scene and raises his eyebrows at me. I shake my head at him then shrug my shoulders. I’m just as confused as they are. I follow the principal through the plague of small bodies and out into the hallway.

“We need to go to your classroom to get your things,” he says and briskly walks passed the office and into the next hallway. I look into the window as I pass and slow my walk drastically when I see what’s going on inside. The secretary is kneeling next to a woman with her head down that’s leaning against the secretary's desk. The woman lifts her head slowly to look at the secretary, who is crying at this point, then looks toward my direction. I stop. I cup my hands over my mouth as her eyes meet mine. It’s my mom. The principal comes to my side and grabs my arm dragging away from the gaze of my mother. He presses his lips tightly together, as if to stop the tears getting ready to rip out of his eyes. We hurry through the empty library. As we walk passed the spider cage, resting atop the informative texts, and I catch a glimpse of what’s inside. The large spider we named Marcy, lies on her back with her legs curled into her body, all life drained from her fuzzy, eight legged body. He pulls me into my classroom and allows me to gather my lunchbox and Hello Kitty backpack before he once again takes hold of my hand.

“Why was my mom crying?” I ask, finally working up the nerve. He shivers and goosebumps rise on his wirehaired arms. He shakes his head and ignores my question. He could give me at least some information, or even better, sympathy. We come around the corner and walk through the double doors of the office. My mom is on her feet now and hugging the secretary; her mascara is running all the way down to her chin. The secretary hiccups then releases my mom. She turns around and smiles at me; it’s fake. Her eyes are puffy and red, the tip of her nose looks like Rudolph's. She takes my hand from the principal and thanks them before pulling me from the room. I can hear the cheers from my fellow students in the gym. Gabriel must be so lonely without me. I want to be in there with him, not being dragged away by my crying mother. I’m confused and scared. I don’t want to know the reason she’s crying, I just want to go watch the assembly then go and get more candy with Gabriel and Darren. I want to stay here.

She only lets go of my hand long enough to get into the passenger side of the car before she takes hold of it again. We begin to drive in the direction of our house, but pass it. I look over at my mom but she doesn’t look over at me to meet my gaze. I can’t quite see over the dashboard yet, I’m still too small. She releases my hand to turn the dial on the radio then takes it again. A familiar song begins ring through the speakers, I can’t place the name of it. Uncle Jesse and I listen to it all the time. I hum along with the song and glance toward my mom. Her lips are turned downward and a tear streaks its way down her cheek.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” I ask her and she finally looks over to meet my gaze. Her eyes, that mine copy almost exactly, are brimmed with bright tears. Tears quickly fill mine as well. “Mommy did something happen to Uncle Jesse?” I whisper and she hurriedly turns her eyes back to the road. I don’t understand where that question came from. I wasn’t even thinking that something had happened to him, but now, tears tear their way across my cheeks. I’ve never prayed before, but I do now.

Dear god, I think hard. Please let Uncle Jesse be ok. Please don’t let something happen to him.

I look through the windshield again and my heart freezes in a literal ice. My dad's house is coming into view. Is she going to leave me here? Give me to him? Is that why she is crying, because she’s giving me up? She parks in the driveway and looks over at me. I shake my head and back against the door.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to live with my dad. Please don’t leave me here,” I beg and she laughs.

“I’m not leaving you here you silly. Your dad just wanted to tell you something,” she reassures me and steps out of the car. I slowly follow her up to the front door. She doesn’t even knock, just walks in. Shay and Keta don’t bark, and that’s when I know something's wrong. We walk up the stairs and into the front room. My grandma, grandpa, and dad are all squished onto their two person couch, crying. My body goes cold and I lose feeling in my fingers as my mom lets my hand fall down to my side.

“Okay, she’s here. You can tell her,” my mom says and crosses her arms over her chest.

“I’m not telling her. You can tell her,” my dad responds and ignores my presence almost completely as he stares up at my mom. She sighs and glares at him before kneeling down in front of me, taking my hands. My grandma sobs on the couch and buries her face into my grandpas shirt as my mom opens her mouth to talk. I meet her gaze and stare at her.

“Mommy, where’s Uncle Jesse? Is he okay?” I ask her and she tears her eyes away from mine and looks down at the rug underneath us. She shakes her head and looks up at me again.

“Honey, baby,” she whispers and squeezes my hands. “Baby… There was an accident at Jesse’s work… He.... He isn’t coming home baby,” she sobs and hugs me around my stomach. My entire body goes numb. I don’t feel her tears on my shirt as they soak through it, or my cat ears tumble from my head and onto the floor. My world shatters into a million shards of unpickable pieces and all energy drains from me.

The next hour or so is nothing but a blur of movement and words of sympathy. I’m sitting in my grandma’s rocking chair next to the sliding glass door, wrapped in Uncle Jesse’s sweatshirt. It reeks of him and the memories we had together. Cigarette smoke, car oil, and cologne, that’s what it stinks of, memories of broken things I’ll never get back, times that could quite possibly never have existed. I’m trying so hard to convince myself that this is a nightmare, something that’s leaving me writhing in my sleep, but it’s not and I know it. It’s painful reality that leaves me shaking under the heavy jacket. I think I’ve cried myself bone dry. A loud powerful knock radiates from the downstairs door, but it seems like a soft thud that rumbles through my stomach as if Jesse were laughing. Someone bursts through the door and hikes their way up the stairs. It’s Chris, Jesse’s best friend. He pants and places his hands on his knees as he lets out a sob.

“This is a dream right? There’s no way Jesse’s dead,” he says and crumbles to the floor in a heap. Tears fill my eyes again and I burry my head into the jacket and they flood from my eyes. I can feel Chris’ eyes on me as he cries. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Madie was here.” Why is he apologizing? This is a natural thing to be feeling isn’t it? Even in my eight year old mind I can feel that this sorrow is natural. I peek my eyes from the jacket and look around the room. My grandma is leaning on my grandpa’s shoulder as silent tears escape her eyes. My grandpa is holding tightly to her hand, I’ve never seen them hold hands before. My dad shows no emotion on his soulless face as he stares out the door. My mom is sitting in the other rocking chair, holding her hands to her mouth and her eyebrows pulled down toward her eyes, thinking. Chris is in the backyard with Shay and Keta talking on the phone with someone. Then there’s me, sitting alone in a rocking chair wrapped in Jesse’s jacket and observing the people around me. I should be crying some more, but I can’t. My eyes hurt and burn whenever I blink, my throat is sore and hoarse from sobbing. I don’t want to cry anymore.

After a while the jacket begins to suffocate me and I’m half tempted to throw it on the floor, but I don’t. I hold it closer to me, closer to my heart. I can feel the uneven rhythm of my heart beat under the fabric. My mom stands from the chair and walks down the hallway to the bathroom. I can hear her turn on the faucet and splash water. I move my body and begin rocking again. My grandma looks like she wants to fall asleep, but probably to scared of the nightmares that are bound to follow. Someone turns the knob to the front door and I expect to see another family friend to pop their head over the railing crying, but it’s two police officers. They walk to my grandparents and hand them Jesse’s keys, wallet, and chain then step back.

“They have concluded Jesse’s death to be a suicide. He took a wire pulley hooked to the ceiling and brought it to the tailgate of his truck. He brought it around his neck, leaned forward cutting off his air supply for approximately 15 minutes, killing himself,” one of the cops says and the other looks around the room. After the first one finishes his sentence he meets my eyes and his widen. He nudges his partner who proceeds to go into further details of his death and he turns to me. When his eyes meet mine they widen like saucers and he places a hand to his forehead. “Oh my god, I didn’t know she was here,” he mumbles and I stand up and run down the stairs. I can hear my family calling my name behind me, but I can’t stop. The patting of my feet is the only sound filling my ears. I want to run away from the house, my family, the memories, everything; but I only end up outside the house on the sidewalk. I sit down and stare down the street and toward the place Jesse and I would race in the hot rod. My eyes fill again and I sob. Shay is at the fence on the side of the house, staring at me with his big eyes. He lets out a quiet howl and sits down on the grass.

“You know what’s happened don’t you?” I ask and he whines at me. The front door opens and my mom strides out the door, my dad following behind her.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that he committed suicide, Joe! If I knew that’s how he died I wouldn’t have ruined her Halloween!" My mom yells at him and he rolls his eyes.

“She had to find out eventually didn’t she?” my dad shouts at her. She makes a sound that's mixed between a growl and a scoff and glares at him.

"I don't think you should talk to her anymore, Joe. You break her so mentally that I can hardly to get her to talk when she comes home," my mom tells him and narrows her eyes at him. I watch from the sidewalk and admire at how calm she seems. It should have been you, I think and shake my head. I shouldn't think of things like that. I shouldn't wish such horrible things upon my own father, but I can't help it. He's ruined my childhood, something I'll never be able to get back.

My dad rolls his eyes at her and then turns and walks back inside. My mom slowly approaches me and joins me on the sidewalk. She gives me a small smile then reaches forward to touch my cheek. I flinch away and she pulls her hand back to her body with a frown.

"I know you're sad, baby. But it's too cold to be sitting out here all alone," she whispers and shakes her head a little. I look back over at Shay and he pants a little at me and I smile.

"But I'm not alone. I have Shay," I tell her with a smile and point over at the fence where he sits, waiting. My mom nods a little.

"Yeah... That's true... Do you... Want to talk about anything?" She asks and I look over at her again.

"Like what?" I reply. My emotions lie somewhere dormant in the pit of my stomach, so there really isn't anything to be felt while sitting on the ground. I can't even feel the cold as it seeps through my jeans. I'm numb from the brain down. She sighs a little and sets her hand on my knee, leaning forward to look me directly in the eye.

“Your eyes are red,” she states and leans back. I shrug my shoulders, wanting to come up with a comeback, but not having it in me.

I want her to leave me alone. To go back inside and think about everything that’s happened since 9 o’clock this morning. I just want her to go away so I can disappear in my own thoughts. I want to cease to exist, I want to dissipate into the wind, let it carry me somewhere far away, somewhere where people like me live. Somewhere where people that have no emotions anymore because they have been ripped from them live, strive. It just happened, and I feel so alone.

She stands up and wipes off her pants. She must not be able to take the negativity that's radiating from my body anymore.

"Come inside when you feel better," she tells me and leaves. I wish I could say that the silence is pleasant, but it eats away at my throat, a scream trying to tear its way from my belly. I want to hit something as hard as I can, but I don't like pain. I stand up slowly and walk across the grass. Small patches of grass crunch with frost under my shoes as I walk. I get to stairs and have to sit down again, the feeling in my legs fleeting with the wind. It's cold and nips at the sticky, wet tears trails on my cheeks.

"Jesse... Why..." I choke out and begin to cry again. I hate crying. It hurts my cheeks and throat when sobs rip out of me. I can hear my mom and dad fighting again inside of the house and someone walking around. The police must have left while I was outside because the squad car is gone. I shouldn't be here. I should be at school with Gabriel and Darren, not crying by myself outside. I wish I could say it gets better, but it never does. The yells from inside die out after about ten minutes and the air is slowly growing heavier on my shoulders.

Should I go inside? The house is now silent on the outside, but probably ravenous on the inside. Cars zoom past me either up the hill or coming down the hill at a speed that seems almost to slow. The people of the cars seem like they’re staring and judging me, and are going to slow. Why can’t the world just take a hint and stop for the day for me to enjoy this pain and soak in the dread and horror escaping the half closed door behind me.