Even Noah, my three-year-old, squeals when the fog machines kick in. And I’ll admit, there’s a strange kind of magic to it — if you’re not the one living next to it.

A few nights before Halloween, I got home from a long shift. I’d been on my feet for 12 hours, charting, treating, and comforting. It was well after 9 p.m., and the sky was black, my back ached, and my landlord’s maintenance truck was once again blocking our driveway.

I sighed and pulled into the only open spot — right in front of Derek’s house.

Look, it wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t even unusual. I’d parked there plenty of times.

Now, my kids were half-asleep in their car seats, dressed in their pumpkin-printed pajamas — courtesy of my mother, who watched them after school. The thought of offloading everyone and everything only deepened my exhaustion.

“Mama, I’m cold,” Lily said, rubbing her eyes.

“I know, sweet girl,” I said, unbuckling her gently. “We’ll be inside soon.”

I slung Noah over my shoulder and reached for Max’s hand, his head drooping with sleep. Bags hung off my wrists. I was tired in that deep, bone-hollow way you can’t fix with sleep.

I didn’t even look twice at where I parked. I just assumed that it would be okay. I just assumed that Derek would understand.

The next morning, I stood at the kitchen window, pouring cereal into three mismatched bowls, when my stomach flipped.

My car — my only car — was covered in eggs and toilet paper.

And something in me, quiet and cold, snapped.

Yolk dripped from the side mirrors in thick yellow streams. Toilet paper clung to the windshield and danced in the breeze like ghostly ribbons, tangled around the wipers and hanging from the antenna. The smell hit next — sharp and sour, sticky and wrong.