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“Halloween” by Marian Crotty I'm not shocked that the story started with a grandma. While Jules, the point-of-view character, is the most recognized character and the one who gets the most space on the page, it's quirky grandmother Jan who attracts attention and gives a lift to the rather familiar problem of Jules. Is there anything as exquisitely painful as the love that is unrequited? Sure, there is sickness, destitution, all forms of human degradation, but there is a tenderness to love an indifferent heart, a near-universality that makes it a ripe fictional centerpiece. It doesn't really matter that this is a relationship between two females. Love, after all, is love. And not-love is not-love, not-love. In this house, the three generations of women—grandmother Jan, Jules, and mother of Jules—all had unpleasant love encounters. What Jules just wants to hear is: get as far away as you can from Erika and it's going to disappear finally. Yeah, it will, I promise (I've been through this four or five times, and not just because I was young, either; it's very difficult to walk away, but it's the only thing that's going to help). But maybe it's the little one who lets her follow the advice of Jan: act cheerful and dedicated to life, wear revealing clothing, dream up an imaginary girl who's crushing you, find ways to hit Erika now and then. I might have spoken of this story originally as one of fractured faith. Jan's good husband, a respectable man who often committed minor crimes, eventually picked her up on her threat to divorce him over one of those, shattering the faith that she would be able to lament and that life would continue. Obviously, her psychotic husband broke the trust that most of us have in our husbands not to set our furniture on fire. By asking her social worker boyfriend about the divorce, Mom broke Jules' confidence, causing him to try to comfort Jules, as clumsy but well-meaning do-gooders would always do.

But then the plot concludes with Jules preparing to go to Erika's house for a Halloween celebration, a party she learned about from a co-worker. She knows that she's not allowed to go, but Jan isn't trying to discourage her. I suspect Jan knows that she's going to go no matter what, so she may be on the kid's side as well. It is when she points to the box of costumes for Halloween that I freak out....