The Magician

Warning-substance use disorder

If his high school English teacher hadn’t assigned him A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court during his freshman year, his life would have been completely different.

Lewis Wilder had smiled politely when Mrs. Roberts first handed him the Mark Twain novel, but inside he was groaning. Reading about King Arthur? The knights of the round table? That old stuff?

But when Lewis started reading, the book fascinated him. He felt irresistibly drawn to the character of the wizard Merlin, even though Mark Twain’s protagonist Hank Morgan derided Merlin as a fraud. Lewis knew right away that he wanted to become a stage magician. He had no clue then that he would be able to perform REAL magic. That he wouldn’t need misdirection and stage patter and illusion to perform magic tricks. Lewis adopted a white rabbit with red eyes, who he named Marshmallow. Lewis was able to make Marshmallow literally vanish and then reappear just by silently willing it to happen.

Only one other person knew Lewis could do magic, and that was his wife, Tanya. He and Tanya had been high school sweethearts and married shortly after graduation. She had supported him by first processing claims for an insurance company, then processing legal documents for a registered agent service, while he was touring. He built his act up gradually, so no one would suspect he had real magical powers, and eventually Tanya was able to quit working and join him on the road, as his assistant. Whenever Lewis made Tanya vanish, she said it was just like going to sleep and then reawakening after a restful night. Marshmallow was always relaxed and content after disappearing and returning.

There were limits to what he could do with magic. He couldn’t make Tanya pregnant. He didn’t mind so much not having kids, because touring with his act was easier without being a parent. But Tanya bounced from angry to jittery to depressed because of her frustration with her infertility. She began drinking to numb the pain.

One time Lewis took her keys away. “I don’t want you drinking and driving.”

She raised dull eyes to stare at him. “But, Lewis, honey, I was just gonna drink a little and drive a little.”

Lewis frowned at her. Tanya sank to her knees and burst out, “How is it you can make me float in midair but you can’t give me a baby?”

“You don’t need a baby,” Lewis said flatly. “You need professional help.”

When she spoke, her voice was steady. She sounded like the young girl he’d fallen in love with, all those years ago. Not the desperate woman in her mid-thirties who was already going gray. “I was watching a soap opera the other day. There was a guy on there who was pouring drinks at two in the afternoon. Another guy told him, ‘You’re an alcoholic.’”

Tanya paused and looked down at the floor. She gave a short, harsh, rueful laugh. “That’s what I am. An alcoholic.”

Lewis gently raised her to her feet. “It’s not too late. You can go into a program, or a treatment center. We can adopt.”

“Oh, I can get dried out! And we can just go out and get a baby! Just like when you got that white bunny!”

Lewis reached over and stroked his pet in his cage, trying to calm himself. Tanya smiled sadly and also petted the rabbit. She picked up a guitar and tried to strum it before setting it back down on the table with Marshmallow’s open cage. “I’m too drunk to play.”

“You weren’t always like this,” Lewis insisted.

“I’ve always been a people pleaser. Drinking is a big part of being sociable. I’m a team player.” He bit back a retort about her drinking alone. He persuaded her to drink some water and eat some vanilla pudding before putting her to bed. His plan to sober her up backfired when she sat up an hour later and threw up all over the bed. Lewis steered Tanya into the living room to rest on the sofa while he changed the sheets and blankets on their bed.

“I’m sorry, Lewis,” Tanya said softly when he came back into the living room.

That was the beginning of many apologies to him, and the beginning of her self-loathing. She would go on and on about how disgusting she was, and how she ruined everything, despite his statements to the contrary. She sometimes used her words against him, speaking of herself in the third person. “Look at you, Lewis Wilder. You’re the one who’s with her. What kind of man stays with a drunk?”

Finally he said, “What good is it to do card tricks and pull dimes out of peoples’ ears? I can’t stop your drinking. I have to leave to save my sanity, even though it’ll break my heart.”

“I have an idea,” Tanya said hesitantly.

Lewis turned around and forced himself to speak soothingly. “All right, what is it? I’ll try anything.”

“You’ve been touring with your magic act as long as we’ve been married. Maybe if you didn’t do magic for a while, you could save up your power and heal me.”

“Hon, you need a doctor, not me and my magic wand. But I’ll go on break for a while.”

Tanya found a peer support group and started eating healthier food. She did volunteer work during evenings and weekends with high school kids at the local no-kill shelter. They fostered kittens for the shelter, much to Marshmallow’s bewilderment. One particularly rambunctious kitten climbed on a shelf and knocked down a plaque with “I was normal three cats ago” on it. Lewis made the kitten disappear until Tanya quit yelling over plaque being broken. She soon calmed down and cuddled with the kitten.

Lewis admired her determination. He told her often how proud he was of her. Eventually he started doing magic again, local shows instead of touring.

She had been sober for two years when Lewis said, “My magic didn’t help you. You did it yourself.”

“When you said you would leave, that shook me to my core. I can’t imagine life without you. Please forgive me for everything I put you through.”

Lewis took Tanya into his arms. “I forgive you. I’m not perfect either. But I believed you could do it. What’s more important, you believed in yourself. ”

She smiled. “That’s not all. The true magic is still loving each other.”