The Magician's Assistant

by Ann Patchett

For a moment Dot stopped, her words choked down with worry. “I love my children,” she said. “No one will tell you otherwise, but just between the two of us I have to say I admire you for not having any. The ways they break your heart, Jesus, and it never stops. I mean it, it simply does not stop.” Sabine

She felt a rush of that privacy that comes not from being alone but from being with the one person you are completely comfortable with.

Most people can’t be magicians for the same reason they can’t be criminals. They have guilty souls. Deception doesn’t come naturally. They want to be caught.

“Always tell them it’s science,” Parsifal had said. “People are suckers for science. If car salesmen wore white coats, they’d make a fortune.”

He waits until they are quiet, but even the quiet is volatile, living. There is a charge in the air, as if anything might set them going again.