Back at the house, Ben let Kimmy eat her lunch at the coffee table in the family room while she watched her YouTube videos on the TV. He also brought her some water to drink with her lunch and to help her hydrate after the meltdown.
Water was always something he was told to drink as a kid whenever Ben felt overwhelmed. "I used to call my mom to come pick me up. She would tell me to drink some water and I would be fine," he felt inclined to explain.
Ben filled a cup with crushed ice and water and brought it to place near her paper plate. "Water does help to an extent. But, that's why I let you kids stay home or come home if you need to."
Kimmy watched him until he took the plate that had kept the food covered.
He returned shortly, watching the video for a moment. "I talked to Leonard this morning. We had a chat about what happened yesterday, and..." Ben paused to take a deep breath. "Visits with your mom will be put on hold until further notice. Hopefully, it'll give your mom some time to continue doing what she needs to do so you and your brother can go home."
Kimmy had one of those pigs in a blanket up to her mouth. When Ben informed her of the plan, she stopped.
Ben watched her, now just staring at the mini hotdog. It was hard to tell if she was mad or sad or both. He wasn't sure what to say or do other than what he had said earlier. "I promise yesterday was not your fault, kiddo."
Kimmy didn't react. She just stared at the mini hotdog.
Of all the times for his phone to ring, it had to be now. Ben fished it out of his shorts pocket and looked at the screen to see Ariel calling.
He swiped to answer his cousin's call. "Hey, I'm kind of..."
Ariel basically jumped in to interrupt him before he could finish. "Who has two thumbs and scored Thanksgiving this year?" She added she was pointing at herself.
"Yeah, I got that," he said, knowing his cousin used the gesture often since she learned it at age twelve. "Wait. How in the heck did you manage to get Thanksgiving?"
"Oh, trust me. Your mom put up a fight," Ariel said. "But after Oliver and I scored this nice house this past summer, I knew I wanted to host a holiday dinner."
Ben motioned to Kimmy he would be right back to continue their conversation and headed outside to talk to his cousin in private, shutting the back door once he was outside.
"Besides, I hated not having you around last year. It's not Thanksgiving or Christmas without you."
"I missed you guys, too. But my mom has to learn it's not always me and Kayla anymore," he reminded her with a shrug. "Sure, I could find someone to watch the kids for a few hours or go alone. But then I feel like the rest of my family are being excluded."
"I get it, Ben," Ariel agreed. "That's why I fought so hard for at least one of the holidays. My house, my rules." The rule in their family was that whoever hosted a holiday or party at their house got to make all the rules of how things were run and that included the guest list.
Unfortunately, Ben's mom always seemed to be the one to host. At least for the holidays.
"I want you there, Ben. You and Kayla, and if that includes the kids, then no problem. The more, the merrier. Oliver and I got nothing to hide, so if we have to get checked out, we'll do it."
Ben snickered. "That won't be necessary. I appreciate the willingness, though."
"And we have a guest room on the far side of the house so if they get overwhelmed and need some time alone, they can hang out in there. There's a TV in there, with all the channels we get on the main TV. So? How about it? Can I put you down for two-plus?" she asked eagerly.
He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I mean if you've gone through all that trouble." Ben had to stop the cheering that came next, to quickly add, "But I still need to talk it over with Kayla. We're not sure what her side of the family is doing yet."
"That's reasonable," she said. "Oliver's family is having theirs on Saturday since his brother and a couple others also have plans with the other half."
The cousins agreed to pencil in the plans for Thanksgiving. Since the holiday was still three weeks away and anything could change in an instant, Ben and Kayla weren't sure how many of their foster kiddos they would have that day. He still needed to call Claudia's caseworker. Mary and Miguel were still doing the brief visits with their aunt until further notice, but Jennifer said they would at least be switching to day visits by then.
With Kimmy, however, Ben had a feeling they would at least expect to have her on Thanksgiving.
The cousins wrapped up their conversation and Ben headed back inside to find Kimmy had gone upstairs. Her plate had been thrown in the trash and her glass was left in the sink, at least.
-- & --
Kimmy dropped her backpack at the foot of her bed and rolled onto her back with her tablet in hand.
The bombshell Ben had dropped lingered in her mind to top everything else that had gone wrong the last couple of days, and it was indeed all her fault. Kimmy had heard Wilma just fine. She just chose not to listen.
Kimmy rolled over onto her side to face the window. After a minute, she reached up, propping herself on her elbow to reach for the string for the blinds to let in some sunlight. Kimmy stared out into the clear, blue sky. Even though she was away from the school, this still wasn't home. This wasn't her bed, surrounded by the rest of her toys.
All of this was so strange and foreign to her. Kimmy couldn't even call this a nightmare because there were no good moments in nightmares. To her knowledge anyway.
Now that the tablet was fully on, Kimmy tapped the video she had been watching downstairs and continued from where she left off.
Ben came up to check on her once he was finished with his phone call, but thankfully left her alone until they had to leave to pick up the other kids. Kimmy brought her tablet along, as well as her headphones. She tried to continue watching as Kimmy slid out of the truck on his side, but Ben insisted she leave the tablet under the seat.
She waited in the hallway while Ben went inside the classroom with Miguel's teacher. The hallway was decorated a lot differently than Claudia's school, of course. There was more artwork on the white brick walls made by the kids themselves, along with fun, colorful characters painted by professional artists.
The characters were all smiling as if they were having fun.
The kid characters all wore regular clothes boys and girls wore, though Kimmy frowned seeing every girl wearing a dress while the boys all wore T-shirts, with either shorts or pants. What grabbed her focus was how all the adult characters did not wear clothes Kimmy had seen teachers wear. Instead, they were wearing long coats that went down to their feet or tunics similar to what Link or Skyrim characters wore.
As Kimmy scanned the walls of colorful characters, her eyes fell on one character in particular: a man standing in a circle of children. He wore long similar clothes like the rest of the adult characters but they were all white.
He must be very careful when eating messy food.
Her gaze lifted to the man's face. His hair was long like another YouTuber named Wood, whom she watched sometimes. He mostly talked about Switch games and accessories, and why someone should or shouldn't buy them. The painted man's beard was slightly longer than Wood's beard though.
To the side of the painted man's head, between a couple of the children, it said:
"Jesus said, 'Let the children come to me.' Then he took them in his arms and blessed them." Right underneath the next line said: "Mark 10: 14-16"
So, was this that Jesus guy whom Kimmy had been hearing about? And who was Mark? Or did it mean marks on surfaces since it was followed by numbers?
She knew it! If there were numbers involved, that meant church really was just like school.
Kimmy wasn't exactly sure what "blessed" meant, either, other than something she heard Kayla and Grandma Joy use instead of the word, thankful, sometimes.
"That's Jesus." Kimmy once more nearly jumped out of her skin when she suddenly heard Miguel right beside her. Her whole body turned a one-eighty as she stepped back from him. The boy innocently asked her, "What?"
Ben ushered them along to head outside to the truck where they each climbed in one at a time, with Kimmy going first.
Mary was picked up last. It felt weird being in the truck when Ben pulled into the loading zone of the school.
Kayla got home an hour after they got back to the house. For dinner, she ordered pizza for the special occasion. The chores were done early before they left again to head to the church.
Kimmy was expecting the church to look like a school when in actuality, it was much smaller. From the outside, she could see a couple of long buildings surrounding a building in the middle. There was a fountain in the center of the courtyard and several of those thin trees that were held up by metal poles.
Kayla parked in the front part of the parking lot. Kimmy followed Mary and Miguel out of the jeep, sliding out last. Claudia had stayed back at the house, feeling too old for Halloween at this point, and still had homework to finish.
She followed the rest of them through the courtyard where the bounce houses were set up. Kimmy made sure to keep up as close to Kayla as possible so as not to lose them in the crowd of families.
The event took place in the back area of the parking lot behind the church buildings. Like at school that morning, almost everyone was dressed up in different costumes. Kimmy tried to search for other horror movie characters but so far couldn't spot any.
The place was packed with kids trick or treating with their parents from people who had decorated their cars in mostly fall decor, while some included Halloween decorations. Nothing that was all that scary, though. Some of them had the kids play games for candy while most just handed out candy freely.
This time, Kimmy watched Miguel play the games and only took from the ones just giving away candy. In the past, it was always a gamble which household would have the nice adult who didn't make Kimmy say trick or treat. It was even worse when they remarked how rude she was when Kimmy would turn to leave and not say thank you. Thankfully, she only trick or treated in their apartment complex, so for the last couple of years, Kimmy didn't have Stella to insist.
Trick or treating in a parking lot from strangers out of the back of their car was a completely different experience than trick or treating from neighbors. At least Kimmy had seen the neighbors on occasion. Though Ben and Kayla seemed to know a lot of these people and introduced them to her. It still felt weird, especially when she had heard jokes about not accepting candy from strangers out of vans. It didn't help some of these strangers had minivans either.
Somewhat to Kimmy's relief, no one said anything about the fact she was dressed up as a murderer. A husband commented on how she was definitely playing the part, chuckling afterward to show he was joking.
Was that why no one had been expecting her to talk? They just thought she was playing the part? Then maybe this was the best costume Kimmy had ever chosen.
Despite being fourteen, Mary still participated in trick or treating and the games as well. She pointed out that though, this was probably her last Halloween she could get away with trick or treating.
"I'd share my candy with you, sissy," Miguel had pointed out eagerly.
Mary playfully tapped the brim of her brother's hard hat, causing it to fall over his eyes. She thanked him for the sweet offer, though.
The boy giggled as he lifted his hat back into position. "You're welcome."
Watching the siblings interact always caused a small wave of emotions to come up for Kimmy, which she had to swallow back down. It didn't seem fair those two got to stay together, and she and Zach couldn't. The feelings were especially strong this time.
The group took a break so Mary and Miguel could jump in one of the bounce houses. It seemed pointless when they had a trampoline back at Ben and Kayla's house, and they didn't have to worry about other kids bouncing into them.
Ben tried to encourage Kimmy to join them, and the siblings even joined in. But they eventually gave up and let her watch instead, hoping she would join in eventually. After a few minutes of watching them, Ben and Kayla got distracted and started talking with the other parents.
It really did feel like she was actually Michael Myers standing there, stalking someone while Kimmy watched the other kids play, that she had to stick her plastic knife inside her trick-or-treat bag.
This was also when she got a real good look at the candy haul. It didn't seem like they were done and this was the most candy Kimmy had ever gotten. It wasn't all candy either. One elderly lady had been passing out fruit to the kids, something that could be grounds to get someone's house egged or TPed, in Kimmy's opinion.
Who the heck gives out fruit on Halloween?
There were also those plastic spider rings, among other small Halloween-themed small toys. Someone even gave out a booster pack of Pokemon cards that McDonald's sometimes gave in their kids' meals. The haul certainly would have made up for getting the Bingo prize stolen, but Kimmy still could not help but continue to grieve for it.
A voice pulled Kimmy from her thoughts at once.
"I like your Michael Myers costume."
Jumping out of her skin for the umpteenth time that day, Kimmy looked up to see an older kid about twelve standing there, dressed up in one of those inflatable costumes to make it look like he was being carried off by an alien.
"My uncle let me watch it for the first time this year."
When Kimmy hadn't said anything, the boy smiled at her before walking away.
She watched him as he joined some kids his age. When Kimmy turned forward again a kid was coming out of the same bounce house Mary and Miguel had been jumping in. She instantly recognized the kid, too from her class, and of course, of all the kids it had to be it had to be Ryder. That kid who she had bumped into last week.
She suddenly froze up as her heart began to race. Please don't notice me!
Thankfully, Ryder was more focused on his mom telling him they needed to leave. He whined and protested about not wanting to leave, but his mom reminded him he had school in the morning.
That's when it occurred to her. Could Ryder have been the one to steal her prize? He or his friends hadn't bothered Kimmy since they shoved her on the swing. He could have been jealous of her winning over him. Or maybe Ryder was still getting back at her for running into him?
Kimmy's mind was now joining her heart in the race as dozens of possibilities swirled around. However, none of it could be far from the truth, and the culprit could have been someone else. Or, the prize could have just been knocked off the desk and kicked somewhere Kimmy hadn't noticed. Unfortunately, her mind zeroed in on Ryder being the thief.
Kimmy probably looked even more like Michael Myers standing there as she eyed the boy, following his family toward where everyone else was parked.
Author's Note:
Sorry it took so long to upload. It's been a rough start to the year, struggling with depression and anxiety that was triggered by something that happened at my job. But I wanted to give you all something for now. It may have affected the chapter, though.