The magician took her hand gently and with a slight twist of his wrist began pulling colorful silk scarves from her small fist. John watched his daughter’s eyes widen in delight and “look daddy, look!” He smiled down at her and another success, he thought, of his latest attempt at entertainment for the long weekend. He briefly looked around, not letting go of her other hand until he had her older brother in his sight. He felt a sudden need to hold his hand also, to protect him, but the boy was ten and he’d have none of that now. His son had wondered over to the sales desk, the man behind the counter, another magician, had the boy’s full attention in some elaborate shell game, the boy’s eyes trying desperately to follow the man’s swift hands as he moved the shells over and back again, only one concealing the small peanut beneath. And they were all around, some just street performers, dressed like bums, others more professional, obviously more advanced in their careers, but all magicians and excited to see young kids in the store, ready to be perfect foils, fooled by their slight-of-hand. To them it was a chance to try out some new tricks, but for John it was free entertainment for his kids. 

He’d found the shop just randomly, searching the yellow pages. It was near Rockefeller Center and just a cab ride from where they were staying. It was his weekend to take the kids and he’d thought a trip to New York City would be just the thing, show them around and show them off to this latest woman he’d begun to court. He thought he might be serious about her, although he could tell he’d have to work for it with this one. But he was a salesman, damn good one too, always a smooth talker, a convincer, making people want something they didn’t even know they needed and he knew that women loved kids. They put their mind at ease somehow, making him look sensitive, vulnerable, making it easier to gain their trust. He would make this woman want him. Tonight, he'd take them to meet her. He had the expensive restaurant all picked out, beautiful view of the city, reservations for four. He’d even checked and they had a kids’ menu. It was going to be a wonderful evening. 

“Oh daddy, look at that, a real bunny! Can I pet it?” John looked to where his daughter was pointing across the room. One of the men had a live rabbit he was pulling from his top hat. He let her lead him over, all the while keeping an eye on his son who looked frustrated, but determined to beat the game and find the elusive nut beneath the shell. Still, he felt the need again, he must keep an eye on that kid. 

“You’ll have to ask him first,” he answered her, wondering if she could catch anything from the animal, which would make their mother even more hostile once he returned them back home. But the magician had spotted the girl, she and her brother, the only two kids, the only real audience in the store today. He held up the white rabbit, tempting her with it as she came closer. He placed it in the hat and by the time she approached him, he’d turned the hat around twice and then upside down and no rabbit! It was just an empty hat. 

She was opened mouthed in wonder, “Where’d it go?” He smiled at her silently, moving his hands all around the hat, giving it to her to touch, then taking it from her small hands, shaking it slightly, putting it on his head and turning around once. He took the hat off and held it out to her, brim up, letting her look inside and there it was. The rabbit sat contentedly, mouth twitching, red eyes darting. “It’s back! It’s back! Look, it’s back!” she excitedly cried to her father. She began stroking its head between its long floppy ears. “Oh, what’s its name?” 

“What’s the big deal?” Her brother came meandering over at hearing his sister’s shrill of joy. “Oh, the rabbit trick. It’s just a bottomless hat is all.” The magician, still silent, took the rabbit out and gave it to the girl, held the hat out for the boy to examine. The boy took it, saw it was a real hat, no false bottom evident. “Well, it’s just a trick is all,” and the magician took it back from him, took the rabbit from the girl and put it back in the hat, spun the hat, turned around once and tilted it toward the children. It was empty. 

“See, Robby, he made it disappear! It’s gone, daddy, the bunny’s gone!” 

“It’s just a trick,” Robby said. “He didn’t really make it disappear. Things don’t just disappear.” 

But John wanted to tell him that they do, they really do just disappear sometimes, looking intently at his son’s face, not really understanding why. Instead, he asked him, “and how’d you do on that shell game, son?” Robby looked down slightly. 

“I almost got it, but it kind of disappeared too, wasn’t beneath any of them, so, I don’t know. He must have removed it when I wasn’t looking.” 

“Well, it’s just magic and try not to ruin it for your little sister, like Santa, remember our talk?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he relented, then smiled. “Hey, go ask him to bring it back,” he told his sister. She stepped forward, heading back to the magician that had wandered away with his hat. “Hey, dad, can I get that magic kit over there? There are some trick dice. I think I could learn to be a magician. I won’t tell Anna the secrets. I promise I won’t. Please, please?” 

“We’ll see. Now go keep an eye on your sister for a few minutes. I need to make a phone call,” and he took his phone from his pocket and headed to a quiet corner of the store, but no, that couldn’t be right. It was 1973 and there were no cellphones, not yet. He looked back at his children, they were standing still and looking at him expectantly, fading away from him now, the boy first, then the girl, becoming more translucent, their colors dissipating into the background before him, even the background fading, turning around like the magician, then gone. All of it was gone and he felt a sudden jolt, a long-remembered emptiness that had always overcome him once he’d returned the kids home and then the sharp, almost physical puncture of a later loss that had devastated. 

The dream had come back to the old man out of nowhere last night, a memory, but distant, ethereal now. He remembered The Magic Shop, his children’s excitement that had been palpable as they’d watched the magicians doing their thing close enough to reach out and touch them. It had been a good day, a very good day, so long ago and he wasn’t sure why he’d dreamt about it. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things these days. He looked outside past his sleeping wife and through the window of their apartment, their retirement home her kids had moved them to several years earlier. He saw the bird then, just sitting on the branch, moving its beek, but without sound. He couldn’t hear the birds sing anymore. He couldn’t hear a lot of things. He reached for the hearing aids on the nightstand just out of habit. He was always being told, shouted at really, to just put them in! He would comply, had to show he was trying. It would make their irritation less if he appeared to be trying, but he couldn’t hear a damn thing still, just roaring background noises and garbled sounds from silently moving lips that sometimes made him want to take a jump in the lake right outside their apartment. And it was a special day, but offhand he was having trouble recalling why. Then he remembered that she was coming today. Anna would be here to visit, but for what? Why was she coming today? A special day, she’d told him, maybe. It was over the phone, she’d called, said she was coming down. He’d only caught a fraction of the conversation. He felt his wife stir beside him. 

“Happy Birthday, John” and that was it. It was his birthday, ninety-something he thought as he’d lost count. 

“Thanks, dear.” She turned and kissed him and that would be it, the hanky-panky had ended long ago, but they’d had their run of it. He could still remember that, sometimes even felt himself like he’d used to be, ready for her, but it never lasted and those days were gone now, sweet memories. Her interest had waned too, although she’d been a buxom firecracker when they’d met. It had been a second round for both of them, divorced, the kid thing done, just enjoying each other, enjoying the freedom of sex with no consequence, both of them fixed from anymore childbearing, doing it before they married, wherever, whenever, so different from his first wife, his first marriage. She got up and was moving toward the bathroom, unsteady on her feet these days, grabbing her cane on the way. He watched her go, the voluptuous figure beneath her gown still appearing to him if he remembered hard enough. 

“Did I say happy birthday, love?” 

“Thanks, sweet” is all he said. He wouldn’t remind her that she’d just said it. Both of them seemed to be on repeat these days and it was all okay. They would stay together, no one would take the other away, they’d agreed on that, no matter what, no matter who declined first, in the end they would not be separated. 

Later, as he piddled in the kitchen, she asked him, “and what time is her flight?” The silence followed before she said, louder this time, “what time does she get in, John?” 

“In time for dinner, she told me. She knows we like to eat early. Just hope it’s all on time today, her flight, I mean.” 

“It’s too bad she has to travel alone always. If she’d only married…” and John let her voice trail off to a level he could no longer hear. It was the same each time, same conversation. Anna had never married, never found the one, never had kids and his wife couldn’t understand, hell maybe he didn’t either. His wife’s voice bubbled to the surface again, “…had plenty of boyfriends, but nothing stuck, a shame, such a pretty face…smart too…” He only caught the tail end of her sentence. She’d become adept at conversing with herself since his hearing had declined so. “I asked you,” louder now, “how are you feeling today? You slept later than me, usually you’re up early.” 

“Okay, okay, just a bit tired is all. I’m fine.” 

“I wonder when Anna is supposed to get in…” 

“Going to take the trash out, get the mail.” John started to walk outside with the kitchen can. 

“Alright, love. Be careful not to stay outside too long, so hot…” and he lost the end of her sentence again, walking out into the heat of the Florida day. He dumped the trash and picked up the mail, just ads these days it seemed. No one ever wrote letters anymore and bills were paid electronically mostly, automatically. He wasn’t sure why they still had a mailbox. He saw the bench by the lake and it looked too good to pass up. He was tired today, more than usual, but hell, he was ninety…., well, whatever it was, he was getting up there, he supposed. He never thought he’d live into his nineties, but here he was, the last of his siblings, the youngest, all of them gone before him. And his daughter was coming to celebrate. He felt the familiar excitement, but also the underlying dread. Seems it was always tense between the two women, had gotten worse over the years. Admittedly, early on he’d enjoyed what seemed to be a competition for his attention, he’d let it go on and that had been a mistake, but it was too late to correct it now. If they could just make it through a visit without words this time. That would be the best birthday gift he could receive. Seems someone always started something, he thought his wife, but Anna couldn’t let it go and well that would be it, the harsh words would follow, the evening turning into a stony silence, a damper on the visit, but maybe this time would be different. He sat down on the bench, looking out across the lake to the other apartments. There was a lot of wildlife, he could see it, the giant egrets, the ducks, birds of all sorts, but he couldn’t hear any of them. He could only watch as they flew over, fished and stood in the water. Most days he didn’t even miss the noises they made, but today as he looked at them, he found himself trying to remember the sounds. He relaxed, pulled the brim of his cap down and rested his arm across the back of the bench. 

They were in a boat, he and the kids, teenagers now. They were in the middle of a lake and a storm had come up suddenly, violently, waves crashing into the sides of the vessel as if they were in an ocean. The sky was dark, the wind was blowing the sail around uncontrollably. “Grab the oar,” he instructed his son, yelling to be heard over the loud wind and rain. 

“I’ve got it,” Anna said, but then she’d dropped it. It was pulled from her hands by the current before she could grip it. Robby jumped in after it. He was a strong swimmer just like his dad. He reached the paddle and John pulled the boy, almost a man now, back into the boat again. 

“Anna, just sit down and don’t touch anything,” he’d instructed her sternly, clearly tense. He’d never seen the water so rough and wasn’t sure the little skimmer he’d rented would even hold up to this. He heard thunder crackling in the distance. They needed to get off the water, but the engine wouldn’t start. He and Robby would need to paddle the boat back to shore. Anna sat, looking a bit wounded. He could count on one hand the times he’d spoken roughly to her in her life, but this was different and he could feel the panic rising, but wouldn’t let his kids see it. He had to keep his head. He could almost hear his ex-wife’s voice again, chastising him for not checking the weather report before taking the kids out on the water. He looked over at Robby, his boy, looking more and more like him each year. Then his son’s face, at once visibly older, grew pale. The lips, thin and devoid of color, pursed together as if glued. His eyes closed, the black lashes seeming even more pronounced against the pallor of his face and his hair, damp and combed straight back from his forehead. Robby’s body lay still and stiff against the hull of the boat in the bobbing water. No, no, that isn’t right. They’d made it back to shore safely that day. But his boy, a man now, was laid out under a white sheet atop a metal table. The water was gone. The room they stood in was sterile and quiet. John’s wife and Robby’s mother were standing beside him, looking down. Anna stood behind them, a silent presence. His ex-wife bent down to kiss their son’s face. He heard a strange sound. It was his own voice, caught in his throat, a cry, a moan, something, stopping before it could be released coherently. His face fell forward violently. 

John woke up, chin almost touching his own chest. He straightened up. The birds were gone, at least the ones he’d been watching and he wondered how long he’d nodded off. He knew he’d dreamt about his son, but couldn’t remember the details now. A boat, a lake, different from this one, an afternoon on the water and something else, years later, something about Robby. He stood, feeling relieved that he couldn’t fully remember the dream. John had left when they were young, left their mother, started a new life as a bachelor father. He’d just been unable to stay in it, stay with her anymore. He’d wanted something else, someone more. His marriage was over well before he’d informed his wife and that is how he’d justified his dalliances. He’d tried, didn’t want to be divorced, but it couldn’t be helped and so he’d tried to be an extra good father. He’d tried so hard, taking them and always doing fun things when it was his turn, weekends, holidays, whenever he could manage because he traveled so much. But after he’d remarried, he’d moved to another part of the country and it had been hard, seeing them less, but still trying to be in their lives. And today his daughter was coming to see him and he felt excited and foreboding all at once. It was just their history is all. Sometimes she seemed just…well, bitter almost and he longed for that carefree little girl that used to reach out for his hand and get so excited just to see a white bunny rabbit being pulled from a hat. How he would miss that child. He stood up slowly, wondering how long he’d slept. He never fell asleep like that, but today he just felt so tired. He began padding back to their apartment. His wife would be getting concerned. 

# 

The little girl stood in the open atrium of the hotel, looking up at the room balconies and trying to remember just which one had been theirs. Passersby, hotel guests and the concierge, bustled past her, seeming to move right through her where she stood, transparent, a specter in a long-ago memory, existing in the two parallel and disparate worlds of her mother and father. That afternoon, feeling the well of loneliness again that would sometimes surround her, Anna had taken her Schwinn downtown, locked it up and entered the hotel where their father had brought them last time he’d been in town. No one noticed her, a child alone, just walking through the lobby, sometimes riding the elevators to the pool and on up to the rooms where they had stayed. No one asked if she needed help or was lost. She already knew how to walk invisibly, walk without getting noticed. It was her time, her secret place and she could go there and just disappear, somehow becoming her father’s Anna again, remembering like that and feeling that much closer to him. 

And although the hotel was just a few miles from their house, it hadn't felt like they were in their hometown when they stayed there. It felt like they were someplace exotic and faraway. But that's just how it felt sometimes, being with her father. She wanted to be like Robby who seemed to slide easily between the two worlds, but she would get caught inside the in-between, that transitional place where they were supposed to float easily and invisibly back and forth pursuant to some court-approved separation agreement. The times they were with him, afterward she would live over and over again in her mind and it was like coming home with secrets that she could not share (except with Robby, if she could hold him still for just a moment). It was that hollowed out empty feeling she was left with, the closest thing to a death that she would know, returning home after being with her father. It was the loss of him all over again because weeks, sometimes a month, in between visits was just too long, really it was just too damn long. It was the walls of their house, the sudden quieted lull in life, the still and tiny town as contrasted to the loud and crowded streets of New York. It was just the constant motion of where he'd take them for a few days or a week that got to her, sometimes out of town or maybe just a local hotel for the weekend, but still the time so full and different from home life. Often, they would try to get more time from their mother, but he'd ask too late or not nice enough or he'd been late with the check again or maybe she was just plain angry still. And really, who wouldn't be? She would say no. He would get mad, slam the phone down, even imitate her voice. Was that for their benefit? Maybe, secretly, he'd been relieved. Maybe he'd gotten used to a bachelor life again. They would be returned home on time. And there she would not let her mother see her disappointment. She would not know. Anna would hide it from her. She couldn’t let her mother see her sadness. It would make her worse somehow. She is already so sad. She could not let her see her empty hollowed out feeling. A day is all she needed, alone, and she would be better again. She promised to return to being her mother’s Anna again. If she could have some time. Within the four walls of her bedroom, the room where she’d heard both of them angry late at night, the room in the house where he left them, she would become her mother’s Anna again. She would hide in her room until she returned. She always came back. 

The plane shook hard as it landed and Anna woke from her dream, the back of her neck, warm and damp, wishing she could feel the way she used to, the way she’d remembered in her dream. Somewhere it had gotten lost, as she’d grown up, as her shiny image of her father had turned into a darker reality like sterling left unattended, becoming tarnished over time. He’d changed their lives by leaving them, but had he also set off a domino effect of bad events? She thought of the things that had happened to her brother, his escape into drugs and alcohol and his eventual suicide, her mother’s alcoholism, Anna’s many failed relationships and the men that had become victims of her own distrust. But her father was just an old man now, pitiable even and she was his daughter. They existed as two survivors from a self-destructed family. His actions and the ways she must have disappointed him over the years were water under the bridge. None of it mattered anymore, especially since Robby’s death, her mother’s death too, but still she longed to feel that blindingly pure love of a little girl for her father, painful, lonely, but beautiful. 

She turned her head and saw palm trees in the distance past the runway, felt the surge of the plane’s brakes as they pushed her back against her seat uncomfortably. She’d come back to visit again and like previous times, wondered why. He’d chosen anther family long ago and they’d enjoyed his best years, but had made it quite clear that she was expected to return and magically be the daughter that would tend to him in his old age. But she’d felt like something had been stolen from her and it was being given back all battered and broken and she was supposed to love it like she had before it had been taken. And she’d tried, she knew she should still love it, love him, but she’d been forced to make a life void of his presence for so long and so sometimes she couldn’t find it anymore inside herself which just left her feeling sad. 

After collecting her baggage, she signaled a cab. “Where to?” She handed the driver the address and he put it in his GPS. As he pulled out onto the freeway she could see his eyes in the rearview mirror looking at her. “Just visiting? First time here?” 

“Visiting, yes, but I’ve been here many times. Do you mind taking a different route, past Pinellas Park?” 

“That is out of the way, that will be more…” 

“It’s okay. I’ll pay the extra fare. I just want to see, to go that way. Thank you.” 

“Sure thing.” And it was the park where she and Robby had ridden the bikes and where she used to ride after he was gone. She would go there to remember him as he’d looked just weeks before he’d died. She could never remember anything which would indicate…well, except for what he'd told her, the thing she’d buried until it was too late. They’d been young adults, visiting their father in Florida when Robby had surfaced from the pool with that dark look on his face. Moments earlier Anna had berated him when he’d brought out that little pipe and begun smoking something within vision of her dad and his wife. 

“Can’t you live without it for a few days? They’re right over there.” 

He’d put down the pipe, jumped into the pool silently and surfaced, seemed to shrug, “I’m going to die soon.” Then he’d gone under the water again. 

“What do you mean? Why did you say that?! Robby? Robby!” But he’d ignored her, just kept swimming and that darkness in his eyes, his face, she’d pushed it away afterward. She’d done nothing, only questioned him, but he’d been silent after that and so she’d let it go, just something crazy he’d said. She’d told no one. Within weeks he’d died, suddenly, but she believed purposely. He’d had a lifestyle, partying, drugs, alcohol. It had gone on so long she didn’t even think anything of it anymore. He partied, had since he was a kid, but he always functioned, worked, was sober and functioning when he had to be. He had always been able to handle it so his death from heroin and alcohol left her in shock because how could he of all people have messed up like that? She realized he hadn’t. He’d meant to do it. She’d just found so many things afterward that confirmed it. 

“Here it is,” the driver pointed out the entrance. 

“Yes, could you, would you mind driving in just for a bit?”

“It’s your dime.” He pulled into the shady entrance of the park. 

“Just go straight down to the boardwalk, the water, thanks.” And sometimes she wondered if she wanted to really remember or just wanted to punish herself for not seeing it so long ago, for missing it because it had to have been there, in his face, his intent. It must have been there. “This is fine. If you could just wait a minute, I just want to see…” and she couldn’t finish her sentence, felt the driver’s eyes on her in the mirror again. She didn’t care. She was looking for him and Robby materialized on the boardwalk, right where he’d been so many years ago, sweat beading on his forehead and matting his thick black hair. It had been extremely hot that day and the bike ride had been long. She searched his face, his eyes, again saw nothing that would portend, nothing to indicate what would happen just weeks later. But it must have been there. She must have missed it. She blinked her blurring eyes, took one last look, watched him grin and disappear into just another sunny Florida day, an empty boardwalk once more, wondering how so little about the scene could have changed after all these years, the familiarity seeming torturous now. Because, he’d been there, so…alive. Aware suddenly of the driver’s gaze in the mirror, “okay, we can go now. Thank you. Thanks.” She rode the rest of the way in silence. 

He’d remembered she was coming which was a relief. It had just been a couple of days since they’d talked, but his hearing, well, she was just glad he’d remembered. “Happy Birthday, dad.” She hugged him, could feel an increased frailty, then a sudden and unexpected panic inside herself.

“Darling, you look good. Doesn’t she look wonderful, dear?” Anna looked at him curiously. There was a silence that settled just briefly between them. 

“You don’t turn ninety-six every day,” Anna said. “How are you feeling?” But he looked diminished to her. It hadn’t been long since…well, he was alright. She thought he looked okay. 

“You know I felt a bit tired today, took a nap by the lake.” 

“Really? You never nap.” 

“First time for everything, even at…ninety-six, you say? Well, I suppose.” After they’d visited a while, Anna drove their car to his favorite restaurant by the water. It was to be a celebration. 

# 

The dinner was a glorious relief from the dining room food they’d gotten accustomed to since moving into the retirement home. His wife loved getting out. She was carrying on now to Anna about how bad the food had gotten. “Feels like we’re out of prison,” she told her. He’d thought that a bit much, but let her vent, let the two women carry the conversation as he could only catch about a third of it at best, hearing aids and all. Pretty soon he could hear the conversation taking a familiar turn, felt an alarming pattern emerging. “All I’m saying is that divorced parents…” and how had they gotten on this topic? His wife continued, “divorced parents need to keep in touch, well, for the children’s sake. That’s all, just for their sake. It’s important.” He thought he saw Anna’s head nod in agreement, but then she went there. “Now your mother made it so difficult for your father…” 

“Really, don’t talk about my mother. She’s been gone ten years. Why are you talking about her now? It’s disrespectful.” Anna paused, then said bitterly, “the second wife always gets treated better. He didn’t treat her right. He didn’t.” He thought he heard voices rising, it was all such a predictable turn of events. 

“Well, tell him that.” His wife nodded her head in his direction. 

“I just did,” Anna answered sharply. John sat in the suddenly harsh silence, letting Anna’s words, what he could make out of them, wash over him. He pretended not to hear it all. He just wanted them to stop. But it was done, the damage done. And he remembered then the thing he’d tried to forget, why Robby wasn’t here. The day his son had died, John had been jogging, a usual day, the morning run part of his routine, but his wife had come after him, calling his name, screaming for him to come back home. 

“He’s gone, Robby’s gone, he’s dead,” she’d told him and maybe he had already known how. He’d thought of a lot of things after that; Robby as a boy, John leaving them, trying to be there, but not being there as they grew up, missing so much of their lives and then what had happened to Robby just walking home from school one day, later, the drugs, the alcohol, the feeble attempts at intervention. He’d tried, but he couldn’t be in two places, couldn’t always be there for all of them. He’d had to choose. If he could go back, if he could change things, maybe Robby…and Anna would be… But it was just his life choices, so glaringly clear in front of him now and there was no going back. He felt his heart jolt suddenly. He tried to sit up straight, but felt himself slump, almost hitting the plate of food in front of him. 

“Dad, are you alright? Dad!” It was Anna’s voice, concerned, scared. 

“I’m alright. I just need…” and then he was sliding down off the chair and onto the floor, his wife’s voice the last thing he heard before darkness took over. 

She shrieked, “oh my God, oh Anna, get him!” 

# 

Anna sat by his side as he lay in the hospital bed, her father’s hand enfolded in her own. It was a heart attack, sudden, massive and what had caused it? They’d been having such a nice evening, just the two of them, although he’d acted odd, had scared her with the things he’d been saying to her as if he’d been saying them to his wife. She’d just ignored it. He got confused sometimes. She’d noticed it more since... Then she’d realized, when he’d gone down, had called out to his wife as he fell over, he’d thought she was there with them. He must have. A nurse entered the room.

“How you hold’in up?” 

“Will he pull through this?” The nurse looked at her, eyes lowered. 

“I’ll let the doctor talk to you. He’ll be in soon. Is his wife here yet? He was asking for her.” 

“She died a few months ago. They’d been married a long time. I thought he was okay, but I think he may have thought she was still here or something, at least today he seemed to think that.” 

“Well, married for many years like that, it happens. One goes and the other begins to deteriorate…I’ve seen it so many…” She stopped talking, looking at Anna’s expression. “Well, here’s the doctor now.” An impossibly young man in a lab coat entered the room briskly, picked up the chart at the end of the bed, looked at Anna’s face, studying it briefly. 

“Your father has had a major cardiac event. I see he has a DNR. If he goes again…” 

She just said, “I know,” squeezing her father’s hand in hers. She felt warmth, but nothing more, no movement. “I know what that means.” 

“Well, okay then. We’ll make him as comfortable as possible. If it continues on, we might consider hospice...” She just looked at him and he became silent, then exited the room again. Anna thought he’d looked uncomfortable.

The nurse turned to Anna, “if you need anything, hit the buzzer, alright dear? I’m right outside. And don’t worry, he isn’t suffering. We won’t let him suffer.” Anna watched her leave. She felt inside her pocket, felt the squishy trick dice she’d found in her father’s desk drawer earlier as she’d gathered some of his things to bring to the hospital. She’d recognized them immediately. They’d been in Robby’s magic set. They would turn inside out, becoming balls and then turn back again into dice. Robby had learned to make them work well, like magic, like the magicians they’d seen at that place in New York, that magic store…so long ago. And that night, after their father had taken them there, well it was the night he’d introduced them to his new girlfriend, the woman who would become his second wife. She wondered why he’d kept the dice all these years, how he’d ever even obtained them. Robby must have left them at his apartment years ago and her father must have saved them. She felt a sudden rush of…something, familiar and intense. She looked down at her hand, could see her father’s hand turn and embrace her own. His eyes fluttered open just for seconds as he spoke. 

“Anna, hold my hand,” he told her and she realized he was speaking to her as if she was a little girl again. 

“I’m here daddy, right here.” She felt a surge of strength in his grip and then it began to fade. His face relaxed, his hand went limp in hers. She heard the blip of the machine behind him change to a low flat hum. She felt tears that she’d forgotten how to cry escape her eyes and blur her vision, remembered a love so piercing it felt like it was cutting her and then a relief equally as intense. 

The nurse came back, walking with purpose to the back of the bed, clicked a switch and the machine was silenced. “It’s still there,” Anna whispered, the nurse looking down at her. “I guess it never really went away.” 

# 

John stood just outside the door of The Magic Shop. He felt small hands grasp his own, first his left and then his right. His children smiled up at him. “Let’s go Dad,” Robby said. 

“Yes, daddy, let’s go in now,” Anna pressed. He could hear it all so clearly, hear their voices, hear the activity beyond the doors, the creaking of the old wooden floors underneath him, the outside street noises too, the honking, sirens and whistles, distant shouts, the bustle of the city. 

“Okay kids, yes, it’s time.” The doors opened up before them and it was as if they’d never left. The magicians, more of them than ever lined up on both sides of them, greeting them as they entered, bowing and performing tricks as they passed by, beautiful colorful silk scarves flying through the air, bunny rabbits hopping around on top of the counters, jumping into a giant black top hat, disappearing one by one. The man behind the counter, motioning for Robby to come over and find the peanut beneath the shell and this time John knew he would. He felt his hand being squeezed and it was Anna’s hand, her eyes looking up at him, shining and brilliant. It was going to be a wonderful day.