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  • Halloween
  • Jill McCorkle (bio)

The year my dad lay dying,it rained on Halloween.Seven hundred miles awaya hospice nurse held his handwhile a friend and I trudgeddoor to door, guttersthick with leaves, carvedjack-o-lanterns sputtering,our kids shivering with coldand still craving candy.My daughter, Princess Jasminefrom Aladdin, her veilsdrenched and her goldenslippers mudspattered,her brother the genie,his bottle, the dark cocoonedSnugli I wore against my chest.My friend would die young,cancer cells already waking,though we didn't know that.We locked arms and held tightto our shared umbrella,laughed when her Ninja Turtle sonstepped in every puddle.I tried not to thinkof my father's bodythin and skeletallike the plastic shapeshanging in doorwaysand from rain-beaten trees.We called to our children,wait, come back,but they ran ahead.No sooner did one door closethan they fixed on the next—bigger treats, better treats,their hopes surgingeven as porch lightswent dark and the wind raged [End Page 160] and the rainthreatened to fallfor years. [End Page 161]

Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle is the author of five novels and four story collections. She teaches creative writing at North Carolina State University.

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