Trick or Treat: Part 3

Hello, sorry it’s late, but I’m still not at a hundred percent. This should finish up the Halloween series so I wanted to get it done before Thanksgiving. Speaking of which…

Who would you like to see Thanksgiving written about this year? 

The content in this Chronicle and on this website is intended for adults, 18 years and older.

Trick or Treat

Part III

An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“Oh, my god! I love CaseyCooks.com!” the woman that had tossed two regular size candy bars in their bucket gushed as she pressed one hand against her chest and with the other, she blindly reached into the large bucket overflowing with regular sized candy bars, grabbed three Reese’s Peanut Butter cup bars and tossed them in their bucket.

“She’s my aunt,” Sebastian said smoothly with a sweet smile that somehow earned him four more candy bars.

She wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but since they’d arrived at this Halloween utopia where no one gave away anything smaller than a regular sized candy bar, packaged gourmet caramel apples, and five-dollar gift cards to McDonalds, people had taken one look at his CaseyCooks.com apron and tripled their treats with a smile only to double that when he laid on the charm. He gushed about her mom, telling them how wonderful she was, how sweet she was, borrowed Uncle Jason’s phone and showed them the pictures of the twins, and they couldn’t throw candy, apples, and gift cards at them fast enough.

For Mikey’s part, she simply stood there, smiling, and answering questions that Sebastian threw at her about her mom’s favorite recipes for the ladies manning the doors. When she’d found out that they had to drive almost an hour to get to this secret location, secret because apparently Uncle Jason refused to share with anyone else in their family, she’d almost backed out, worried that she was going to miss what was probably going to be her last chance to Trick or Treat. She probably would have done just that if Sebastian hadn’t grabbed her hand, dragged her towards Jason’s waiting car, and promised her a night that she wouldn’t forget.

So far, he was right, because she definitely wasn’t going to forget the ten tons of chocolate they’d been given anytime soon. It was probably the best Halloween that she’d ever had. Not probably, it definitely was considering that Halloween in the past had consisted of her walking through the mall with her mom, forcing a smile when she was given a dum-dum lollipop, a business flier, and a coupon for ten percent off orthopedic shoes. This was just…

Amazing!

She’d never forget this night. Every house was decked out with fake cemeteries, cobwebs, motion sensored ghouls, vampires, and witches. It was so much better than walking through an air-conditioned mall already decorated for Christmas. As they finished up at this house and headed for the next huge Victorian, she couldn’t help but wish that her mom was here, because she would have loved this. Then again, if she was going to be completely honest she really wished that her dad was here.

Her mom was great, had always been there for her and had always stepped up and did all those things that dads normally did with their kids and Mikey would always love her for that. But, Mikey hadn’t been able to wonder what it would have been like to have a dad do some of those things with her. Uncle Eric had stepped up for her and done his best, taking her to practice, helping coach her team, and letting her practice her fastball with him, but it just wasn’t the same.

Since Reese had come into their lives, he’d always treated her like his little girl, spending time with her, teaching her things, and doing all those things that her mom was afraid to do, like play catch with her without screaming for help. He also did other things with her, big things and small things, anything, and never complained or told her that he was too tired. When he’d told her that he’d be taking her Trick or Treating this year, she’d been excited to finally have a dad to do this with and had been looking forward to this all month.

But, when she’d walked into his office and found him fast asleep at his desk, she’d quietly walked out of his office, shut the lights off and closed the door, because he was her dad. He took great care of her and her brothers and she loved him. She knew that he would have taken her Trick or Treating with a smile, pretending that he wasn’t exhausted and that’s why she loved him. It meant everything to her and that was what she was going to remember when she thought about this night, that he would have done anything for her and how much she loved him.

When she got home she’d tell him about tonight, show him the pictures they’d taken of all the decorated houses while they devoured all this chocolate. Maybe they could-

“God, you’re a terrifying zombie,” Reese said with a teasing smile as he stepped past a group of ghosts and Annas, leaned down and pulled her into his arms, uncaring that she was getting zombie makeup all over his shirt and gave her a bear hug.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut and hugged him back, deciding that this was definitely the best Halloween ever.

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