A Little Bit of Magic

by Kevin Saito

“Twee-house?”

“Yeah, buddy, I’m going to build you the best treehouse ever. You’ll be able to stand up there and look out over the whole neighborhood. How’d that be?”

Riley giggled and threw his arms up, signaling victory. “Yeah!”

“You gonna be a world class carpenter like your old man?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah! All right!”

I scoop him up and swing him around, laughing like a couple of lunatics, our voices sounding tinny coming through the speaker. The video stops with his dark eyes squinting and a broad smile stretched across his lips, his entire face lit up with the unmistakable joy of a child. A moment frozen in time. A life frozen in time.

I run my sleeve over my eyes, then take a long swallow of my beer. Leaning back against the wide trunk of the tree behind me, I play the video again. And then again.

“What are you doing out here?”

Ashley stands in front of me, arms folded over her chest, her expression as distant and cold as it’s been for the last year. I take another swallow of beer and shrug.

“Just trying to enjoy a little sunshine,” I reply.

She reaches into the cooler beside me and grabs a beer then pops the top and takes a swallow. Ash sits down on the pile of lumber to my left and stares at her bottle as if she’s seeking answers. She won’t find them. I’ve been searching these same bottles for a year now and haven’t come up with a single goddamn thing.

“You know what day it is?” she asks without looking up.

“Of course I do.”

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“What is there to talk about?” I respond softly.

For the last year, we haven’t talked about much of anything. We haven’t really talked at all, to be honest. Over the past year, we’ve become less like man and wife, and more like strangers sharing a house. We don’t even sleep in the same room most nights. We’ve become… roommates.

Ash takes another drink and sighs. “I want to talk about it. I want to talk about… him.”

“Ash—”

“Ethan, it’s been a year, and we haven’t talked about it.”

“We have.”

“Not really,” she says.

“We went to therapy—”

“And we quit therapy,” she says. “Or rather, you quit therapy.”

She’s right. I did. But it felt like we were just talking in circles, and I was tired of it. I was tired of going into that office week after week and having the scabs ripped off the wounds, only to let them fester and bleed all over again.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I just… I’m sorry.”

My eyes drift to my phone again. To the narrow eyes and wide smile forever frozen in time on my screen and feel the all too familiar cracks in my heart begin to throb. The pain is as intense as it’s ever been. The grief is so strong, it steals my breath and it’s all I can do to fight off the wave of tears that threaten to overwhelm me.

Ash walks over and pulls back the tarp, revealing the pile of lumber and supplies underneath. It sits there like a shrine. Like a dark temple I find myself coming to look at, to commune with, night after night. Some nights I think I can hear his voice. It’s soft. But it rings in my ears like the sweetest music I’ve ever heard. And some nights, I don’t hear a damn thing.

Ash takes a drink of her beer as she stares at it. “What are you going to do with all this?”

“I don’t know.”

I know I should repurpose it all for other jobs. It’s just sitting there doing nothing like it has for the last year and a half. I always thought I’d have the time to build Riley’s treehouse like I promised him I would. But work kept getting in the way. There was always a job I had to finish. Something that needed to be done. I never found the time. I should have.

I wish to God I had.

“You should throw it away,” Ash says. “It’s just…”

“I know,” I say as her voice trails away.

It’s a physical reminder of what we had. Of what we lost. It’s a physical reminder of the promise I meant to keep but never did. That’s what she was going to say. It breaks my heart every time I walk out here and see it. And yet, at the same time, I can’t bear to let it go simply because it’s a reminder of him.

“You’re not going to, are you?” she asks.

My eyes linger on the pile of lumber, and I feel a sharp stitch in my heart. “I can’t.”

“We can’t just leave it out here.”

I want to ask why it matters. We’re not using the backyard anyway. The days of our summer cookouts and playful family romps in the backyard are over. They’re over and they won’t be coming back. I can see in her eyes that she knows it every bit as much as I do. I stare at the image on my phone once more before turning it off and slipping it into my pocket.

“It makes the backyard feel like a cemetery,” she says.

“Isn’t it?”

“Ethan—”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want to talk about Riley.”

I round on her. “He’s gone, Ash. He’s gone. What is there to talk about?”

Her face pales and tears spill from the corners of her eyes. She turns away but I see her shoulders shaking as she silently sobs. The guilt that wells up within me threatens to swallow me whole. I want to go to her. Want to comfort her. But I don’t know how. I don’t know how to cross the yawning chasm in my own heart to help heal hers.

I drain the last of my beer then grab another, my eyes fixed on the pile of lumber sitting in front of me. A soft wind blows, stirring the leaves in the tree and in the gentle sough of the branches, I hear his voice. A soft giggle that fills my heart with joy. And a pain so intense it nearly cripples me.

As if my body is moving of its own accord, I get up and throw the empty bottle in the trash can. Wiping my eyes, I pull the tarp off completely and toss it aside, standing over the long-abandoned pile of lumber. Standing over my long-forgotten promise.

“What are you doing?” Ash asks.

“Something I should have done a long time ago.”

I walk to the garage and start collecting everything I’m going to need then bring it out to the backyard. Ash stands there watching me as I set up the short scaffolds and sawhorses, confusion on her face. I ignore her as I roll up my sleeves and get to work. The first thing is the base. Every house needs a firm foundation.

The only reason I’d agreed to build the treehouse for Riley to begin with, was because it’s not very high off the ground. The saddle in the tree where I’ll be putting the foundation is wide but less than five feet up. I measure out the planks, make the right cuts, then begin settling them into the saddle. Once I have the foundation built, I work on securing and anchoring it with brackets and cross boards nailed in.

“Is it solid?” Ashley asks.

“Let’s find out.”

I climb the ladder and stand on the foundation, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet. The boards flex beneath me but they don’t crack. They don’t give. The corners of my mouth curl upward and I turn to her.

“It’s solid,” I say.   

The smile that crosses Ash’s face is the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her in… well… a year. And it fills me with an unexpected warmth.

“What’s next?” she asks.

“The railing.”

“And how do we do that?”

“We?” I ask. “Are you going to help?”

She shuffles her feet. “If you’ll let me?”

There’s some small part of me that wants to tell her no. That this was my promise to Riley and I should be the one to keep it. But the longing for something—connection or something—I see in her eyes hits me unexpectedly hard. It’s palpable and makes the air between us crackle with a strange tension. It feels like she needs this every bit as much as I do.

“Sure,” I say.

I climb down the ladder and show her how to measure the posts for our railing. Ash runs into the house and grabs her Bluetooth speaker then comes back out and turns on her playlist. The first notes of some song by that K-Pop band, Blackpink, issues from the speaker and pulls an unexpected laugh out of me.  

“You’re kidding me,” I groan.

“Riley loved this song,” Ash says wistfully.

“He did. And I blame you for that.”

Ash’s laughter is high and musical in my ears and I feel a painful echo in my heart. I realize that echo is because I’ve missed hearing it.

“Do you remember how he used to dance around to this song?” she asks.

I chuckle. “I do. He watched that video and thought he could dance like them.”

“He couldn’t.”

“No. No, he couldn’t,” I say. “But it was adorable.”

“That it was.”

Our laughter blends with the music as we get back to the measuring and cutting of our post railings. The work is simple. Having done this job since I was essentially a kid, I’ve always been able to lose myself in it. It’s as easy as breathing. Ash surprises me though. She picks it all up quickly—a lot quicker than my last apprentice; I can say that without hesitation—and we work really well together, developing a steady and fluid rhythm.

It feels like we haven’t been this in sync in a really long time.  

By the time we’re done, dusk is falling. The sky is cast in hues of deep purple and blue, and the first stars begin to appear, glimmering like cold chips of diamond. A soft breeze caresses my face, and I hear his soft laughter. My heart stutters.

“We should order a pizza,” I say.

“Extra pepperoni, extra cheese, and triple sauce on a thick crust so well done it’s almost burned?” Ash asks.

“The Riley special,” I reply with a soft smile. “Sounds perfect.”

* * * * *

We sit side by side on the finished treehouse—Riley’s treehouse. It’s a little less grandiose than I’d pictured it in my mind all those months ago. But it’s sturdy. It’s got a solid foundation and feels like it can weather a storm. I think he would have loved it.     

“It’s been a while since we had pizza this way,” I say.

“A little more than a year.”

“Yeah.”

I take a bite and chew slowly as I stare up at the stars, wondering if he’s up there among them, looking down over us. A firefly ignites nearby, a soft glow in the darkness that draws a soft smile across my lips. It’s like an answer to my question.

“Riley loved them,” Ash says. “Fireflies.”

“He thought they were magic.”

She takes a swallow of her beer. “He might not be wrong.”

I watch as several more fireflies light up. And then a few more. It’s not long before we’re surrounded by them. Caught in the middle of a swarm of fireflies, we both stare in wide-eyed wonder at the points of light in the darkness all around us. We sometimes get a few at a time, but I’ve never seen so many of them in our backyard all at once before.

“It’s like he’s here,” Ash says.

Words fail me and all I can do is nod. In the dim light cast by the insects that surround us, I can see the tears glistening on Ash’s cheeks. She wipes them away as a shaky smile crosses her lips. There’s a look of wonderment on her face that mirrors the one on my own.

“It’s beautiful,” I finally say, my voice little more than a whisper.

“He was beautiful.”

My heart swells in my chest and the grief I’ve long tried to suppress wells up inside of me like a dark tide. I try to hold it back, but I can feel my handle on it starting to slip. Ash turns to me as fresh tears begin to slide down her face. She looks… lost. Worse, I can see in her eyes that she feels completely alone in her grief. And I know that’s because of me. I know that all of this is because of me.

A choked sob bursts from my mouth, and I drop my head. “It’s my fault.”

“What? No—”

“It’s my fault,” I say again. “Riley is gone because of me.”

A wail, primal and deep, is torn from my chest. I shake my head and bury my face in my hands, my cries echoing through the darkness. Ash puts a gentle hand on my shoulder, but I jerk away from her, not wanting to be comforted.

“I was driving,” I say. “If I hadn’t—”

“No. Ethan, no. The other driver was drunk. This isn’t your fault.”

I shake my head. This is my fault. I deserve to be punished. To have this burden of guilt on my back to the end of my days. To be crushed beneath it. I deserve—

“Blame me for it. Blame me for our son being gone. I know you want to,” I cry. “You’ve wanted to for a year now. Say it, Ash. It’s all right. I deserve it.”

She throws her arms around me, pulling me to her. Her breath is warm on my neck, her tears wet upon my cheeks.

“Blame me, Ash. Tell me this is my fault!”

“I won’t. Because it’s not.”

She wraps herself around me and for the first time since Riley died, I let myself lean into her. Let myself soak in her warmth. I slide my hands around her and pull her to me.

“I’m sorry, Ash. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she whispers, her lips grazing my ear. “This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”

We cling together like we’re lost at sea and are each other’s life preservers. The sound of our sobs fills the night air and the swarm of fireflies swirls around us like a tornado of light. Of magic. We slowly part and stare into each other’s eyes. Ash reaches out and gently wipes the tears from my cheeks, then leans forward and places a gentle kiss on my lips—the first since we lost our son.

“I’ve never blamed you,” she says softly. “Never. What happened to Riley isn’t your fault. And I’ve never thought it was.”

We fall silent and the tears slow down. I look into her eyes and see the sincerity. All this time, I’ve believed she blamed me for Riley’s death. But maybe I needed to believe that because I blame myself for it. Reaching out, I tuck a thick lock of her auburn hair behind her ear, tears still blurring my vision.

“I feel him out here sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I think I can hear him too.”

I nod. “Me too. The backyard was his favorite place in the world. It’s why I always meant to build him this treehouse. I just wish… I wish…”

“I know,” she says.

Ash reaches into her pocket and pulls out a necklace I recognize immediately. It’s a necklace with a charm made of amber. And trapped inside the amber is a firefly. We got it for him after he developed his fascination with fireflies, and he loved it. He was never without it. With tears in her eyes, Ash taps a nail into the post then hangs the necklace on it.  

“So Riley can find his way home,” she says.

I’m not sure that I ever won’t believe that on some level, Riley’s death is my fault. It was my job to keep him safe. And I failed. But maybe one day, and maybe with Ash’s help, I can move past it. Maybe we can move past it. Together.

We sit together, side by side and hand in hand. We just sit in Riley’s treehouse and watch the fireflies. And as we do, I can’t help but think that maybe he was right—that they are magic.