Sweet Desserts and Sad Goodbyes

When the universe gifts you with the ability to sense the feelings and emotions of the people around you, every day is a long one.

I always found it comical, how the world created the term “gifted” for people who possessed abilities like mine, as if giving us a name and sorting us into our own neat little category will make our attunement with the unknown seem a little less weird. But my ability is much less a gift than it is a nuisance; one that is usually accompanied by a fatigue that creeps in around mid-day and pervades by nightfall. Tonight, in particular, as I finish beating the chocolate buttercream icing in the plastic bowl resting precariously on my messy kitchen countertop, I'm exhausted.

It’s why I’ve always refused to work anywhere other than from the comfort of my home office, even before the start of the pandemic. Why venture out into a world of sadness, anger, and judgement that you can literally feel when you can communicate the same objectives through a phone call or chat box? Besides, I'd been building a reputation as an online presence even before I knew it would become my career, from blogging to freelancing and finally to starting my very own magazine seven years ago called the Occult Journal, which had grown into a booming business.

Granted, there were days when the silence and solitude of my quaint, 1400-square foot English Tudor-style home would have me ready to yank my hair out, desperate for the voice of someone other than myself, or a tender hand on my shoulder. Even with the distraction of the peaceful hush of wind through the verdant forest that bordered my property and the birdsong melody that accompanied its drifts, loneliness could be just as mind-numbing as the overwhelm of being an empath in a crowded society.

On those days, Milo would come to visit me, his uncanny way of always showing up at my doorstep right when I needed him seeming to suggest that he wasn’t as normal as he’d have me believe. He would flash me that wolfish grin, cigarette-stained teeth glistening behind mahogany strands of hair. “What’s for dinner tonight at casa de Athena?” He’d ask when I opened the door, as he pulled himself out of a slouching position against the beams of my porch overhang. The redolence of my potted flowers would trail in behind him as he sauntered into the foyer, comingling seamlessly with his natural musk of stale smoke and gasoline.

A small, sad smile tugs at the corners of my lips as I think about him now. Please let me see him, I beg silently as I pull the last baking pan from the top rack of my oven, welcoming the blast of heat against my face. I’d been trying to rein in any hidden ability for mediumship that I might unknowingly possess for the past two weeks, ever since that horrible day. But the infuriating irony of my “gifts” is that the only ones I feel naturally are the ones I don’t want, like the empath ability and the vague sense of foresight that was so useless it was basically a joke. It hadn't served me any good with the pandemic; I knew something bad was going to happen, I just didn't know what. And other gifts, like shadow-walking and communing with the dead have to be learned, and usually for years on end.

I shake my head ruefully as I ponder, catching the scene outside my open kitchen sink window when I roll my mossy eyes. A waning crescent moon hangs within view like a crooked comma slipping below a trailing sentence of clouds. The leafy branches of my red maple momentarily obscures its beauty before shifting again, moonlight pouring back in. The saccharine scent of my lilac bush floats on the stirring air. It’s divine, and I sigh, wiping beads of sweat from my neck.

Tonight is Samhain- or, as the rest of America would call it, Halloween. It’s the one night of the year when I should feel in my element, but the bitter truth is that calling myself a witch is as daunting as asking people to call me Athena had been, years ago.

It takes time, allowing yourself to feel comfortable in your true skin when you’ve never before worn it outside the house.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love Samhain, with its autumnal aesthetic of auburn leaves and orange pumpkins, heady aromas of cranberry and cinnamon, and joyous cacophony of children’s laughter and ghoulish sounds played over home stereos. But tonight’s holiday wasn’t the exuberant free-for-all that everyone expected a self-proclaimed witch to celebrate; instead, it was a reverent night that was meant to honor those who’d been loved and lost.

Milo was both.

I'd dedicated the entire day to him; cooking, baking, and remembering. I’d even forgone any preparations for trick-or-treaters this year, too hellbent on meditating and spellcasting. The spell bottle I’d crafted earlier in the day now sits perched on my living room coffee table, alongside a lit white candle. I’d burned a bay leaf in its flame at noon, with a wish inked across its dried, crinkly surface. My heart wrenches just looking at it, and I recite the words in my head like a mantra: I wish for him to appear, for one last day to hold him near.

With any luck, he’ll pay me a visit soon. I’d made his favorite; baked macaroni and cheese, garlic bread, and the chocolate buttercream cake with layers of rich icing that I was currently smoothing into perfection. He’d been so sick for so long; he deserved some comfort food.

I had no choice left but to leave it up to luck, as hours of meditation and practice had proven futile ever since he’d passed two Thursdays ago, a day so sunny and bright you’d swear such a dark occurrence couldn’t possibly take place. But clearly, I was no medium, as none of my casted circles or incantations had been able to muster anything more than raised arm hair and a lingering chill. Maybe that’s why he held on for so long, I think to myself as I place the finished cake next to the domed dinner plates on the dining room table. The closer to Samhain he got, the sooner we’d be able to see each other again.

It’s not fair. In fact, it’s so unfair it’s mindboggling. Yes, he was immunocompromised (no one would've assumed that spirited, effervescent Milo was sick, but he'd been battling Lupus since the age of seventeen. He'd just gotten good at hiding the physical toll it took on his body). Yes, we’d been scared shitless ever since February 2020, when the US first started getting serious about the spread of Coronavirus. And yes, we’d avoided any positive diagnoses for nearly a year and a half, both of us barely leaving our houses and donning our masks as dutifully as a priest would shrug into his cassock.

We thought we were through the worst of it, in the clear, when the delta variant reared its ugly head back in March.

It took a month for a then-vaccinated Milo to fall ill, and then six more months for him to succumb. Once he got sick, he never left the hospital.

The endless days sitting at his bedside and gleaning any tidbits of information from passing nurses had been grueling, especially since I hadn’t been that involved with the rest of humanity since I’d left home at nineteen. Leaving had given me the push to start down my own path in life, a path that wouldn’t be obstructed by parental disappointment and desperate family attempts to show me the pain I was causing. Still, I had to give Mom and Dad some credit; even as devout Catholics, they’d let me stay under their roof for a year knowing full well I was openly referring to myself as their daughter instead of their son. It wasn’t until I solidified my lifestyle with estrogen hormone therapy that they decided to shun me completely.

Now, as I deflate against the worn leather of my vintage couch and watch the candlelight dance along the four-centered arch and strapwork detail of the ceiling, a wish and a spell are all that’s left to bind me to the thin hope of seeing Milo one last time, to tell him how much I’ll miss him.

***

“Really, you baked a cake?”

I wake with a start, momentarily confused to find myself in my living room instead of in bed. The temperature has dipped a good five degrees, and I rub my eyes, pretending to clear the sleep from them when I’m really holding back the tears that are welling from sheer happiness.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.

Milo stands in front of me with his arms crossed and hip cocked, the ghost of remaining smoke from my now unlit candle casting his silhouette in ethereal shadows. Even with the hazy translucence of the dead blanketing them, his ice-chip blue eyes glinted.

“You always said you wanted your funeral to be a grand celebration.”

“Well, unfortunately that was a week and a half ago, and it was quite the dull affair. No one even bothered to rev a Harley- and I would know, I was sitting in the first row.”

I snort. “Well, if I’d ever cared to learn how to ride one, I would have.”

There’s that devilish smile of his. A measly two weeks without it and I already felt hollow.

“So, this new gal you’ve been chatting with, why didn’t you tell me about her before- when I was alive?” Milo elbows me happily as he settles into the couch cushion beside me. I blush thinking about Nikita, her gorgeous mind, and her sexy frame. We'd met almost a year ago at the grocery store, and after months of building up a solid friendship, I'd finally allowed myself to dip my toe into the waters of a relationship with her.

“You know how I am. I don’t know if it’ll be serious yet.” I embrace him with the strength of a mother hugging her soldier son returning home from war.

“Well, it should be. She’s a keeper. If your father wasn’t such an ass, I think he’d even approve.” I laugh. Try explaining to an unflinching non-sympathizer that you were going to transition from male to female, then try explaining that you were still going to date females.

After a moment, silence envelopes us, and it’s comfortable instead of cramped. I think we both know the conversation that’s soon going to take place, and neither of us are too keen on jumping the gaps of time that will get us there. Right now, we’re just welcoming each other’s company.

“It’s a perfect night for Samhain. I didn’t even need my Carharrt to roam the streets as an undead spirit.” Milo’s tenor voice rolls humorously, and I smile quietly, knowing he can't feel the weather. I wonder if that's weird for him. “Did you see that sunset a few days ago? I kept saying out loud, ‘Milo, I know you’re wishing for your camera right now’”.

“Oh, I saw it alright. I was right there pulling weeds in the garden with you”.

“I tried to communicate… actually I’ve done nothing but try since you left me. But I’m obviously not that gifted”. My voice trails off, defeated.

“A, you were raising so much energy, I could barely even leave your side without feeling you tugging me back.” A part of me wants to wrap my arms around him just for knowing the right terminology. For such a rough and tumble mechanic like him whose sole purpose in life was to grind and crank away on rusting bikes and cars until they grumbled, groaned, and roared back to life, just knowing the intricacies of my witchy ways really showed how much he cared.

“Then why couldn’t I see or hear you?”

“It was the thick wall of your grief. I couldn’t get through it.”

It was true, I’d been depressed. Obviously over losing him, but also over feeling higher levels of immense sadness and pain as Covid advanced and wildfires raged. I could feel it all, the emotional and on some level, the physical. All of it combined was enough to make getting out of bed a challenge.

For a moment, we fall back into silence. “Well, either way, we’ll have this night every year, right?”

His hopeful tone rips my wounds open again, and I shake my head sadly. “No, Milo. We won’t.”

“What happens next, then?”

He’d been my only support system throughout the cartwheels of my life, ever since the fourth grade; the only person to understand my love of all things strange and dark, to accept my morbid sense of humor. The only one to ever stand up for me against high school bullies who made fun of my short, stocky frame and long hair; first naming me Fatty Smalls, and later Girlyboy or Tranny-freak. Milo was the only one who'd been there for me as Brian, and continued to be there for me as Athena. He was my best friend of thirty years, and I didn’t know how the hell I’d ever get through it.

“We eat and get drunk, we laugh, and then you go through the bright light at the end of the tunnel. For real this time. We say goodbye. And then… I don’t know.”

He swallowed, nervous but also excited, in true Milo fashion. “Well, then we should probably get to it, shouldn't we?”