Aspen hadn’t realized just how many decisions had to be made in planning a funeral. They’d been in their last year of high school when their father had died after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, and their only memory of the funeral planning was of their mother refusing to let anyone help, to the point that she nearly worked herself into a state of nervous collapse.

Aspen was under no illusion that their mother, who was taking the role of executor very seriously, would yield control of any of the most important decisions. Instead, Aspen and their sister simply concentrated on the myriad of small, tedious tasks that needed doing – such as writing the obituary and putting together photos for a slide show at the funeral home – before their mother had time to stress about them not getting done.

They found the appointment to peruse the funeral home’s showroom of coffin and urn options (which they had no real opinions about) particularly surreal, and Becks clearly felt the same way. At one point while their mother was dithering between two nearly identical urns that would hold their aunt’s “cremains”, Becks and Aspen walked over to boggle at the most “deluxe” coffin on display, which was larger than the last car Aspen had owned.

“Unbelievable,” Aspen muttered. “If this was in Toronto, someone would be trying to charge a thousand bucks a month in rent for it.”
Becks grinned and assumed her best imitation of the pose from the car salesman meme as she slapped the top of the coffin. “This bad boy can fit so many corpses in it.”

It was a terrible joke, but the inappropriate setting made it ten times funnier. The two siblings ended up crying from trying and failing to laugh quietly, and Aspen couldn’t help but be relieved when mum threw them both out into the waiting room.

“Remember how Dad would always get us in trouble by telling us jokes in church?” Becks asked with a grin as she flopped into a monstrous armchair upholstered in a hideous pastel floral print.

“And how Mum always got mad at us for laughing, and not at Dad for telling jokes in the first place?” Aspen grinned and sat next to their sister. “Some things never change, I guess.”

“Right? Dad was always such a shit-disturber. It never seemed fair that we got in trouble and he didn’t.”

“Maybe Mum just knew it was pointless to try to get him to stop.”

“Maybe.” Becks sighed.

There were several moments of morose silence as they both contemplated their surroundings. “It's not fair,” Aspen finally said in a small voice.

“Yeah.” Becks sniffled and reached for one of the omnipresent boxes of tissues.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen and Becks forced their mother to take a break for lunch before diving back into planning for the funeral and visitation decisions that had to be made that day, since it seemed that pretty much everyone in the family was arriving on the Island either today or tomorrow.

“Can you blame them?” Becks had quipped. “It’s an ironclad excuse to take off work and escape winter before tourist season starts.”

Still, it seemed like they made about three million calls that afternoon getting everyone in their large family on the same page – an exercise made even more irritating given that their aunts and uncles would only respond to phone calls, the Millennial cousins would answer literally anything but a phone call, and the youngest cousins would only answer to Snaptalk.

By the end of the day, Aspen was so overwhelmed and exhausted that they crawled into their bed at the TravelBNB as soon as they were finished with dinner, in a futile attempt to beat back the migraine that was boring into their eye sockets.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Becks asked sweetly from the doorway.

Aspen refused to rise to the bait. “No. Absolutely not. I am not making any more decisions today. I will call him tomorrow.”

Becks gave them an inscrutable look. “Noted,” was all she said.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen slept terribly and woke already feeling anxious – a feeling exacerbated by the fact that William hadn’t so much as asked them if they had arrived safely, let alone asked how things were going. Or even messaged at all.

Becks barred their entry to the kitchen, where she and Mum had started folding programs, her expression severe as she handed Aspen a large mug of freshly brewed coffee. “Call. Him.”

Any protest Aspen wanted to make was cut off by the equally severe look their mother gave them. “Okay fine,” they huffed before going back upstairs.

The phone only rang twice before William picked up. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

“Hey.” Aspen’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. They took a sip of coffee to steady themself, forgetting that it was fresh, and immediately burned their tongue. “Fuck that’s hot.”

William chuckled. “You called to tell me your coffee was hot?”

“No. Obviously.” Aspen sighed. “We need to talk about something that came up in my aunt’s will.” There was a pause during which William could have said something and didn't. Ordinarily, Aspen would have approached the situation with more delicacy, but the sound of William typing in the background and his refusal to even try to carry his half of the conversation annoyed them into being direct. “Aunt Marcy left me her house. There’s some paperwork hoops to jump through, but I can have it if I relocate to BC within two months and open my own witching practice. Otherwise, it’s getting sold and the money will go to the BC College of Witches.”

“Wow.” There was a brief pause, but the sound of typing continued. “Unfortunately, the firm doesn’t have a BC office, so relocating isn’t an option. I’d have to job hunt and start over at a new firm.”

It was exactly what they’d known he would say, so why did they feel so upset?

“I’m aware of that.” Aspen clamped down on a surge of anger and did not give in to the urge to ask how much progress toward partner he could have made in two years of working at his current firm. “I get it.” They didn’t. “But I need you to take this seriously, because this is a house that comes with the job I’ve always wanted – being a real community witch and really helping people. No strings attached, no having to worry about networking or side-hustles or making rent.”

Finally, the sound of typing stopped. “Wait. You want to take it?” William’s voice was disapproving. “You already have a job. You have seniority in your department and your boss is a moron. If you wanted, you could be running your team within six months.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Why throw away a career that’s about to take off just to go live in the middle of nowhere to, what, reprise your failed attempt at being a witchfluencer by being even more basic and cottagecore than last time?

Aspen was briefly shocked into silence, unable to believe that he was being so callous when they were talking about a chance to live their dream, the thing that they had been trying and failing to make happen for years. And then, with a sudden, painful shift in perspective – like a dislocated joint snapping back into place – they could believe it. They’d known for a long time that William had changed into someone they no longer loved or even wanted to spend time with, they just hadn’t been able to face it.

“Well, I’m going to take it,” Aspen said firmly. “I’m not walking away from my dream job and a free house to go back to a job that I hate and never wanted in the first place.”

“What about me?” William asked peevishly. “You can’t seriously expect to make a long-distance relationship work across three time zones.”

For a moment Aspen couldn’t breathe. It took them a few tries to find their voice. “I don’t.”

There was a long uncomfortable silence. “You don’t what?” William finally asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Aspen took a deep breath to steady themself against the pit of churning misery in their stomach. “Look. We’ve been on different paths for a long time, and this is just the thing that’s finally making us deal with the fact that we want fundamentally different things from life.”

Another pause. “What are you saying?”

Of course he was going to make them be the one to actually say it. “That I think it’s best if we… That I think we should break up.”

“I don’t agree.”

“This isn’t—”

“You’re not making any sense, Aspen,” William continued, cutting them off. “You’re obviously upset about your aunt’s death and shouldn’t be making any major life decisions while you’re still in shock.”

“I’m not, though!” Aspen felt a surge of cold fury as William actually scoffed, but continued speaking, refusing to let him cut them off again. “I mean, obviously I’m a bit in shock, but that’s not the point. My feelings deserve to be part of this equation, even if you don’t agree with them.”

“Can’t you just come home and talk this through with me?” William asked, his tone long-suffering. “You owe me that much.”

“Owe you?” Aspen sputtered. “For what exactly?”

“For the years that I carried you and let you live with me while you were making a go of the witch thing.”
Aspen felt as if they’d been dipped in molten lead. Carried them? Let them live with him? The witch thing? What about the years that they had taken care of William during law school? Or that final semester, when they helped him pay rent so he could quit his job to prepare for the Bar? What about the fact that it had been William’s idea that they move in together? That he’d been insistent that it didn’t make sense to pay rent on separate apartments? What about the fact that Aspen had told him it was their dream to be a professional witch the first time they’d met?

“Aspen.”

“No. I don’t owe you anything, and I especially don’t owe you this.”

“Aspen.”

“Goodbye, William. We’re done.”

“Wait—”

“Best of luck in your career,” they snapped, indulging in a cheap parting shot before they hung up.

The enormity of what they’d done hit them right after. They’d just blown up their entire life.

Knowing that their mum wouldn’t see or respond for a while, Aspen embraced the millennial stereotype for texting as a method of avoidance and sent their mum a short text.

I’ll take the house.
Please don’t ask me to talk about it.

- - - - - -

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