Day 220

The fall decor makes me reminisce about Halloween with Constance. One Halloween, a local suburb went for the Guinness World Record in most carved jack-o'-lanterns. I don’t know if they broke the record but we attended and participated.

Another Halloween, we had been staying up hoping for trick or treaters when I saw Constance watching a TV show, Smart Girls at the Party, and dancing and smiling along with it. I had stood, watching her, mesmerized and thinking, “She’s such a smart baby. I can’t wait to see what she’ll be.”

This year, I imagine the most popular costumes will be ones of scary monsters in politics. If I dressed up, I’d wear one of those, “I really don’t care, do you?” coats, and say horrible things like, “I don’t like children; they’re too many calories,” in a thick Yugoslavian accent. Of course, that’s easy for me to say—I won’t be celebrating anything.

The endless parade of face skeletons has always seemed tacky. Now, my distaste of such costumes is even greater. It is hard seeing the holidays approaching and wanting to crawl out of my skin to escape my grief. If Constance was here, we’d go to pumpkin festivals, we’d eat candy, and we’d smile.

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