Chapter 18 - Always the Fun One
The letter came from a woman named Caroline Mercer.
She lived three streets over.
She wrote that when she was nine years old, her parents divorced in October. She remembered almost nothing about that Halloween except Grandma June and Grandpa Frank pretending not to recognize her costume and giving her an extra popcorn ball because she'd been crying.
YOU PROBABLY DON'T REMEMBER ME, the letter said. BUT I REMEMBER YOUR HOUSE.
Grandma read it at the kitchen table.
Then another letter arrived.
Then an email.
Then a box containing an old photograph of Grandma and Grandpa on their porch in 2004, both wearing ridiculous witch hats.
For the first time since the decorations were destroyed, Grandma stopped talking about Brent.
That mattered more than I expected.
The police case eventually ended quietly.
Melissa accepted responsibility, paid restitution, and completed community service.
Brent did the same after more resistance than necessary.
His employer reinstated him in a different role months later.
He and Melissa separated for a while.
Whether they stayed separated wasn't Grandma's business, and she meant that when she said it.
The following September, I called her on the first.
"Don't do it."
"Do what?"
"You know what."
I could hear rustling in the background.
"Grandma."
"It's one pumpkin."
I drove over.
It was not one pumpkin.
There were twelve.
Kevin the skeleton was back under the maple tree.
The scarecrows were repaired.
The orange lights were up.
And Grandpa's wooden pumpkin sat beside the front door, crack visible, crooked eye intact.
A new little plaque had been screwed beneath it.
JUNE'S HOUSE.
ALWAYS THE FUN ONE.
I stood on the walkway staring at it.
Grandma came outside carrying a plastic spider.
"Too much?"
"Absolutely."
"Good."
She clipped the spider onto the railing.
Next door, Brent stepped onto his porch.
For a second, I braced myself.
He looked at Grandma's yard.
Then at his own front step.
He placed a small orange pumpkin beside the door.
Grandma noticed.
She didn't wave.
He didn't either.
But when he went back inside, Grandma's mouth tilted upward.
"Well," she said. "September seems to be going better this year."
I looked at Grandpa's pumpkin.
At the crack they had chosen not to hide.
At the lights glowing long before Halloween.
And I finally understood why Grandma's payback had worked.
She hadn't destroyed anything of theirs.
She hadn't needed to.
They tried to make her house smaller, quieter, less herself.
So she did the exact opposite.
She filled it with people.
She filled the street with light.
And when the whole thing was over, the one decoration they tried hardest to break became the first thing everyone saw when they walked up her porch.
Grandpa had been right.
May you like
Kids needed one house on the street where grown-ups still knew how to have fun.
Grandma June had no intention of letting anyone take that house away.
