Magic

Is it real? Who knows? Maybe, just maybe it is.

(listen while you read if you like)

It was late March.

The sky had been dark with rain the whole day, but as John drove home the clouds parted, the sun shot though, and there was a rainbow.

“Magic,” he whispered to himself.

John didn’t believe in magic. It was just something he said sometimes.

The rainbow was still bright when he pulled into the driveway.

He rushed inside to tell his wife and daughter.

They loved rainbows.

The family held hands in the front yard, watching the bright colors against the distant clouds.

“Magic,” whispered Emmie, his daughter.

“Yes. Magic,” answered Clara, John’s wife.

John laughed to himself. When Clara said it he almost thought she believed it too.

It faded away, as all rainbows do, and the family went inside.

At the front door Emmie stopped her father. She had some exciting news.

“Daddy guess what?”

“What’s up, buttercup?”

“I lost my first tooth at school today!”

She held up a small, purple, plastic, tooth shaped necklace and shook it.

“It’s in here. The school nurse gave me it to keep it in.”

John had known this day was coming but felt woefully unprepared. Her tooth had been loose for weeks.

“That’s amazing” he said.

John knelt down to hug her and looked up to Clara, hoping she might have come up with a plan since she and Emmie had been home for over an hour already. It stood to reason that Emmie had told her mother first.

From there the evening went on much as they always had.

Over dinner John asked if any of Emmie’s friends had lost any teeth yet.

“No. Well kind of. Lilly lost one before, but I unfriended her when she cut me in line for free time.”

“I’m sorry you’re not friends anymore,” John said. He didn’t know who Lilly was. There were too many names coming and going from school to keep track of them all.

“What did Lilly do with her tooth when it came out?”

John was trying to ask something without actually asking it.

“Daddy, it goes under your pillow. Everybody knows that. She got five dollars for it.”

Five dollars?!? When did teeth get so expensive? John remembered getting a quarter and being happy to have that!

Either way, that was what he needed to know. Now to find some cash. Maybe Clara had some. They would talk later.

At bedtime, Emmie carefully placed the tooth necklace under her pillow. John and Clara kissed her goodnight.

When they turned the light out, Emmie whispered her I-LOVE-YOUs, then added, “I hope the Tooth Fairy doesn’t forget me.”

“She won’t,” assured Clara.

Oh good, John thought, she must have a plan.

The couple sat down on the couch. Clara grabbed the remote control and switched the TV on.

They always watched something when Emmie went to bed.

John sat down next to her.

“So,” he smiled. “What are we going to do about her tooth.”

Clara looked back with a blank stare.

“What do you mean?”

“You know… Tooth Fairy and all,” John answered, lightly flapping his arms like wings.

Clara had the same blank stare.

“You know,” John asked again, “money under the pillow and all?”

Clara finally smiled. Laughed even.

“Oh, I get it. You’re joking.”

She lightly hit John in the arm.

“For a minute there I thought you meant that WE needed to do something. Well don’t you worry. I believe in the Tooth Fairy and our little Emily’s tooth is in good hands.”

John knew his wife. He knew her inside and out.

She wasn’t joking.

How had they been together all this time without him finding out she ACTUALLY still believed in the Tooth Fairy?

He thought back to the rainbow.

What if Clara really DID believe in magic?

Oh.

Oh no.

He needed to find a way to make some magic.

He loved his wife. He loved his daughter.

If magic was what they expected, then that was exactly what they would get!

How though?

It was 7:47. He needed to think fast.

He had an idea.

“Babe. Want some ice cream?”

Please say yes. Please say yes.

“Mmmmm? Yeah okay.”

John got up to go to the kitchen while Clara chose a show to watch.

He needed a reason to go upstairs where he might have some money hidden away somewhere.

He knew just what to do.

John took the chocolate syrup from the fridge and squirted it down the front of his shirt.

Walking back to the living room, trying to look innocent, he showed Clara what had happened.

“Babe. I made a little mess. I’m going to change my shirt. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Oh god. What happened?” she laughed.

“I… it just…. “ he waved his hands in front of him. He didn’t want to lie and so left it at a half non-answer.

“Go! Go!” she insisted. “And maybe rinse it off in the sink so the stain doesn’t set in.”

Excellent. Rinsing the shirt would give him more time.

John rushed up the stairs.

The first thing he did was pull the chocolate covered shirt over his head and drop it in to the bathroom sink. He assumed warm water was best. He honestly didn’t know. He turned on the hot water and hoped for the best.

Now, where might there be some money?

Preferably paper. Preferably paper with a number five on it. Can’t have that Lilly girl getting more than Emmie, can we?

He tore though his drawers. His nightstand. The weird knick-knacks he kept on his dresser. Nothing.

Well not nothing. He found a ballpoint pen and a paper clip, but no money.

The light caught Clara’s jewelry box. He turned to look. He wondered…

No, no. He was going to make this work completely on his own.

Next, he went to the hamper. Maybe he had left some money in his pockets the last few days.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing. He found the Starbucks receipt from two days ago.

The closet maybe?

John turned the light on and began digging through jacket pockets.

Again, nothing. Except this time, it really was nothing.

“You okay up there?!?”

Oh no. He was taking too long!

“Just rinsing the shirt. All good.”

John came back to the bedroom. Where hadn’t he looked?

The jewelry box caught his attention again. Had he seen her drop money in there? Maybe.

No. He wasn’t going to do that.

He needed to make magic on his own.

In desperation, he lifted the mattress.

He was surprised to find a sock that had been missing for months. He was not surprised to find no money.

When setting the mattress back down, he bumped, by accident, into the jewelry box.

It fell to the floor.

“What was that?!”

“Sorry. I knocked something over. Almost done!”

He wasn’t almost done. Why did he say that?

The box was thankfully unharmed.

John bent over to pick it up when something beneath the bed caught his attention.

There on the floor was a crumpled, stained five-dollar bill.

It would have to do!

The thing seemed to appear there as if by magic. Of course magic wasn’t real.

It was luck then!

John tiptoed to his daughter’s room, turning the hall light off first so as not to wake her.

By the light of his cell phone, he entered the room, knelt down, and reached under the pillow.

The tooth wasn’t there. It had to be there. He began to panic.

Wait.

Something else was there. Small. Thin.

John pulled it out.

He held in his hand a crisp five-dollar bill.

What?

How?

Who?

John slipped the good bill back, pocketed the ugly one and left the room.

“I’m coming up!”

“No, no. I’m done.”

John turned the water off in the bathroom sink and hung the shirt to dry on the shower head.

He nearly forgot to put on a new shirt before heading back down stairs.

John couldn’t get the shock of the crisp bill under Emmie’s pillow out of his head.

How had it gotten there?

WAS there a Tooth Fairy?

***

The next morning Emmie ran down the stairs squealing and screaming and laughing about how the Tooth Fairy had come.

“I told you she wouldn’t forget you, “Clara smiled.

John was still stunned by the whole thing. He didn’t say a word.

Was magic real?

He needed time to wrap his head around everything.

Clara hugged Emmie and tussled her hair.

“Oh, and don’t forget,” she told their daughter. “The Easter Bunny comes this weekend too!”

The Easter Bunny?

Wait. What? It can’t be. Not that too. Noooo….

The next thing John knew, he was on the floor with Clara and Emmie above him with concerned looks on their faces.

“You passed out, dear. Are you okay?”

“Daddy. Daddy?”

For just a moment, behind his wife and daughter, John swore he saw something shiny and small with wings… that wasn’t a bird or a bug.