Nothing makes me want to believe in magic more than a sick child. Maybe the right prayer said at the right time in the right way by the right person. Maybe some seldom heard of treatment with no evidence that it works. Maybe some confession of guilt to appease an angry God.

My son is having tests today that may very well reveal nothing, but just the threat is enough to make my mind scan for some way of making things turn out the way I want them. Some day I may just quit trying to control the world, but some things, no matter how obvious it is that they do not work, die hard.

But there is magic, and it is the delight of who my kids are when I sit and consider them free from the need to create them in my own image, or some approved image I read in a book or in other people's eyes.