“Bad dream?” I asked, opening the door. She nodded. She didn’t make any attempt to undo her seatbelt, so I just went ahead and did it for her, having decided to just go along with her.

She took her bag, though I had to practically shove it into her hands, then suddenly seemed to wake up, remember what we were doing there. She looked around at the houses lining both sides of the street around us, all decorated up, most with at least one group of little terrors standing on the porch, in various stages of getting their trick-or-treat on.