Page 37 of Last Light

I tear open the bag of gummy bears and try one. “Mmm. These are good. Maybe a little chewier than they’re supposed to be, but still good. And I’m sure the lollipops are good since they’re supposed to be hard. We should save those—they’ll last forever. That way we can have a little treat every day.”

Travis nods, chewing on some more Skittles.

We eat in silence for a while, sprawled out on the bed together.

Eventually I say, “It feels like Halloween.”

I glance over at Travis and see his head is turned toward me, his eyes resting on my face.

“It’s that same feeling,” I explain. “That sweet taste in your mouth and a little too much of it in your stomach. And that excitement at getting a big pile of treats all at once. You know?”

“Yeah. Feels just like that.”

“Did you go trick-or-treating as a kid?”

“Oh yeah. Made a real big deal of it in Meadows. Everyone would dress up, and our parents would drive us over to those long, straight streets near the duck pond, where we could hit dozens of houses all at once without walkin’ for miles up and down hills.” The corners of his mouth are turned up in the expression that passes as a smile for him. “There’d be hundreds of us kids, all goin’ to the same houses. Those poor folks in that neighborhood must have spent a fortune on candy.”

I giggle and grab a few more gummy bears. It takes a while to chew them. “I think they were still kind of doing that. My grandparents’ street got a lot, but they never got the full force of the trick-or-treaters. But a few streets down... Wow. It was impossible to drive on those roads on Halloween with all the kids out.”

“Did you ever go trick-or-treating in Meadows?”

“No. I was twelve when I moved there, and the first year I didn’t know anyone. After that I was too old.”

Travis rolls over onto his side so he’s facing me. He looks relaxed, warm, very sexy in the dim light. “Seem to recall teenagers coming to my house for candy sometimes. Way too old to be trick-or-treating.”

“I know.” I laugh. “Some of them were shameless. But I never did it. Although they had Halloween parties at the church I went to for a couple of years. Called them Hallelujah parties so they could be properly Christian and still get all the candy.”

Travis snorts, and this time I recognize it as a laugh. “I know those parties. I went to that same church growing up, and they had ’em then.”

“You said my grandma taught you at Sunday school?”

“She did. She was the best teacher.”

“Yeah.” My smile is poignant as affection and grief tighten my chest. “She really was.”

We chew in silence for a minute until Travis says, staring up at the ceiling, “Woulda took Grace to that church so your grandma could teach her too. She might’ve gone to those Hallelujah parties.”

The clench in my heart gets even tighter, harder. I look over and see the brief twisting of Travis’s features.

He loved his daughter as much as I loved my grandma.

He lost her too.

Not very long ago.

I’ve been numbed by loss, but not as much as Travis has. I wonder if he’s even been able to grieve for the death of his daughter.

Maybe he did his grieving in the weeks before she died.

Maybe he doesn’t know how to grieve anymore.

It’s one of the things that was lost when the world fell apart.

I don’t know what to say. And I’m afraid that if I say anything, Travis will pull back. He’ll lock up tight again, and I don’t want that to happen.

So I reach over to where his hand is resting on the comforter. I twine my fingers with his and squeeze.

He doesn’t squeeze back, but he doesn’t pull away.

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