Chapter 2 - Mr. Scary Learns the Parade Route
The parade marshal refused to believe Adrian Vale was participating.
She stood in front of the decorated Rolls-Royce holding a clipboard against her chest.
“This is the family route,” she said.
Adrian glanced at the five children pressed excitedly against the windows.
“I noticed.”
“No political banners. No advertising.”
He looked at HAPPY HALLOWEEN, MR. SCARY.
“Would you classify that as advertising?”
The woman studied him.
Then, to Mason’s visible delight, she handed him an orange wristband.
“Stay behind the dancing carrots.”
Adrian stared.
A group of preschoolers in vegetable costumes marched past.
Mason turned away.
His shoulders shook.
“Not one word,” Adrian said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
Grace sat beside Eli in the back seat. The other children had squeezed into the remaining passenger spaces only after Mason established there were enough proper restraints. Ben, the oldest, wore a vampire cape. June had crooked fairy wings. Max carried a clipboard listing their contributions.
Mateo, who had spoken least, held the emergency candy.
Adrian drove.
That surprised everyone.
Usually, he sat in the back while other men watched the road.
Today, Eli had asked whether he could be their driver.
Adrian found himself unable to explain why the answer should be no.
They rolled forward behind the carrots.
People waved.
Children pointed.
Someone shouted, “Nice pumpkins!”
Then June lowered her window an inch and called, “He helped!”
She pointed toward Adrian.
The crowd applauded.
Adrian had stood in rooms where people applauded him because refusing felt dangerous.
This sounded different.
It embarrassed him far more.
At the first corner, Eli leaned forward.
“Dad said you never came to these.”
“He was right.”
“Did you not like Halloween?”
Adrian watched a little girl in a cardboard spaceship shuffle across the intersection.
“My wife liked it.”
“What happened to her?”
Grace touched Eli’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Adrian said.
The words surprised him.
“She died.”
Eli became quiet.
Then he said, “My dad too.”
“I know.”
The car moved another few yards.
“Do you still talk to her?” Eli asked.
Adrian’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“Sometimes.”
“Mom talks to Dad when she thinks I’m asleep.”
Grace looked out the window.
Adrian did not look back.
Some things deserved the mercy of not being watched.
At the halfway point, the parade paused beside a school playground. Volunteers handed out cider and wrapped cookies. Grace checked Eli, who insisted he was not tired while leaning heavily against her shoulder.
Adrian noticed.
He signaled Mason.
“We’re taking the shorter return.”
Eli started to protest.
Adrian shook his head.
“A professional driver knows when to avoid traffic.”
The boy considered this explanation.
“Okay. But we have to pass the pumpkin contest.”
“Nonnegotiable,” Ben agreed.
They did.
June waved at every person as though campaigning for office.
Max informed a volunteer that their vehicle had required “approximately nine hundred collective minutes of labor.”
Mateo quietly handed his favorite candy to a younger child who had dropped her bag.
Adrian watched it in the rearview mirror.
There was no calculation.
No expectation.
Just a boy giving something away because somebody else looked sad.
By the time they returned to the neighborhood, Eli was asleep against Grace.
The excitement drained from the other children into contented silence.
Outside the community kitchen, their parents waited.
There were apologies.
Questions.
A firm conversation about entering driveways without permission and touching things that belonged to other people.
The children accepted their consequences: helping clean the guesthouse craft room and writing individual apology notes.
Adrian declined Grace’s offer to pay for the damage.
“I can afford a detailer.”
“That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take responsibility.”
“They will,” he said. “But responsibility and bankruptcy don’t need to be the same lesson.”
She almost smiled.
Then she noticed the envelope tucked beneath her windshield wiper.
The smile disappeared.
Adrian watched her open it.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
He recognized the word.
He used it whenever something was very much something.
Grace folded the paper too quickly.
“It’s about the apartment.”
“What about it?”
“The building’s being redeveloped. We have thirty days.”
Adrian glanced toward Eli, still asleep.
“And tomorrow?”
“Hospital admission.”
He looked back at her.
For the first time that afternoon, Grace looked angry rather than frightened.
“Please don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one people make when they decide my life is too sad to discuss honestly.”
Adrian absorbed that.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
She waited.
“What do you need?” he asked.
Grace looked at the sleeping child.
“Today? To let him wake up remembering the parade.”
Adrian watched her tuck the eviction notice inside her bag.
“Then that’s what happens today.”
But after she drove away, he called Mason.
“Find out who owns her building.”
Mason hesitated.
“Quietly?”
Adrian looked at the pumpkins still covering his hood.
“No intimidation. No threats. Just public records.”
His security chief studied him.
Then nodded.
That evening, the ownership report arrived.
The building belonged to a property company controlled by one of Adrian’s own subsidiaries.
May you like
And the redevelopment authorization carried the signature of his finance director.
Victor Sloan.
