Daddy’s little Angel.

Mommy’s little Angel.

Grammy’s perfect little Angel.

It had been Grammy who gave her the very first Halloween costume she could remember. It was a white dress that Angel was certain had been made of satin but her mother insisted was only cheap muslin. But it didn’t matter, because it had white sequins sewn all over it that glittered even when she was standing as still as she possibly could. On the back of the dress there were two wings Grammy had made of papier-mâché and then covered with white feathers.

“I’ve been saving them ever since you were born,” Grammy had told her as she carefully fitted the wings onto her tiny three-year-old shoulders. “Some people might tell you they’re only seagull feathers, but don’t you believe them.”

“But if they didn’t come from seagulls, where did they come from?” Angel had asked.

“Angels,” Grammy told her, looking deep into her eyes. “Angels just like you. They come to me when I dream, and leave feathers on my pillow. Feathers from real angels for my own perfect little Angel.”

Angel still had those wings, but they no longer hung on the wall of her room, as they once had. Now they were wrapped in tissue paper and packed away in an old hat box she’d found in the basement of the house they lived in when she was nine, and even though her mother thought they should be thrown away, Angel knew they never would be. They were all she had to remind her of Grammy, who died a little while after that wonderful Halloween when she’d worn the angel costume, and Grammy held her hand and led her up to the porches decorated with jack-o’-lanterns. Angel remembered being too shy to knock on the doors herself, and too terrified of the strangers who answered the doors to call out “Trick or treat,” so Grammy had done that for her too.