The Magician's Assistant

by Ann Patchett

People need things to do at cemeteries to make themselves feel useful. It’s like fluffing up pillows for the sick. It doesn’t make the sick person feel better, it makes you feel better.”

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.

The warm air smelled like popcorn and Coke. It smelled like a carnival wearing new clothes.

“When you’re young and you want to have a baby because babies are so cute and everybody else has one, nobody ever takes you aside and explains to you what happens when they grow up. Maybe they all think it’s obvious. I mean, if you know enough about biology to know where babies come from, then you should know that sooner or later they turn into teenagers, but somehow you just don’t ever think about it, then one day, bang, you’ve got these total strangers living with you, these children in adult bodies, and you don’t know who they are. It’s like they somehow ate up those children you had and you loved, and you keep loving these people because you know they’ve got your child locked up in there somewhere.”