Chapter 9 - The Yard That Grew Overnight
October 1 arrived with rain.
People came anyway.
Not two hundred.
Closer to four hundred across the day.
Families brought paper ghosts, old plastic pumpkins, strings of lights, homemade tombstones, painted signs, candy buckets, and one absolutely terrifying inflatable cat that Grandma hated on sight.
"Its eyes follow you," she whispered.
"That's the point."
"I don't like its point."
Kids decorated the fence with orange ribbons.
Someone repaired the scarecrows.
A retired carpenter named Mr. Singh offered to restore Grandpa's pumpkin.
Grandma hesitated before handing it over.
"Don't make it look new."
"I won't."
"And leave the crooked eye."
"I will."
"And the crack."
He looked at her.
"The crack too?"
Grandma nodded.
"Especially the crack."
The reporter arrived around three.
Her name was Tessa Grant.
She asked Grandma if this was revenge.
Grandma looked around at children taping paper bats to the porch.
"At first? Maybe."
Tessa raised an eyebrow.
"And now?"
Grandma thought about it.
"Now I think it's a block party with poor timing."
The clip aired that evening.
Most of it was sweet.
Then the station showed the damaged decorations.
Then the doorbell footage.
Then Brent's house in the background.
They blurred the address.
They did not blur Brent walking angrily into frame yelling, "Turn that camera off!"
The clip went viral locally.
And the next morning, a black SUV pulled into Brent's driveway.
A man in a suit got out carrying a folder.
He wasn't their lawyer.
He was from Brent's employer.
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