Everybody and anything familiar belong to Janet. Mistakes are mine alone.

"Trick or treat!" Our group of girls shouted as soon as Frank opened his door.

"Where are your costumes?" He asked Angie and Mary Alice.

"We're too old to wear costumes, Grandpa," Angie patiently explained.

"We just want the candy," Mary Alice added.

Angie elbowed her. "Don't say that. He and Mom won't let us have any if they think that's the only reason we're here."

"I bought two bags just in case you girls were going to be able to come," Frank admitted, opening his apartment door wider and gesturing them inside. "Help yourselves."

"Dad!" Valerie said. "They get one bar each if they're full-sized candy bars. Or one handful of minis. That's it."

He shrugged. "What am I going to do with the extra if they don't take it? I don't like it and your grandmother's doctor warned her against eating too much of it."

"No," I told Stephanie, when I saw that she was about to sacrifice herself for the cause. "You and Olive don't need it either."

"Says you."

I pulled her close. "Yes, says me. And my word is law around here."'

She snorted. "So you think. I actually have a whole underground network of supporters."

"I'm not surprised. Threaten to withhold Olivia and you'll get the Uncles to do just about anything. Plus they think you're irresistibly-entertaining too."

"I hope so. I wouldn't want to rest on Olive's laurels."

Frank cleared his throat to get our attention. Only when I'm in close proximity to my wife do I stop noticing my surroundings. It's been a blessing more than it could ever be a curse.

"Speaking of Olive," my father-in-law began, "what exactly is the inspiration for her Halloween costume?"

"This," she said, lifting our daughter up off the ground, "is the elusive unicorn sparklefly."

His eyebrows drew together in confusion. "I've never heard of those."

"Because they only exist in Olive's mind and with her costume. Ella, Julie, and I had to put our heads together to make Olive's dream-bug a reality."

They accomplished their goal. Olivia is adorable, wearing a metallic purple and pink butterfly costume from the neck down, but Steph had helped her color her dark hair with non-toxic hair chalk so she could have a pastel 'mane' to go with her unicorn horn and ears headband.

"Just say she's the most beautiful bug you've ever seen or there could be a scene. Whether it'll be caused by me or Olive is yet to be determined."

"You can see that Stephanie is trick-or-treating as a Mama Bear tonight … minus the bear suit."

My wife's love of the holiday hasn't diminished, but her need to dress up has transferred to making sure Julie and Olive are covered in that department. She did leave her uniform on and told the guys she's 'Rangeman Barbie', a nod to the nickname Lula had given her when she first started working for me. Although Julie is spending Halloween with her siblings in Miami, she and Stephanie still had multiple conversations about what Julie was dressing up as and asking her opinion on how to achieve Olivia's goal costume.

"My daughters are far better parents than the ones they were given," Frank said, a brief flash of grief appeared in his eyes.

"Look at it this way, Dad," my wife said. "In a way, I owe my parenting skills to you and Mom, because I saw what not to do and knew what I would've liked to change, so I took all that and applied it to my little Olive pit here and Julie, though Jules has surpassed me in the parental advice category. It worked out for the best."

"This is a lot different than being with Grandma Plum at her house on Halloween," Mary Alice said around half a Milky Way candy bar.

"In a good or a bad way?" Steph asked before Valerie could.

"I guess good. The only time she stopped going to the kitchen to get stuff and actually talked to us, was to say we should get rid of most of our candy because it'll rot our teeth or someone could be trying to poison or hurt us."

"Leave it to Mom to be worried more about bad pictures due to cavities than death-by-chocolate bar," Steph said to me.

"Your mother works in mysterious ways, Babe."

"Or psychopathic ones," she replied.

I can't disagree with her. Helen's priorities have never made any kind of sense to me. If she looked good thanks to those around her, she was moderately content. If she's questioned or told 'No' outright, she immediately spiraled into no man's land … or no sane man's land would be more accurate.

"Are we ready to blow this pop stand?" Edna asked, locking up her apartment to join us outside Frank's.

"Yes," Valerie said. "If we're walking to Aideen's, my arms can only hold Lisa for so long."

"You can let her loose on this floor, Val," my wife told her. "If she pounds on the doors, the guys will just assume it's Olive and be happy for the interruption. And the stairwell doors and elevator only open when they're fobbed. She's safe here."

"I'm all set to head out," Frank told us. "Aideen said to come anytime. Early or late is alright with her."

"She has coffee and food," Edna said, "I vote for early."

"Is this really a Halloween party?" Angie asked. "Or just a reason for the grown-ups to get together and avoid having to walk from house-to-house?"

"We'll be walking from business-to-business for a short period of time," I replied. "So we aren't shirking our parental-duties."

"We were going over decorations until nine-thirty last night," Frank shared. "Aideen wanted to make sure she didn't choose anything that would scare Lisa, Olive, or Angelique."

"Angel has Kane for a father, nothing can scare her after experiencing that shock," Steph teased.

"You say that like you're not excited that the Cole family is visiting again, Babe."

"I like Harper and Angel, so sue me. I suppose Kane's cute in the same way Gunny and Mo are when they get a new toy and don't know how to handle their excitement over it."

"He'll love to hear that comparison. He called to say they're running a few minutes late, but will still be here."

She nudged Angie. "That gives us a chance to stock up on the party food when we get to the café. Kane isn't huge like Uncle Tank, but he can put a big dent in a buffet table."

Our niece rolled her eyes at her aunt's preoccupation with food, but it did get our party moving towards the elevator.

Pandemic aside, I didn't really want my daughter walking up to strangers' homes or buildings to beg for candy, but Aideen stepped in and rallied the other business owners on her street so Olivia and my nieces would have a safe place to trick-or-treat until we reached her café for the Halloween party she had planned for the 'potential grandkids'.

"What I love about her," Steph had admitted to me when we first learned about tonight's plans, "is I think Aideen would have created a Halloween safe-space for the girls even if she weren't kinda dating my Dad. Maybe I'm wrong, but she seems to have stayed a good human even if life has had too much fun giving her reasons not to be."

"I think you can trust your instincts in this case," I'd told her. "Aideen doesn't have to have an interest outside of Frank, but she's been pretty clear that she wants to get to know his family."

"It's scary that in that alone, she's surpassed my own mother who never cared about us as people … only what we could do for her or be in extension of her."

It never fails to piss me off how much my wife has suffered at the hands and mouth of the person who should've loved her even more than I do, but I try to take a page out of Steph's book and move past the rage without going back for it.

I've never been one to get overly involved - or involved period - in holidays, but I had to admit … Haywood Street held nothing back when it came to Halloween this year. Maybe surviving a global nightmare allows you the luxury of celebrating that any way you can.

Our group walked through the front security gate and headed up the street. If you turned your head one way … skeletons were climbing out of the small sections of lawn running alongside a parking lot. Another business decided witches were the way to go. Zombies were also a popular go-to. Halfway down the street, Olivia wanted to sit up on my shoulders so she could see everything at once.

"Wha dat?" She'd ask, pointing at something.

"A clown," Steph answered.

"It carewy."

"They are a little scary. Mama agrees with you on that one."

"Dat?" Came a beat later.

"A bat," I told her. "They're like flying Rexes."

"They are not," Steph argued. "Rex is a hamster who is really cute. Bats poop everywhere and carry diseases."

"But they eat mosquitoes," I pointed out.

"That's true. So I guess they're not all bad."

"Dare?" Olive asked again.

"Hold on, I don't know what the heck those are," Steph said, creeping closer to the flower patch in one yard. "Oh, they're skull-flowers."

"Babe."

"What would you call fake sunflowers whose middles were popped out and replaced with skulls?"

"Skull-flowers it is," I decided, since I didn't want to waste time thinking up a different name.

"Cat!"

That one the entire group turned for, since it was said at a higher decibel and because this one wasn't a decoration. It was an actual black cat crossing our path. I'm not superstitious, but that did give me a moment's pause.

"Looks like someone in the neighborhood has a Mado," Steph said, "except theirs is wearing an all-black uniform just like ours instead of being gray and curly-furred like Mado."

I could feel Olive's little body tense as she spotted something else. She shifted on my shoulders and suddenly she was leaning over the top of my head to try to see my face.

"Boo!" She shouted.

"Boo back at you. Did you see a ghost?" I asked her.

She sat back up and pointed at a tree near the corner where the streets meet. There were multiple ghosts with their own lighting 'flying' out from in-between the branches.

Olivia immediately wanted to get down as Valerie and Lisa approached a decorated candle shop, nail salon, and the new family deli that makes a minestrone soup that's become a favorite of Edna's, for candy before we turned back up the street to settle in at Aideen's for the evening. Frank's lady friend also skipped a costume but was wearing a jack o' lantern t-shirt that came with a battery pack so its grin and vacant eyes could be seen from the space station.

It reminded me of the pumpkins we had carved and have already had to dispose of because they'd been cut open too early to keep for the holiday. But the excitement of watching Hector and Woody go head-to-head in a carve-off, had Olivia sleepy even before we'd left the fifth floor that day. In an unofficial poll, Hector had won, beating out Woody's vampire pumpkin with a replica of Cal's flaming skull tattoo. Steph is still trying to decide what an appropriate prize should be ... free pizza or an actual trophy to be bought again and given out next year.

Frank greeted Aideen with a kiss placed chastely on her cheek, which Stephanie and Valerie had noted but turned away either out of embarrassment or to give them some privacy.

"Welcome Manoso/Plum/Mazur/and Kloughn families," Aideen said to us. "Happy Halloween."

"Thank you for having us," Valerie told her.

"I'm happy to. I haven't had much reason to go all out like this, your kids have given me the excuse I've been needing to get back to acting more like one."

Steph raised her eyebrows at her father as if to say … 'See, this is exactly what you've been needing in your life.' My father-in-law didn't appear like he disagreed with her assessment. The Wicked Witch of our lives seems to have been replaced with Glenda the Always-Good Samaritan. A positive improvement for all involved.

Aideen had taken Val, Steph, and the girls, on a tour of her gently 'haunted' café, and I decided to have a word with Frank after his earlier comments about his lack of parenting ability. The problem with admitting when you've fucked up, is sometimes you can wallow in the screw-up and start plateauing in how you go about repairing - and recovering from - it.

"You're doing good," I said, walking up to where Frank was sitting at the counter but facing out into the restaurant.

"I'm trying," he replied, his eyes going back to where Stephanie and Valerie were helping Olivia and Lisa choose their gift/candy grab-bag from a tray full of them.

Mary Alice and Angie were busy reading the names off the 'graves' in the caution-taped cemetery corner and started a debate on which was a better name ... Edgar Allan Poe-tergeist or Henry David Thoroughly-dead.

"I missed so much," Frank said next.

"Knowing Stephanie as well as I do, I can't disagree that you missed out on a hell of a lot, but you manned up once you woke up … and your daughters love you for it."

"I appreciate that, but I sometimes feel like I'm overcorrecting past mistakes. Take tonight's party as an example. I was concerned that I had divorced my wife who handled everything in my life, just to turn around and befriend a woman who'll assume she's expected to do the same. But Aideen told me to stop thinking so much and concentrate more on feeling … that it should've been obvious she wanted to do this for the girls, I wasn't forcing her to."

"As if anyone could force that particular woman to do anything," I reminded him.

"Yeah, I know. As Edna likes to say … she is 'a pistol'."

"Are you boys talking about me or your daughter, Frank?" Aideen asked, coming up beside Frank and joining our conversation.

"You," he admitted.

"Yes, Stephanie is less like a pistol and more of a silencer-equipped sniper rifle complete with scope containing a built-in calculator module providing ballistic info and weather data to ensure the demise of any opposition in her path."