“You look funny,” she said.
“I know,” said Hawley, but he didn’t really know how funny until he walked outside with Loo and started going from house to house and ringing bells. People opened their doors with smiles that quickly faded when they saw him lurking in the shadows of their porch. He was the only parent wearing a costume. No one knew what he was supposed to be. They didn’t know what Loo was, either.
“Maybe we need a routine,” Hawley said.
But Loo was interested only in the candy. She approached each new house with growing confidence, until she was dashing ahead and leaving Hawley behind on the sidewalk. He hadn’t been around so many people in months and it made him nervous, the children in their costumes, shrieking and running past in the dark. Witches and fairies, clowns and skeletons and a whole cast of cartoon characters that Hawley didn’t recognize. The other parents clustered in groups, grinning and nodding. Pumpkins glowered on doorsteps. And Loo’s tiny hand slipped into his, her fingers gripping his thumb as they made their way down the street together. Toothpaste and toothbrush.
Hawley’s foot was throbbing by the time they started back. He could feel the sock soaked with blood, and the side of his boot was starting to show a bright stain across one side.
“You’re leaking,” Loo said.
“It’s just some paint I spilled,” said Hawley, and when she kept staring, unsure, clutching her bag of candy tight in her fist, he said, “Look,” and turned his boot and dragged it along the sidewalk, one way and then the other, until he’d made the letter L in red on the concrete.
“For Loo?” she asked, delighted.
“That’s right,” said Hawley, though he’d been thinking of Lily. “And now it’s time to go home. I promised your grandma I’d have you back by eight.”
“One more house,” Loo begged.
“You’ve got enough candy,” said Hawley.
“But they have so many pumpkins.” Loo pointed to a bungalow at the end of the block. “Please? Please?”
Hawley knew it was the candy and not him she wanted, but it still felt good. “All right,” he said. “Last one.”
There was already a group of kids at the door. A ghost, a punk girl and a hot dog. As they got closer, Hawley could see that the kids were teenagers. Fourteen, maybe even fifteen. Their costumes were haphazard. Their pillowcases filled to the brim. They snatched at the candy bowl like they were aiming to empty it.
“That’s enough,” the man at the door was saying.
The punk girl hefted her bag onto her shoulder, but the ghost and the hot dog kept grabbing at the bowl.
“I mean it.” The man took a step toward the teenagers. He was dressed up as a policeman, his cap pulled down on his forehead. He was wearing a badge and mirrored sunglasses. The hot dog looked up and dropped the candy in his hand, while the ghost hooted and then they scattered down the walkway.
Loo hurried into the space they’d left behind, holding up her pillowcase. “Trick or treat,” she said. That’s when Hawley noticed the handgun snapped into the policeman’s holster and the nightstick and can of pepper spray dangling from his belt. That’s when he saw the cruiser parked in the driveway.
The policeman held on to the glass candy bowl and watched the teenagers laughing and hurrying down the street. Then he turned to Hawley.
“And what are you?” he asked. “Some kind of superhero?”
“Toothpaste,” said Hawley.
Loo gave a big smile. “Push my button,” she said.
“I’m a little afraid to do that,” said the policeman. He peered at the bubble wrap stuck on the end of the poster tube. “Is something special going to happen?”
“I’m going to brush your teeth,” said Loo.
“I’ve had a lot of candy tonight, so that’s probably a good idea,” said the policeman. He turned his mirrored sunglasses toward Hawley, and his expression could have meant a thousand different things. He bent down and pushed the red patch on Loo’s shirt, and as soon as he did she started up with her growling.
“That’s great,” said the policeman. “Who made the costume?”
“Her grandmother,” said Hawley.
Loo took a step toward the policeman, angling the top of the poster tube, as if she were getting ready to shove the whole thing inside his mouth.
“That’s enough, honey.”
Loo stepped back. She held up her bag again.
“Those damn kids nearly took it all,” the man said as he dropped a candy bar into Loo’s pillowcase. He leaned down. “Don’t ever become a teenager.”
“Are you a real policeman?” Loo asked.
The man laughed. “I left the suit on after my shift. I was hoping it would keep the eggers away. They get my car every year.”
“Little pricks,” said Hawley.
The policeman glanced down at Loo and then back at Hawley, eyeing him carefully. “They’re only kids,” he said. “I did worse in my day.”
“Dad,” said Loo, “you’re leaking again.”
And he was. As they were talking a small puddle of blood had spread out of Hawley’s boot and made its way onto the policeman’s porch.
“Is that paint?” the policeman asked.
“Fake blood,” said Hawley. “We were playing around earlier. I guess some of it spilled onto my shoe.”
“A bloody toothbrush?”
“Root canal,” said Hawley.
“That would have been something.” The policeman wrapped his arms around the bowl of candy and looked at the puddle on his porch. His sunglasses reflected back all the darkness of the world.
“Happy Halloween,” said Hawley. “Sorry about the mess.”
“Thanks for the candy,” said Loo.
“You’re welcome,” said the policeman. He stood on his porch, watching the two of them walk down the path. Hawley tried not to limp, and only glanced back once they’d reached the corner. Under the streetlamp, he saw that he’d left footprints, tracked all the way down the policeman’s stairs and along the sidewalk. Beside them were the small footprints of his daughter, the soles of her sneakers caked in his blood.
—
WHEN HE GOT back to the motel later that night, Hawley brought a beer into the bathroom and started unlacing his boot. Maybe it was enough, he thought. To see Loo now and then, to be on the edges of her life. He’d been lucky to have as much of her as he did. He didn’t know how to take care of a child. And after Wyoming and Texas and New Orleans, he didn’t think he deserved to, either.
His foot looked inflamed. He could barely get his toes free, and had to yank the laces out entirely. The wound probably needed sewing, or at the very least to be cauterized. Hawley ran the tub and emptied a bottle of peroxide over the bullet hole and watched the edges of his skin foam white and burn.