Skye Rozario Steinhagen

Call It Cake

When wind bustles through the trees as you walk, colors spinning across the path, and clouds malinger overhead, you find your thoughts pluck up reminiscences like small gold leaves stuck to wet heels. And you think to yourself, ‘This is a Halloween like years ago.’ And, almost, you taste the sweetness of canned peaches in yellow sheet cake your father so often made for celebrations. A couple sniffs and you’re near convinced there’s a Peach Layer Cake cooling on a windowsill a few houses ahead, or pulled from a full refrigerator for an afternoon snack, or perhaps one perched like a nest in branches above. At least I am.

You’re on your way to pick up some carrots, celery, and cauliflower to cut up with some packets of dip for Trick-or-Treaters later tonight. As Pa used to say, slicing up his greens, ‘We’ll give ‘em a treat and a trick,’ and so I do. Besides, I never much cared for the way caramel snuck itself between molars and gums, sticking there despite the efforts of my tongue, until hours later when I brushed my teeth for bed. The day is unusually warm and you’ve just an old flannel and a scarf. Curbs and sidewalks bear the peltings of a rainstorm the night before and shallow streams edge the street. The leaves are in disarray, strewn across yard and street, even moreso with today’s heavy gusts. Clouds mask sunlight, casting a hazy glow from dawn until noon, as you make your way to Jib’s Market.

Anything with bones could tell it’s Halloween. You feel a bit giddy in the spooky mood of your surroundings, as if you too are participating in something unplanned, uncanny, abstruse. An eeriness pervades your senses, muddling memories of laughter and fright much more humorous or fearsome than as first experienced. The usual Halloween romps come to mind, leaf piles of oak and maple, pumpkin patch picking and corn mazes, rich butternut squash soup. I’ll pick up a squash or two at Jib’s if they’re on sale.

 A draft of wind sends Peach Layer Cake your way again, and as you inhale, you can’t help but chuckle to yourself. Buster would always eat around the peaches because they were too soggy, so I ended up with a slice more peach than cake. I suppose it worked out since I liked the peaches the best anyway. The scent of batter sweeps to wet leaves and dry brush, the abrupt switch dredging up that twinge of robbed-ness you thought you’d scraped off memories of Buster. And so, you finish the simple walk fifteen minutes from the house to Jib’s, feeling as if you’ve been robbed before you even enter the store and buy something. 

Wasn’t my fault I couldn’t take off on a Monday. You shake your head. I still remember the details of the week from years ago. As you shimmy a cart from the pile and begin to wheel your way around, you wonder whether Buster felt robbed by you, if, perhaps, the wind lifted layer cake to his memory as he walked to his car this morning for another day at whatever big-city firm he works at, though I know what it’s called. I wonder if he tread over small gold leaves and shook his foot as they clung. I bet he remembers those exact days.

Continuing your journey through the humble store, you pass familiar workers and clerks and give a wave or two. Jib’s Market’s been around long as I can remember. We didn’t live by it, but Ma would always take us here for their baked bread on the way to the park.  Best bread in town—still is. I’m lucky enough to have moved so close by it. 

“Nice to see you, Mr. Morgan,” says a young man as you pass by the stands of tomatoes he’s refilling.

“Wonderful day, isn’t it, Cole,” you reply.

He agrees and you move on to the long stretch of fresh vegetables on display. You fumble through the cauliflowers for a nice big one, then grab a bunch of celery and a bag of carrots. Now, what aisle were those dressings in? You crane your neck to read the aisle descriptions hanging from the ceiling, but as the year’s have worn on, you’re sure the text has gotten smaller and harder to read. It’s just my poor old eyes. Quit fooling yourself, Horace, you old man.

You smile and wheel your cart over to the bread counter, then signal to an older woman behind it.

“How’re you doing, Marsha? Say, do you think you could point me in the direction of the dressings?”

“Oh, hey there. I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking,” she says. “You know, I’ve been stuck in here since they rearranged a couple of the aisles, so I’m not too sure, but why don’t’cha check aisle six.”

“No worries, none at all. Thanks a million.”

You wave her off and make your way to aisle six. You turn your head side to side as you slowly roll the cart forward. It doesn’t seem like the dressing aisle, but you continue through anyway. Stopping near the end, you find yourself surrounded by cans upon cans of fruit. Almost by instinct, you single out the brand of peaches Pa always bought. Whaddaya’ know, they’re on sale. Well, it is Halloween. You pick two cans of peaches, the kind without syrup, only fruit juice, and set them in your cart.

“Well, suppose I better grab some cake mix then,” you say to yourself.

Just then, another worker passes, and you call out to ask about the dressing.

“Aisle seven, right around the corner, Mr. Morgan,” he says,

“Thanks Pat.”

Finding the dressing is easy and then you’re onto the baking aisle. You grab a box-mix of yellow cake, and hold it in your wrinkled hand for a few moments. How long has it been since I’ve had Pa’s Peach Layer Cake? Buster would know the year, maybe even down to the day. I wouldn’t put it past him. Well, that’s everything. You greet the checkout lady and she places your few items into a couple paper bags, easy to carry while walking. Better head back. And so you do. 

Outside the sky is still overcast, still warm, still uncanny. You shuffle out of the parking lot onto the sidewalk, where you attempt not to pick up too many wet leaves on the backs of your shoes as you return along familiar streets.

Back at the house, there are spooky preparations to attend to before the close of day. Though you’ve already decorated the small front porch with cobwebs, an assortment of pumpkins—some carved, some not—and a lumpy, stuffed scarecrow sitting on the old porch swing, you ponder whether to spruce it up a tad, clear the wild leaves blown in wet from the winds. Nah, Halloween’s anything but tidy. Why sweep it clean when old Autumn’s been kind enough to add color to my porch? I shake my head and dig through my khakis for the key, then wedge it into the lock until the door clicks open. 

Having left the groceries on the porch to get inside, you turn back to reach them, the unobtrusive scene plucking, or, perhaps, straining, some less recalled feeling within. Bags sagging into themselves, porch wood spattered with undried droplets, a burgundy leaf clinging to an exposed can of fruit. Maybe you wish you were smaller, shorter, not a child again, but like one. So that, like when you were young, you might wriggle little pudgy hands into the handles and call to Pa towering above. Then scooting forward, you’re struggling with the weight of the sack—will it tear?—when Buster, Iris, Angie, and the whole lot dash up to the cracked door and together whisk the groceries away in one fell swoop of laughter and shoving.

The groceries are in the kitchen now. You put in the fridge what needs putting in the fridge, and, folding the paper bags into a storage container, you arrange the vegetables on a wooden cutting board atop the dark green speckled countertop. You stand, knife in hand, poised to chop.

“Pa used to stand like this. Why, I could be him right now and if I turn my head I’m sure I’ll see me and Buster spying on him, from, the open doorway, to the…”

Sometimes, thoughts about carrying on the family tradition are more weighty than the real-time preparations. I haven’t thought too much before if my siblings, Buster even, give out vegetables on Halloween, or candy. Or perhaps they leave their porches dark and sit in the dim light of lamps, easing the sentiments of the day with movies or games or chatter. When did we trade out the living-room-ruckus of costumes and Pa hovering by the door, or was it like a carpet pulled out from under our feet? This year makes five for him, seven for Mom. 

As you slice each floret of cauliflower and stick of carrot, you find a tart comfort dusts you over, as it is wont to do on these occasions. It lingers until all the veggies are portioned out in little baggies, each with their own small package of dip, if so desired. As for me, I always preferred them with peanut butter.

Has it really been five years?  Shouldn’t my sister’s have called, or we’d’ve tried to have a get-together with everyone. The few we have is plenty, but given the anniversary and all, seems like something they’d do, right? Suppose I could give ‘em a ring, see what everyone’s been up to. Just a short call. You’ve prepared enough for tonight.

“Well,” I say, clapping my hands together, “Let’s see what’ll happen.”

You patter over to the room beneath the staircase where your study is. It’s a small low-lit room with a large rug covering almost all of the hardwood floor. There’s the oak desk with drawers half open and closed, and your leather notebook on top next to the satchel. That reminds me, the last time I went observing at the park was about a week ago. It’d be nice to go today or tomorrow since it’s so warm. What’d I see that time again? You pick up the notebook after sliding into your large office chair and adjusting your reading glasses. Flipping through the pages, you stop at the last dated entry. Ah yes, I recall now, I saw a sucker fish washed up on the far side of the lakeshore:

‘The flat mouth positioned on the underside of the sucker fish is swollen. My instinctual guess is that some angler fisher must have caught it by mistake, as they tend to feed on the stream bottoms and shallow waters. The dark green scales along the back have already begun to fade. These White Suckers aren’t too common in Iowa, but there are definitely more here up north than farther down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild like this. 

‘I’m standing on the gravelly edge of the lakeshore, about 7am. An eerie mist lifts across the water starting from the left, heading downstream. There aren’t any fishermen out yet today. The sucker’s tail still touches the water, bobbing slightly as the current ebbs. On the opposite side of the lake a rustle of branches is heard among the pine and poplar, most likely a deer. The sucker fish’s eyes are unlidded and unnerving. But a fish is a fish. Next to the fish is a bright brown pebble, almost shiny. I decide to nudge the fish back into its home-waters, and pick up the rock. The fish dips below the surface, and I wonder if, perhaps, it will find rest. Sinking, never stilling. Like me. Sink deep, fish.’

You continue reading to yourself, pleased with the scholarly ‘natural observer’ tone you’ve been getting quite good at. You can sense your hesitance to make the phone calls, but your mind is already set on the idea. No use drawing it out then. You open one of the drawers on the left and lift out a phonebook, neatly tabbed and organized. The phone sits to the back right on the desk. You decide to go in order from eldest after you. That would be Buster first--

You decide to start from the youngest up. Looks like it’s Iris. I hardly doubt she’d skip out on decorations and dressing up. Typing in the number, the phone rings a couple times before a ‘hello’ sounds on the other end.

“Hello there, it’s Horace. Just called to talk to Iris.”

Her husband, James, answers. Haven’t spent much time with him. “Ah, yeah, hold on a sec, let me get her for you…” and, in the background, “Hun, phone for you, it’s your brother.”

A bit of muffled noise and then Iris’ usual “Why hello, so nice to hear from you.”

What follows is a short conversation about her, the husband, what’s she been up to. Of course she decorated, already prepared her veggies to hand out. She’s been in touch with Deana and Angie, not so much our brothers. Yeah, it’s always hard on Halloween, but she’s glad I called. You tell her you’re makin’ the rounds with everyone and she delights at the idea, wishes you luck. ‘Luck,’ you ask, ‘what for?’ ‘Oh, well, maybe not luck, but you know, just a phrase, really.’ ‘Just a phrase,’ huh. The conversation ends soon after and you break for lunch before making the rest of the calls.

After Iris, in backwards order you manage to get ahold of the whole lot—Jordan, Deana, Dan, and Angie, and the calls follow a similar style as before. We all know I left Buster for last. It’s just, everytime I call him, somehow it leads to an accusation about ‘why weren’t you there sooner.’ Perhaps one of the others will call him. Anyway, he’s probably at work right now. 

…Ohh...yes, he’s probably at work, you’re right. Well, I have to call him since I’m calling everyone else.

You flip to Buster’s page in the address book and punch in the number with a little more force than called for. You smile to yourself as the phone keeps ringing, waiting for the inevitable voicemail to kick in. There’s a click and you form the words of a nice message to leave him.

“Hello?—”

I punch the receiver down, startled. You just hung up on him, now you can’t call him back. Ah, what to do. You shake your hands and ground your feet to the floor. Better start this cake so there’s plenty of time for it to cool and frost.

Returning to the kitchen, you perfunctorily turn on the oven to preheat, grab a silver bowl from one of the cabinets, eggs and grease for the pan from the fridge. The peaches and cake mix are already on the counter. You settle yourself into the familiar rhythm of preparing a box cake mix, excited for the addition of the peaches at the end. You open the cans and drain the juice into a small cup to drink for later, fishing out one peach as a snack.

Once the batter is whisked and yellow, all that’s left is to pour it into the sheet pan and drop the peaches in. You scrape the bowl clean with a spatula and start laying the peaches, when some thought pauses you. ‘Should I leave a part without peaches?’ What a thought, really. You stand at the stovetop, contemplating all peach or some peach, a true dilemma.

In the office, the phone rings. You dismiss it until you’ve decided ‘some peach’ then walk in and pick it up.

“Hello, is this Horace?”

He called back.

“Hey there, Buster. Aren’t you working right about now?”

“Yes, I am. You know that.”

A pause. “So, I was making the rounds, callin’ up everyone. You know, since it’s Halloween,” you say, nervous of Buster’s reply.

“Oh, I see. Yeah, and not just Halloween. I’m surprised you have the time for this, seeing how busy you were when I called you then.”

You resist releasing a loud huff of exasperation. Here he goes. He knows it’s been five years, but every time we talk, he manages to get back on the days surrounding Pa’s passing. You know you couldn’t be there. You know you’re sorry. Doesn’t he? After five years, doesn’t he? Well, have you ever told him? I, I mean, there isn’t usually much space to do so in our conversations, so, not really.

“Huh, all day I’ve been preparing vegetables for tonight and making Peach Layer Cake, and I just thought I’d see how everyone was doing. Didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“You’re making a cake? A layer cake? Hah.”

“What, is it so hard to believe I am?” I answer.

“Lemme think for a moment.”

I shake my head. Maybe I got too worked up. Shouldn’t have mentioned it. He’s doing his best to weather the holiday too, I’m sure. Probably having a hard enough time without you—I only called him to say hi, that’s all.

“So, Horace,” resumes Buster.

“Yes?”

“How is everyone? You said you talked to them all?”

No further, ‘you were so busy you couldn’t get there til Thursday’ accusations from Buster?

“Oh, yeah. I did, I did. Turns out Deana and Jordan are packing vegetables for trick or treaters, but Dan and Angie are taking out their children around the neighborhoods. And, you?”

I’ve never asked my brother what he does on Halloween now. Guess I assumed he works, goes home to a dim house in his starched suit, goes to bed early comforted by his wife. At least that’s what I’d say for one of them corporate slicks.

If it were any previous conversation, we’d be in the thick of it now. Buster’d say something along the lines of, ‘we were all there with him days earlier,’ or ‘when you finally showed up he could hardly talk’ and then you’d defend yourself with a, ‘well at least I was there for the last day together.’ 

But you don’t have to go on the defensive this time, because Buster says, “I always give out veggies too. But I had to be at the office today, so Tanya’s taking care of those.” 

“Oh.”

There’s a pause, and your eyes roam around the study as if you could find an excuse to hang up hidden in the bookshelf or stuck in a dark corner.

“Listen, how about I drop by this evening? I’ll drop by, you know, check on the cake.”

“The cake? Well, trick-or-treating for the neighborhood starts at 7pm…oh, but you already know that, with the kids and all. Anyways, it’ll be nice and chilled by then. Wait, won’t you be handing out treats with Tanya?”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll settle it with her and drop by around then.”

“Uh, ok, Buster.”

“Uh huh. See you later.”

You return the phrase and lower the phone, almost forgetting to hang it up. There’s a fluttering variety of streams of thought you might step into: ‘So he had to be at work, did he?’ ‘Coming over for the cake?’ ‘He didn’t pick a bone this time.’ ‘He’ll drop by, drop by…’. Passing those by, you sink your foot into the largest stream not having to do with Buster—‘Get this cake in the oven.’

Exiting the office and wiping off the residual restlessness from the talk, you hastily return to the kitchen where the cake sits on the countertop, no sign of peaches in the yellow batter. They sunk while you were on the phone and now you can’t quite tell where fruit slices end and begin, except for the section you designated ‘no peach.’ The oven’s sure preheated now. Nothin’ wrong with extra, you shrug, taking a glance at the partially full can of peaches off to the side. After laying them on once again, you finally scoot the pan into the heat and turn on the timer. Here’s thirty-so minutes for you to tidy up the place, especially now that there’ll be company. And so you do.

The timer rings while you’re mid-way through sweeping the entryway. Once in the kitchen, you grab the first oven mitts you see and reach inside. As you slide the steaming sheet pan off the metal racks of the oven, heat builds in your left hand, and glancing down you notice you’re wearing Ma’s old potholder. The cooling rack’s right there on the counter if you could only set it down for a moment. The pan dips as you readjust its weight in your hands, then nearly slips from your right hand, but you manage to land it on the edge of the counter.

While you fix the sheet pan properly on the rack and move to the sink to inspect your hand, you can’t help worry yourself by thinking about what might’ve happened if the cake really fell. If you had put on both old oven mitts—I should take those out of the kitchen—if you had lost your grip and the steaming cake toppled onto the tiles. I would have nothing to serve Buster. Thankfully, there are no burns, and the cake’s safe.

You are finished baking. You sweep the rest of floor and collect a few stray belongings left around the house, then put them up into the spare room to deal with later. You stare at the yellow cake, concealing the peaches. Right now, you could touch the pan and it’d be cool. Oven mitts or bare hands, there are options at this moment. Was there a choice back then? Did Pa think you were making a choice, or walking a path with only one way forward? A choice your brother saw as a choice, but not you, perhaps. I inhale the warm aroma. For all the yellow boxed cake mix in the world, I’m alive and Buster’s coming over.

Guess I’ll just warm up some leftovers since Buster’ll be here later. In an effort to ease the potential anxiety awaiting the evening, you turn to your study. You settle yourself inside the creased and weathered pages of your nature journal, and find yourself on a walk at the lake, or having spotted a hawk.

After you pretend to be surprised at how late it’s gotten—well, look at the time—you shut your notebook, cross into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. Pulling out the remains of last week’s potato salad, a few of the Halloween veggies, and a pork chop from the other night, you contemplate heating it up, but decide against it so there’s less dishes to wash. How long has it been since you’ve seen Buster exactly? Wasn’t there some party hosted by one of our sisters and he was there? Pork chop and potato salad don’t aid your memory much, and through the chewing and savoring, you don’t come to a clear remembrance.

Things have felt strange since my brother called. As if the rest of your daily activities are muddled, warped. You feel a bit rigid or robbed. After dinner, you clean the dishes, set out a couple plates and fork. The cake’s in the fridge now. I still need to make the glaze and then there was one last decoration I was gonna put up. 

The sensation continues to hang about you—it’s like you’re extra aware of how you might look, standing there in your slacks and sweater, as if someone may be watching you, except, it’s you who’s watching you. And you see yourself mixing butter and powdered sugar, stirring with a whisk in the heavy bottomed pan. Heating it, then setting the cake on the countertop and drizzling the glaze over the top. You know you’re waiting on something, something struck through with momentousness. Like you can sense it matters, to you, for you. Like you’re the last stuck twig slowing the current of a stream and about to give way, though the rupture will be mild. Instead of the twig ferrying the water, the water will ferry the twig. And you will watch it rupture, mildly, and you will record it in your journal as you do.

Wasn’t Angie an observer too, wasn’t Deana and Iris, Jordan, Dan, Buster—weren’t the lot of us observers. At each other’s childhood bed sides, at Ma’s, at Pa’s, at lives around us, moving mildly around clusters of twigs. Does the twig know when it’s about to give way to the stream? When it slips out of observation to drift, loosed and effortless, atop the cool water.

 You’ve been standing with your arm balancing an empty pan over the frosted cake for a long time now. You almost lost your sense of place—this is my kitchen I’m in. I see the misty stream still, early morning chill, lagging waters. Have I given way to unknown winding bends and grasses? I think I made a decision, long ago. Keep rigid until ready, twig, in the nest of your observance. The waters may bear you along, uncertain, but you decided to give way.

I gotta hang this Autumn wreath on the door, how could I forget? You guide the door open and it’s still eerily warm out. On the door is a longtime nail just for this purpose. This will finish up the decorations quite well. Turning around, you peer into the street—it’s dusk and the streetlights have come on. Should be getting close to 7pm now. You watch as a nice gray car swings a left onto your street. The car drives as if wary of where to park. There’s nothing left in your hands to fiddle with, so you’re not sure where to direct your eyes. By the time you flick them to and fro for a safe place to settle, it’s Buster who steps out of the car, then walks along the rough brick sidewalk to your home

“Evening, Horace,” he says, his shoes clacking up the steps.

Strange, you imagined him wearing a black suit. And younger. Maybe you imagined that feisty, impetuous upstart who complained about inheriting your hand-me-downs because they were, more often than not, too short on him. Buster looks at you briefly with his aging brow and short, but still thick, brown hair. Instead of a suit, you find the similarities in your respective outfits uncanny. 

“Evening, Buster,” you respond.

“Nice set up ya got here,” he says. He taps a loafer a couple times on the porch, sticks his hands toward his pockets, and looks around.

“You ate dinner yet? I just got the cake and veggies.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. Um, let’s see it then.” Buster gestures for me to open the door and I fumble with the knob as if it’s locked.

Once inside, Buster performs the usual, side to ceiling craning of the neck one does when entering a seldom visited place. Like, ‘wow you really fixed this place up’ and at the same time ‘oh, I remember that.’ How I ended up with so much of our parents’ houseware, I’m not quite sure. There’s the vague sense of rigidness again as I half-explain, half-hold back, details of the house.

As I’m sliding the cake out from the fridge and rummaging around the stuffed-full vegetable drawers for all of the trick-or-treat bags, I remember—“Oh, Buster. I didn’t put peaches in all of it.”

I stand up and he’s looking at me. “You know, I swear I could smell that out the window half the way here--Let me help you with those.” 

Somehow, well, as expected, the two of you end up sitting on the porch swing after relocating the scarecrow, with a large purple bowl of sandwich baggies filled with vegetables and dip, and both of you wearing big straw hats, to match the scarecrow’s. Gotta dress up a little bit, you had said, handing your brother the worn hat.

No children have come yet. The wind’s soft and warm. You almost ask Buster if you could see the bottom of his shoes, to check for leaves. You sit to the rightmost edge of the porch swing, near the wooden beams of the railing and the little display of leaves and pumpkins. Buster sits to your left, closer the treat bowl and the steps. It’s light and dark at the same time, and you think, maybe it’s always like this. 

No cake has been served yet. Each of you has a glass filled with the hot apple cider you prepared from packet mixes. You stare into the dimly lit street and catch the distant scuffles of little shoes. From your periphery, you can tell Buster’s staring the same straight-on stare. 

“Well, I was gonna wait til the first group came up to have the cake, but maybe we should just have it now,” I say.

He thinks for a moment then shakes his head. “That sounds about right. Out with it then.”

He scoots back so I can raise my creaky bones from the seat and toward the door. 

As I start to open it, Buster says, “I’ll have a piece with peaches, this time.”

“You want peaches? Did I hear that right?” The shock of the idea soon gives way to absurdity, and I find myself holding back a laugh.

“Yes, peaches. What’s so funny?” Buster eyes me, all serious-like.

“Peaches, Buster?”

“Come on now, Horace, will you just serve the damn cake already.” He shoos me off with a puzzled smile.

“Alright, alright. You’re right—we’ve waited long enough for it.”

I smile as I close the door.

A couple of arrangements later and we’re out on the porch again. Each with a small paper plate of two slices of cake and a fork. 

“Five years, can you believe it,” says Buster, with his elbows propped on his knees and cake resting on his lap.

I turn toward him to respond, but the first group of children skirts across the sidewalk and up to our steps.

“Trick or treat,” they all say. Little animals, even a raccoon.

We reach into our bowl and deal out their treats—and tricks.

“Happy Halloween.”

Buster and I take to shaking the porch swing with laughter as the kids force their best smiles and ‘thank-you’s and head off. Never gets old.

“You know, it’s not really even that bad of a trick,” says Buster.

“But we laugh at ‘em every time.”

Buster readies his fork and says, “Well, me and you always liked our vegetables.”

“We did, didn’t we. But you never liked the peaches though.”

“Pa’d say that every time too. It’s not that I don’t like peaches, just that they get the cake soggy. You know, the house looks nice, well kept. Never thought one of us’d live so close to the park. They used to take us there every weekend.”

You thank him as the talk dies down with the wind until another couple of kids prance up to your steps as their parents wait on the sidewalk. Setting the untouched plates to the side, the two of you hand out your tricks and wave the children off into the night. You’ve been waiting for Buster to start eating first, perhaps unsure of his reaction, if it’ll taste like Pa’s. He shifts his weight, jostling the swing, and props his leg over his knee.

“You know, Horace, Pa couldn’t really tell who was all there with him. When you arrived, even less so. But, it was his present, what he was living through. I mean, what else could there be but those moments? What else could living be, if not us, together for him then? Yeah, I know Iris said it’s just how you dealt with the situation. It wasn’t good enough for me.”

You’re not alarmed at your brother’s broaching of this topic, though his tone is less argumentative than usual. Still, despite having repeated similar conversations for the past five years, you find your streams of thought running into a clog of branches.

“I don’t know Buster. Call it coping, call it stubbornness, either way I wasn’t there. I won’t defend what I--what I chose. It’s just that, whatever happened then, that’s our past now. And you and I, we have a present too. We’re alive moment to moment too. Look--there’s a plate in my hand, cider sticking in my mustache, such a warm, warm wind.”

We send off another couple groups of kids without saying much else. Then, lifting his fork again, he asks, “You know, when I’d give you my soggy peaches, was it still Peach Layer Cake?”

Quizzical, you turn to him. If Buster starts getting worked up, you know you’ll lose your cool too.

“What did it taste like to you?” you say.

He scrunches his face toward the plate. “Like peaches.”

I stare as Buster cuts a big piece and stuffs it, peach and all, into his mouth. “It’s soggy, like I said. And boy is it a lot more peach than cake.” Then, half muffled by chewing, he says, “God, Horace, are you just gonna sit there and watch me?”

“Well, maybe I should--who knows when you’ll be eating peaches in your cake again.” You decide to keep the mistake of doubled peach slices to yourself. You straighten your back, rub your nose, and as you turn away to your own plate, you notice little yellow shreds of leaf stuck to Buster’s upturned heel. I lift my fork and smile—here goes. 

The glaze and moist cake meld with the soft fruit, and my nose has stopped dripping. We continue shoveling bites of cake into our mouths, washing it down with the last of the apple cider. No one has been up to the house for awhile. It’s darker now, and some low clouds mask the sky same as they did in the morning.

“It’s this cake here that we’re eating. But it tastes like so many before it,” says Buster.

“Buster, you remember seeing fish washed up on the shore down by the lake?”

“Uh, yeah I think so, but I was talking about…”

“Well, on my walks at the park, I still come across them, floating there in the shallows. I like to push them into the deep, so they might drift downstream, though they cling to the shore.”

You’re unsure which offshoot of thought pulled you into your natural observations, but thankfully a few trick-or-treaters interrupt the turn of conversation. When they’re gone, Buster declares he’s thirsty and seems surprised to observe, “it really is Halloween,” as if the realization has only hit him this moment.

“I would say let’s go inside and warm up, but it’s already warm. Let’s go inside anyway though. I could use another slice of cake. How about you?” he says next.

My brother shifts himself off the porch, and it strikes me, not having seen him regularly, how old he’s grown, worn and tested. And how old, I too, must appear.

“Yes, I think I’ll have some more too. I keep journals, like before, about the park. You can read them if you’d like. Not now, but another day.”

“Oh,” says Buster, with his hand on the side of the open door, “didn’t know you were still writing. That’d be nice.”

We enter together and fill our plates and mugs with second helpings. And shortly after, we’re seated on the porch swing again. We almost missed handing out a couple of vegetable tricks. 

Buster and I remain quiet for a time. Then, as natural as the light wind, our talk lifts again, spreading into the air with the breeze and the low clouds. He tells me a bit about his recent projects. He’s planning to retire in a year or so, actually. He thinks it’d be best to have a bigger gathering for the holidays this year, and I agree. 

We drink cider and eat cake. We talk about carrots and cauliflower, hand-carved woodwork and touching up the house. We sit on the swing, with a small gap between us. And our big feet nearly touch the ground, as if we might tense our toes and push off into the air, like a snag loosed from a current. Yes, for the remainder of the night, we let the wind and shaking trees finish speaking for us.