Candles for the Recently Dumped.

Saint Rita is the patron of impossible causes, my child, which is exactly what your friend's love life became around 11:47pm last Tuesday. Burn it on a plate. Let the wax do what it's gonna do. The smell of warm beeswax and a glass jar sweating on the kitchen counter is older than therapy and twice as cheap. Light it. Sit with it. Saint Rita's busy but she'll get to you.

Saint Anthony's for the things you've lost, sinner — your earring, your dignity, the woman you were before you met him. Light this one in the kitchen near the sink where the light's good. Watch the flame bend and re-settle. The thing you're looking for isn't gone, sweet thing, it's just under the couch. Saint Anthony finds it. He always does. He found my mother's wedding ring in 1987 in a jar of olives.

Saint Jude is the patron of lost causes, which is what we call your situation now that we've all stopped pretending, bambina. The glass is tall, the wax is white, the flame is small and stubborn just like you. Set it on a saucer because it'll weep down the sides by Thursday. He listens to the ones nobody else will take a meeting with. Pour a glass. Sit. He's got you.

Saint Christopher rides with travelers, pilgrim, and I count *getting in the Honda at 9pm to drive away from a man* as travel. Light this the night she packs the bag. The wax smells faintly of nothing in the way church candles do — clean, cold, holy. Put it in the window. He'll see her down the parkway. Saint Christopher rode with me out of Atlantic City in '02. He never asks questions.

A novena is nine days of lighting a candle and praying the same prayer, my creature. You can do it for a saint. You can do it for yourself. Twelve in the box because some weeks you need more than one going at once — kitchen, bedroom, bathroom mirror. The glass gets warm. The wax pools beautiful. By day nine, sinner, the apartment smells like a small Italian church and you smell like a woman who is going to be okay.

Plain white, unscented, no saint on the glass — these are the ones you light when the situation's too weird to file under a specific patron, sinner. Saint Donna of the Long Island Iced Tea takes these. So does whichever invented saint you build for the friend group. Burn it on the windowsill. Watch the wick bloom. The point of an unscented candle is the room smells like the room you're already in, which is the whole point of grieving.

Black tapers, sweet thing. We don't curse anybody — Sinderella stays clean — but we do *banish.* You know the difference. Light one on a Tuesday after sundown, write his name on a piece of paper, fold it three times, tuck it under the holder, and let the candle burn down. The smoke goes up. The name goes with it. Wash your hands after. Saint Rita doesn't approve and that's between her and me.