Evidence

And then the dog shat an orange balloon.

I can always tell when Lex is up to something.

She moves.

Then at some point, she asks if she can do anything to help me. She calls me, "Mommy!" with the exclamation point. She might offer to go grocery shopping, and she will have vacuumed before I come home from work. She suspected I would be at a late party on the 31st, so she began decorating the house for Halloween. Each day she brought home a different drug store abomination, like the electric pumpkin and the lime green glow-in-the-dark skulls. She found bags of cobwebs and carried in sixteen pounds of candy corn.

"Having a party?" I ask.
"Just getting in the spirit, you know? I love Halloween. Don't you love Halloween?" she answers.

"I'll end up in jail. You'll get in trouble and your permanent record will keep you from going to college. If a big group starts dancing in the foyer, the wooden floors will collapse into the basement. Someone will get hurt. I'm not kidding. No party," I unleash one morning, truly nervous over and quite tired of high schoolers..

"Don't worry. You know me," she says, as if the two statements were compatible. "And I'll take care of the dog while you are gone."

I put protective measures into play, then left. I had business to attend to as Marie Antoinette, at a costume party where for the first time that I could remember, people disagreed over politics and nobody got upset. When I came home early the next morning the place was spotless. All the beds were made, better. Garbage bags were lined up in neat rows in the garbage bin, as only a angle-advantaged basketball or volleyball player could arrange. Everything was perfect. It hardly looked like there had been a party at my house the night before.

But then this morning, I took the dog for a walk.