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Chapter Fifteen, Paper Pumpkins
Friday, October 1985.
Leaves were changing with time. Mornings turned colder, afternoons warm. It was the week before Halloween, the first Halloween that actually mattered. The Bloom household had found a rhythm that no longer felt forced. Margot and Amelia Bloom pulled through the gloomier days, even as grief prolonged its stay and nightmares crawled across their skin like a chill fever.
His ghost now loomed in the misunderstood shadows of her new bedroom.
Amelia sat at the kitchen counter, hunched over a plate of pancakes her mother had quickly made that morning, lazily pushing around a piece bathed in syrup. The radio played quietly in the background, some upbeat song that didn't quite match the tired look dimming her face.
Margot moved around the kitchen with an energy Amelia could never understand where she got from. She was dressed in her new work cardigan buttoned halfway, a long blue skirt that reached her ankles, a name tag clipped to her pocket, hair tied up, and earrings already on. Her lipstick was half-applied, a coffee tumbler in one hand and a juice box tucked under her arm.
She'd recently taken a job at a preschool after Amelia convinced her to. As much as she tried applying elsewhere—bookstores, front desks, even an office job or two, nothing felt quite right. Nothing filled the void like being a teacher did.
That job was her entire life, a piece of her she couldn't change for anything or anybody. Being around kids again gave her a sense of purpose she hadn't realized she'd been missing after Amelia suggested the idea. She couldn't quit that part of her, even if she were ready to start an entirely new chapter of her life as a widow.
But it also meant she'd be much busier than before. She hardly had time to take Amelia to school or be home when Steve would drop her off, but Amelia didn't mind. With high school, friends, and movie nights, her daughter had built a world that functioned just enough without Margot constantly hovering over her—at least, that was what she thought. It was a relief for Margot in more ways than just one.
Amelia understood. She never complained. She knew this wasn't just about staying busy or for the extra money. Margot needed more than a distraction; she needed something that didn't echo with memories. Because, sometimes, in the uncanny silence of their home and with the sun dipping below the trees, it was too easy to remember the way things used to be.
It was too easy to let grief back, even when it didn't really leave. To let it settle into the quiet corners of the house that didn't feel much like home yet, in the corners of Margot's mind that still expected the slam of a door or the weight of his footsteps. At night, she found herself haunted not by his ghostly presence but by the relief that followed his absence. And that was the cruelest part.
