The Three Rules of Everyday Magic

by Amanda Rawson Hill

  “This was not your fault. Don’t take that on.”

  “I cooked him dinner and sang our song. If I’d just stayed away, maybe—”

  “Hush,” says Grammy. “Tony’s decisions are …” She stops talking and rubs my hand for a long time. Finally, she looks at me. “Family is family. I love you, no matter what. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop that or take it away or add more. It’s just there.”

  I sniff. “That’s what you said about Everyday Magic.”

  “Exactly,” whispers Grammy. “Exactly.”

  I wait for her to go on, to keep trying to put a little bit of something happy and hopeful back into me. “Aren’t you going to say it?” I ask.

  “Say what?”

  “That you think family is a special kind of magic.”

  Grammy smiles and stares out the window. “Oh, I knew you’d get there on your own.”

  And even though I don’t believe in the magic anymore, it feels good to think about it wrapping around me and Grammy, binding us together forever and ever. No matter where my dad is, or how he feels about me, or what paths Grammy is walking down.

  That’s when the big, rumbly piano notes from Beethoven’s Pathétique begin. I growl and roll back over to face the wall.

  Grammy takes a deep breath. “I love you, Kate. But someone else in this house loves you, too. Loves you most. She doesn’t deserve your anger.”

  “Mom?” I shake my head. “She lied to me about Dad. She knew where he was and said she didn’t. She didn’t really want him to come back. If she had, she wouldn’t be happy he’s divorcing her. She never really loved …”

  But those notes come even louder through the walls and I can’t finish that sentence. It would be the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

  “That doesn’t sound like the music of a woman who’s happy your father’s divorcing her.”

  And it doesn’t. It makes me think about what Dad used to say when Mom played the piano, how he could hear her heart. I can hear her heart right now, and it’s crashing and tinkling along with the notes, grinding up into a million tiny pieces.

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “You might not have to say anything. Maybe she just needs some magic.”

  “I don’t believe in magic.”

  Grammy shrugs. “Forgiveness then. Can you believe in that?”

  I don’t know if I can, but I still walk out of my room and into the music room. Mom is rocking back and forth on the piano bench. The notes have changed to light ups and downs in one hand with the shaking deep ones in the other.

  I clear my throat. Mom doesn’t hear me. I don’t have anything to say anyway, so I sit down next to her on the piano bench.

  She doesn’t stop playing. That’s Mom. She always has to finish the whole song so her body can breathe that big sigh at the very end. When all the music has poured out of her, she pulls her hands back and puts them in her lap. The air around me still vibrates with sadness and anger.

  “You’re too old for Katydid, aren’t you?” Mom whispers.

  I didn’t expect to hear that in a hundred million years. Mom pulls a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Yes, you’re much more of a Kate now. I can see that.” She sighs. “Why does everything always have to change?”

  She isn’t talking about me anymore.

  I still don’t know what to say so I lean my head on her shoulder, but that’s all Mom needs. “I’m sorry for … everything. For not telling you where your dad went. He asked me not to, Kate. Not to contact him or visit him or help him. I barely got him to keep the cell phone in case you needed to get ahold of him in an emergency, or just to say hi. But he … he didn’t want any part of this life anymore.

  “I didn’t tell him about Pat because I wanted him to come back for the right reasons, not some misplaced sense of duty. I thought … I guess I hoped … that after a little while, if we really honored his wishes, maybe he’d …” Mom leans her cheek on top of my head. Her right hand goes back up to the piano keys and plunks the first few notes of “Für Elise.” A high, soft wobbling. Back and forth and back.

  “Mostly, I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough to begin with. I couldn’t make the marriage work. Now I’ve failed you and him and myself. I tried so hard and it was … I don’t know.” She spreads her fingers out wide and plays the first chord of Pathétique. Not loud and booming, though. Instead it’s soft and barely there. “Do you know why I play this song so much these days?”

  I shake my head and don’t say anything. Because I know this is Mom being her own therapist.

  “I played this for a recital when I was in high school. It took months to memorize, but I did it. When the recital came I made a mistake and skipped eight pages of it. Eight pages.” Mom shakes her head. “I felt like such a failure. But do you know what my parents told me?”

  “What?” I whisper.

  “They said the recital wasn’t the important part. The important part was learning the music, and I’d done that. Even if it looked like a failure on the outside, it wasn’t.” Mom pulls her hands back from the keys. “I keep hoping that they’d say the same thing this time. That I’m not a failure. That I learned the music. But I just don’t know.”

  Mom’s parents died a long time ago. So I say it instead. “You’re not a failure.”

  Mom rubs her cheek against my head. “You’re right. I still have you, and that’s a pretty good thing I did, right?”

  “I think so.”

  Mom chuckles and puts her hands back on the piano. “There’s a second movement to Pathétique, you know. Want to hear it?”

  I nod, and Mom begins to play.

  The second movement isn’t anything like the first. It’s soft and slow and beautiful. Instead of making my insides all shaky, it makes them warm and light. Like I’m just about to peek over a hill and see a sunrise.

  I don’t know how long I sit next to Mom on that piano bench, or how long she plays this part of Pathétique. But she plays it over and over until it fills up the house with a sound I’ve been waiting to hear for a long, long time. Hope.

  I never say I’m sorry for yelling, and Mom doesn’t say anything else about Dad. But somehow we both know it’s going to be okay. That we’re okay. Beethoven wrote a song for that, and Mom knows how to play it.

  I know how to hear it and feel it, so maybe I’ll be okay, too.

  Chapter 28

  Dear Dad,

  I only thought about you once today, when Mom and I sat on the porch looking at the stars. Mom started crying. She tried to hide it, but I could tell.

  I started humming “Rainy Days and Mondays” because I know that’s one of her favorite songs and favorite songs make everyone feel better.

  In a few minutes, she was singing along but changed the word Mondays to Saturdays. Then we were both laughing and somehow crying at the same time. Which was weird.

  You know what else was weird? I didn’t feel weak when I cried. I felt stronger.

  It made me glad I left your guitar at your apartment. Maybe you should start singing again.

  Love,

  Kate

  Chapter 29

  On Sunday, the sun streams through the branches of the almond orchard and into my window. Usually that makes me wake with a smile. But today, today I can’t get out of bed. Today the bed is swallowing me whole. The sadness of Dad never coming back feels like someone sitting on my chest, pushing me deeper and deeper into the mattress. Like I’ll never be able to move again.

  I cover my eyes to try to block out the light. I remind myself of ice cream and karate, but all I can see and hear and taste is that sadness, that knowing that everything is different and I can’t change it. I can’t change it.

  And then I think of Dad. Of the months he spent in his room, hardly ever coming out. The way he stared at the wall and did nothing, nothing, nothing. I grab at my chest because it feels like I can’t breathe. I can’t become sick like Dad. I can’t. But instead of getting up, I just start crying.


  Mom rushes into my room. “Kate? What’s wrong? What happened?”

  I throw my arm over my eyes. “I’m like Dad,” I whisper. “What?” Mom steps to my bedside.

  “I’m like Dad,” I say a little louder.

  Mom kneels on the floor and puts her hand on my forehead brushing away my hair. “What do you mean?”

  “I feel so sad,” I say. “So sad, I don’t want to get up today. I’m going to be just like Dad. And I don’t … I don’t want … that part of him.” The words are heavy, sitting on the blankets between us, and I wait to see what Mom will do with them. What she’ll do with me, her broken daughter.

  “Oh, no. Oh, honey.” Mom wraps me up in her arms and holds me like a baby. “Your dad is sick, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get sick, too.”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. Don’t lie to me.”

  Mom’s head nods against my hair. “You’re right,” she says. “You’re absolutely right. But I do know this. If something happens and you feel that sadness rolling in, you have something your father doesn’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sensei.”

  I pull away and raise an eyebrow at Mom. “Sensei?”

  She nods. “What does Mr. Amori say about getting help?”

  “The strong man knows when he isn’t strong enough,” I recite. “He knows when he needs help and he’s not afraid to ask for it.”

  “That’s it. You are strong, Kate. Strong enough to get help when you need it. A therapist. Medicine. Your father … he’s not ready yet. He thinks he doesn’t need help. But you.” Mom cups my face in her hands. “You are the strongest person I know.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” If words are things that can sit on beds and take up space, then Mom just took my fears and hurled them away, out the window, out from between us. And when she hugs me, I swear my heart is closer to hers than ever before.

  Mom sits next to me and pats my leg. “But you know what else would help with that sadness inside you?”

  I shake my head so hair falls in my eyes.

  “Singing again. That’s when things really got bad for your dad. When he stopped singing. It took away …” Mom sighs.

  “A way to let the sadness out,” I finish for her.

  “Exactly.”

  We sit there for a few minutes and watch the sunlight reach farther and farther across the gray carpet.

  Finally, I whisper, “Okay. I’m ready. But I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Work,” Mom laughs. “For what?”

  “For my presentation. I’m going to sing.”

  Mom kisses me on the forehead. “I love you so much, Kate. And maybe you should get in touch with Jane. She’s sent me about a hundred texts this weekend.”

  Mom isn’t lying.

  Are you OK?

  Did you punch Marisa?

  Are you suspended forever?

  Brooklyn and Emma missed you at lunch.

  We’re giving our presentation on Monday no matter what. Please say you’ll be there.

  Do you like this picture?

  Do you need some cookies? My mom made them.

  After I read her texts, I write back. I’m okay. See you tomorrow for the presentation.

  The rest of the day, I’m glued to Mom’s laptop and my guitar, working out the chords and melody for the George Washington “Where I’m From” poem Jane and I wrote together.

  Grammy disappears into her room around lunch and doesn’t come out the rest of the day. When Mom peeks in on her after dinner, she comes back to me and shrugs. “She’s just knitting.”

  Early Monday morning, when I tune my guitar and try to sing the song I wrote, the tips of my fingers ache and my throat is full of tears. I shake my head, try again. My voice still comes out garbled, like I have a cold. I sigh as I put my guitar back in its case. I won’t sing if I’m just going to cry. It might be okay to cry with Mom. But I can’t cry in front of everyone in class.

  Then something on my window bench catches my eye. It’s a pink hat and two wooden knitting needles, just a little bit bigger than the ones I broke. There’s a card underneath. It says,

  For Kate,

  I thought you could use some extra magic for your presentation today, even if you don’t believe in it anymore. It was a bear to make this hat, so I think I’m done now. This brain and these hands don’t work the way they used to. I guess that makes this my last magic hat. I’m handing off my other pair of wood knitting needles to you because I think you’ll change your mind about magic someday. You’ll want these when you do.

  Love,

  Grammy

  I read that note over and over and then carefully stow the note and the hat in my guitar case. There’s something about magic. Even though I don’t believe in it, the idea of it, the wanting it to be absolutely, positively true still pulls at all my edges.

  Right before I leave for school, Mom gives me a so-tight-I-can’t-breathe hug. “No fights today, okay?”

  I nod into her shoulder.

  “Your presentation is going to be wonderful. I know it.”

  “It’s the magic,” says Grammy. “It will work today, Kate.”

  I can’t look at her. I don’t want Grammy to see I don’t believe her.

  When I get to school, I head straight to my locker, hang up my backpack, walk into class, and take my seat without talking to anyone. One by one, everyone else starts wandering in and sitting down. Some of them steal glances at me, some at my guitar. They’re thinking about what I did on Friday and wondering what I’m going to do today. Sofia looks at me, then looks away, clutching her books to her chest.

  Marisa comes in, and I know what I have to do. Mom practiced it with me this weekend.

  Marisa’s eyes get wide when I stand up and meet her at her desk. “What do you want?”

  Everyone is definitely watching us now. I take a step closer to Marisa for privacy, but she backs away. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I was wrong. You didn’t … do anything. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Marisa doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there, stiff. Finally, she mutters, “I’m sorry your Grammy’s knitting needles broke.” Then she sits down, and I head back to my desk, feeling like I just sparred with a ninth-degree black belt.

  Parker, who must have come in while I was talking with Marisa, leans over and whispers, “I missed you at karate on Friday.”

  Friday.

  I don’t even want to think about it. “Yeah, it was a bad day.”

  Parker nods as if he understands, and I don’t need to say anything else. Then he points at my guitar. “I’ve been waiting four days to hear this.”

  I roll my eyes. “No, you haven’t.”

  “Technically, I have. It’s going to be awesome, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It is. It totally is.” He settles into his chair and pulls out a thick book, The Two Towers, opening it to the first page.

  Then Jane is standing in front of me, tapping her pencil on my desk. She sees my guitar and stops. “Are you going to sing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like really, definitely, for sure?” Jane looks like she doesn’t quite believe me. “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” I take a deep breath. “Sorry about last week.”

  Jane shrugs. “It’s okay. Gave me time to turn my painting into a whole mural.”

  “Really?”

  “No. But I could have.”

  We stare at each other for a second and then both give a little giggle. “I’m watching you,” she whispers, pointing at me. “No fighting. No running away. I mean it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After Miss Reynolds takes us through a math lesson, she stands in front of the class and says, “And now we will have one last ‘Where I’m From’ presentation. Jane and Kate, the floor is yours.”

  I carefully unhook the clasps on my
guitar case and open it up. When I lift the lid, I see that pink hat again. I don’t believe it’s magic, but the edges of me are whispering to try it. After all, I need as much help as I can get. I pull that pink hat out and roll it around in my hands.

  I don’t mind that it’s pink, actually. Not anymore. It’s a soft pink, like the blankets Parker’s mom wraps Amelie in. The promise of something new.

  “Kate?” Jane calls. “Are you coming?”

  “Yep.” I stuff the hat in my pocket and grab the guitar and our poem. Then I march to the front of the room where Jane is already holding a poster painted with the branch of a tree filled with soft pink blossoms all across it.

  “I’m from a myth,” she reads.

  “From the axe that cut down the cherry tree.

  From the words never actually spoken

  That somehow still are true

  Of me.

  I cannot tell a lie.”

  The whole class claps for a moment, and then everyone is silent when they turn their eyes on me.

  I sit down, but don’t lift my guitar right away. I touch the hat in my pocket. I want to believe in magic. I really do. If believing in magic is like sinking into an ocean, I’m almost totally underwater but my head is still up, gasping for air.

  I pull out the hat, ready to put it on. But when I do, Grammy’s note flutters out with it. I pick it up and one part catches my eye.

  I think you’ll change your mind about magic someday.

  I remember the story about Dad and how he used to believe in magic when he was a little boy.

  I know then that I can’t wear the hat. No matter how much I want the magic for myself. It’s meant for Dad. From the time Grammy began knitting this hat, it was his. Always his, not mine.

  I lay the hat and note in my lap, pick up my guitar, and clear my throat. My fingers press against the cold steel strings. My thumb runs over five strings for a perfect C chord. Then all six when I play G. I try to strum that tricky bar chord next but miss it. My guitar buzzes.

  I freeze.

  Everyone is looking at me. Waiting. Even Sofia, who smiles and nods.