The Three Rules of Everyday Magic

by Amanda Rawson Hill

  “I followed you yesterday. I know I shouldn’t have, but I saw you at the store and I couldn’t help it. So I’m here and …” When I hear myself, it doesn’t sound right. But the thunder booms again, and I know I don’t have time to explain. I walk straight in with big steps. Powerful steps. Steps carrying magic.

  Dad moves out of the way. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Food. And I brought this.” I lean the guitar against the counter, put the bag next to it, and take Grammy’s letter out of my backpack.

  “My guitar,” he murmurs. “Why?”

  I push the envelope into his hand. “Because I want to help you. I want to make you happy again. And Grammy wrote you this letter. It’s all magic.”

  “I don’t …” he mumbles as he rubs his hair. “I told your mom I didn’t want anyone coming by.”

  That hurts more than getting kicked in the thigh when I miss my block in karate.

  “You didn’t really mean it.”

  Dad nods his head and walks into what must be the living room. The whole apartment is so small and cramped I can’t tell for sure. There’s a little gray fold-up chair and our card table from back home. I didn’t realize he’d taken it until I see it there. Dad sits down and opens the letter. I figure that means I can cook. So I do.

  I pull out pots, fill one with water, and open spaghetti sauce jars. The moving and cooking and following directions pushes the hurt part of my heart out of the way. I’m busy. You can’t feel too sad when you’re busy. Dad needs me to make the most perfect spaghetti, and that’s what I’m doing until I hear his bedroom door close.

  “Oh, no,” I whisper. He can’t go back into the bedroom. Not today. Not now.

  Something on the card table catches my eye. The letter from Grammy. I walk over to pick up the envelope and the pages underneath.

  “No.”

  Grammy sent a letter to Dad but forgot the most important part. She sent him five blank pages.

  “Oh, Grammy.” I thought the letter would be something to make that magic called forgiveness. But there’s not much magic in just an envelope with Dad’s name on it and plain white computer paper.

  The water on the stove isn’t boiling yet, so I turn the heat down on the sauce and pull the guitar out of its case. I know what happens when Dad goes into his bedroom, how he pulls the blankets over himself and doesn’t move. I have to get him the magic before he starts staring too hard at the wall. Before he’s too far down that road, and I can’t bring him back.

  I push the door to his room open. It smells funny. There are clothes everywhere and garbage on the floor. It isn’t clean like at our house. But he lies on the bed just the same, looking out the window. When Dad is sick like this, he’s too tired to clean up or get dressed, or do much of anything else.

  I march to where Dad’s looking and sit down. So instead of looking at the window, he has to look at me. He has to see me. And because I don’t know what else to say, I prop the guitar up on my lap, curl my left hand around the neck, and start playing.

  The thick steel strings cut into my fingers. Almost six months without playing has weakened the skin there. But I keep going, my fingertips brushing each string up, one, two, three, four, in an arpeggio and then back down.

  His breathing is slow and steady.

  As I finish the intro, I worry that after so many months, my singing voice might be screechy as a blue jay’s. But instead, those first few notes come up my throat and out my mouth soft and smooth. They spread through my chest like ripples in a pond. They fill up the room with something alive and real. With hope.

  “Where are you going, and what do you wish?

  The old moon asked the three.”

  Dad rubs his cheek against the pillow.

  I sing, and I sing, and I sing. It’s as if I never stopped. Like I’m returning home after a long trip. Even here in this dingy, dirty apartment with stinking piles of clothes all over the floor. Because I’m making music with my dad and that’s where I’m from. This is who I am.

  I end the song and close my eyes as the last vibrations fade away. Dad’s voice is dry as paper. “Katydid.”

  I’ve waited five months and twenty days to hear Dad say my name again, to say it like he knows me for real and forever, and when he does, it’s like somebody shaking up a root beer and pouring it over ice. All the foam comes spilling out from inside of me. “Daddy, please come home. Please come home. I can make you happy again. Mom will understand. I know you’re sad. But I’m sad too. And Mom’s sad. She needs you. We need you.”

  It feels as if I’m finally resolving a chord that’s been dissonant for too long. But my words just bounce off of him. All the fizzy foam sinks down, down, until there’s nothing left.

  “Please?” I whisper.

  And then just like Grammy, his eyes clear for a moment. He’s walking out of that misty, winding darkness. “Katydid, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.” I reach for his hand and link my fingers between his. For a moment I think it’s working. The music and the spaghetti and the ice cream—it’s working. But then everything changes.

  Dad straightens his fingers and slips his hand away from me. He pulls his blankets up around his shoulders and rolls over to face the wall.

  It’s Dad’s way of saying it’s over. He has more important things to do. Like nothing. Like staring at a closet. Like making everyone around him feel invisible.

  He’s done.

  I have to get out of that room. That room with the stink and the inky invisibility swirling all around me.

  I run into the kitchen. The sauce is bubbling. There are red splotches on the stove. The water is boiling. The ice cream is melting into a puddle on the counter.

  But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.

  “I’m not cleaning up,” I shout back to the bedroom. “This is your mess. Not mine, not Mom’s, not Grammy’s, yours!”

  I shut the stove off, put on my backpack, then grab Grammy’s letter from the card table because Dad doesn’t deserve it.

  I leave the guitar, though. I never want to see it again.

  On my way out, I slam the door. Loudly. But he probably doesn’t even hear it.

  The rain is pounding when I get outside. I run to the bus stop and then ride past the grocery store and the onion fields to the school. Halfway home, next to the orchard, I see Mom’s car. It speeds down the road, stopping on the opposite side with a screech like one of those radio sound effects.

  “Where have you been?” Mom jumps out, leaving the door wide open. Without even looking for other cars, she runs across the street to me and grabs my shoulders. Her mascara is smeared under her eyes. “The school said you didn’t come back from lunch. I’ve been looking all over for you. Where were you?”

  I can’t think of a single lie. Not one. All I can think about are the white petals squashed into the mud around us and all those almonds that will never grow now. “I found him,” I say. “I found Dad and I tried to make him happy. I tried, but …”

  “Oh, honey.”

  I don’t say anything else and neither does Mom, because sometimes the only thing you can do is stand on the side of an orchard and cry as the rain washes away the last of your magic.

  Part III

  Trust

  Chapter 24

  When we get back to the house, Mom wraps me in thick blue towels and gently squeezes the water from my hair. Her touch is so soft, it seems like she’s trying to dry away every bad thing that’s happened in the whole last year. Water drips from all over me and pools around my feet.

  Then I sit next to Grammy, knitting on the couch with a different set of needles. Red metal ones.

  “I tried to give him the magic,” I whisper. “Dad. I took him so much. But it didn’t work. There was … no magic. Not in any of it.”

  Grammy adds a few stitches in her knitting, shakes her head and pulls them out.

  I want her to look at me and tell me that the magic is still real. That this
must have been a huge mistake and maybe there’s a third rule for Everyday Magic and it’s that it never works on the first try. I want her to quiet the thoughts in my head saying it’s all a big lie. But she doesn’t. So I say, “I took your letter, too.”

  “My letter?”

  I nod but don’t tell her that she forgot to write anything.

  “I don’t remember writing a letter.”

  I guess she wouldn’t, would she?

  Jane sends me a text and Mom shows it to me. Where were you today? Are you OK?

  I don’t write back.

  I don’t sleep well.

  I don’t wake up early. Not for knitting or research or staring at the orchard. I don’t want to think about singing or Sofia or Dad. I don’t want to ever get out of bed again. Sort of like Dad, I guess. But Mom forces me to crawl out and tells me I have to go to school. I don’t know why she couldn’t do that with him.

  At school, Jane stops me outside the classroom, her arms folded. “Where were you yesterday? You missed our presentation!”

  “Oh … I was …” I shrug. I don’t want to tell her.

  Jane’s shoulders slump. “We only get graded together. Miss Reynolds says we can make it up this afternoon. So are you ready to do … whatever with your karate?”

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “Sorry.”

  Jane nods and stares at the floor. “It’s okay. Just warn me next time you decide to disappear. I’ll put up fliers with a reward or something.”

  I smile. “Will I get the reward if I turn myself in?”

  “Yes,” replies Jane. “The reward of my brains helping us get a good grade.”

  “Works for me.”

  In the middle of math, I raise my hand. “Miss Reynolds, can I use the bathroom?”

  “Marisa already has the hall pass.”

  Of course she does. Marisa has Sofia. She has the hall pass. She has everything I need. I shut my eyes tight and put my hand on my head. “Please?”

  I must sound sick or something. “Okay. Go ahead,” Miss Reynolds replies.

  I slip out the door and open my locker, not really looking for anything, just trying to take some time to breathe. My backpack hangs open and I pull on it to glance inside. Grammy’s knitting needles and the blue ball of yarn topple out and onto the ground with a clatter and a bounce.

  “Shoot,” I whisper as I bend down to pick them up.

  When I stand, Marisa is there holding out the orange notebook I gave to Sofia yesterday.

  “This is yours,” she says. “I’m giving it back.”

  I move the ball of yarn to my elbow and clasp the knitting needles between both hands. “It’s Sofia’s.”

  “She doesn’t want it.”

  We both stand there and stare at each other. Finally, Marisa says, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong, you know.”

  I tighten my grip on the knitting needles. “Really? How would you like it if I came along and stole your best friend?”

  “That’s exactly what you’re trying to do!”

  “I can’t steal her from you.” My knuckles are white around the knitting needles. “She was my friend first!”

  Marisa’s voice gets higher. “You don’t understand her like I do.”

  “Yes, I do!” I scream. I want to shake Marisa as hard as I can. To grab her so that my fingers sink deep into her arm and then—

  CRACK.

  Grammy’s knitting needles break in two between my hands.

  Marisa’s mouth falls open.

  The ball of yarn falls to the ground.

  I drop the splintered, useless, broken pieces of magic.

  All of a sudden, I forget everything Sensei ever said about self-control. Something inside me snaps like those knitting needles. My fingers curl into claws and a strange noise escapes my throat as I yell, “Look what you made me do! Those were my Grammy’s knitting needles!” I run straight into Marisa, knocking her to the ground and landing on top of her with an “Oof.”

  “It’s not my fault! Get off!”

  But I don’t get off because the anger is pouring out of me now. “She made my dad’s baby booties with those. They were supposed to make him better. You stupid, pink—”

  I have lots more to say but I don’t get to. Someone locks their arms beneath my shoulders and drags me away.

  “Kate Mitchell, what on earth?” It’s Miss Reynolds. “I’ve never in all my years … I never expected you of all people.”

  I still want to spit and yell and tell Marisa to get up so I can push her again, but Miss Reynolds’s hands are so tight around my arms, I can’t.

  By the time we get to the principal’s office, I don’t feel fiery hot anymore. I’m cold, like a shrinking piece of dry ice on a picnic table. The whole time I wait, it sinks in more and more what I just did. All I can think about is Sensei, and what he’ll say when he hears I lashed out at Marisa.

  An unprovoked attack is an act of cowardice.

  I hold my head in my hands. Coward. Weak.

  Principal Warner finally opens the door and motions for me to come in. She sits down behind her desk. I take the only other chair, set out for bad kids like me. It has a big cushion that’s basically quicksand when I sit down.

  “I’ve never seen you in here before,” says Principal Warner.

  I rub my hands on my pants and don’t say anything. The clock on the wall ticks off the seconds of silence.

  “Do you have an explanation for your actions?”

  What grown-ups call a good explanation and what kids call a good explanation are totally different things. I keep my mouth closed and stare at her ugly pink nail polish.

  “Well, Miss Reynolds informed me there were some extenuating circumstances. It sounds like your classmate broke something special of yours?”

  I don’t look up. Instead, I shake my head. “I broke them.” When I say the words I know they’re true. Marisa didn’t make me do anything. I broke Grammy’s knitting needles. Left them lying in pieces in the hall. They were full of her memories and now they’re gone.

  “I was so mad … I just … It’s all my fault.” I have to clear my throat to stop from crying.

  “I see. While I appreciate your honesty Kate, we have a strict zero tolerance policy at this school. So, I’m sorry. You will be suspended for the rest of the day.”

  The words bounce off me like paper airplanes. Go home? Good. I don’t want to be here anymore anyway.

  Principal Warner smooths her hands over her desk. “We couldn’t get ahold of your mother, so we called your father. He’s on his way.”

  Those words roar louder in my mind than a jet flying right through the room. “My dad? He answered? He’s actually coming?”

  Principal Warner frowns and picks up a folder with my name written on the tab. “Yes, your father. Tony Mitchell, 555-0128, 423 Cabrera, Apartment 304.”

  My head gets dizzy. I lean back, way back, into that sinking cushion. “You know where he lives? How do you know where he lives?”

  “Kate, I don’t understand. Should I not have called your father? Your mother listed him as an emergency contact, but if something has changed, you need to let me know.”

  I shake my head, but all I can think is: Mom.

  She wrote down Dad’s address on that piece of paper. She knows his address! How long has she known? How long has she told me she didn’t know where Dad went, when all along she knew exactly where he was? We could have been taking him cookies and making him happy. Instead he sat in that dirty, smelly, dark apartment without us. All because Mom kept telling me she didn’t know where he was!

  Principal Warner shocks me out of my anger. “Well, he should be here shortly. You’re only suspended for the rest of the day. Fighting, no matter …”

  Blah, blah, blah. She keeps saying a bunch of stuff, but I don’t hear it. I feel like one of the butterflies always hovering around the lavender bush. Dad’s going to see me and take me home. He’ll see the weeds in the driveway. Maybe they’ll drive
him so crazy that he’ll stay to pull them. Then he’ll remember. He’ll remember how much he misses us and how much we need him.

  “Do you understand?” asks Principal Warner.

  I nod because I understand the most important thing of all: my dad is coming. Everything will be all right, no matter what Mom has done. No matter how much she’s lied to me. I don’t need to understand anything else. Somehow, even though I’d begun to doubt it, the magic worked.

  Principal Warner opens the door. “You may sit in the waiting area.”

  I jump up so fast my knees knock into her desk. “Thank you, Principal Warner.”

  She looks like it’s been a long time since anyone thanked her for punishing them, but I mean it. “Well … you’re welcome, Kate.”

  Chapter 25

  It takes forever for Dad to get to the school. Before he does, Miss Reynolds brings me my backpack, the orange notebook, blue yarn, and broken knitting needles. I don’t want to think about any of that right now, so I stuff them down to the bottom of my backpack where I can’t see them anymore.

  While I wait, I begin to wonder which Dad will pick me up. The Dad full of sunshine and music and ice-cream sundaes? Or the Dad from yesterday. The clock on the wall tick-tocks like a metronome.

  The metronome clicked out the beat. Tap, tap, tap, tap. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started playing. My left hand found the frets easily, sliding into the next chord and the next. I didn’t even need to look. I could just feel where to go.

  Muscle memory. That’s what Mom called it.

  But when it was time to play the F-major-7 chord, I stuck my tongue between my teeth, and smashed my fingers down as hard and tight as I could. The steel bit into my skin. I ran my right thumb over the strings as slowly as possible. Hoping and waiting for perfect.

  And it happened. The most beautiful bar chord ever. Without a single mistake in it.

  I stopped playing right there. “Dad, I did it! I did it! I played a bar chord.”

  He was sitting on the edge of the black leather recliner, staring at the floor. He didn’t say anything.

  “I’m a real guitar player now, Dad! Did you hear it?”