Evelyn was six when her mother officially declared war on loneliness, her checking account, and good decisions. Newly divorced, pretty in a reckless way, and radiating desperation like a citronella candle in summer, she drew men the way porch lights draw moths. Some were harmless. Some were not. And together they turned the Harlow house into something between a low-budget rom-com and a cautionary tale.

The decent ones tried, in their own misguided fashion. One suitor showed up with an above-ground pool as his offering. A gift of luxury—or at least as close as you can get in a backyard already half overtaken by weeds and regret. The installation turned into a block party, which meant every married man on the street stumbled in, tools in one hand and cans of Coors in the other. Evie, with a towel draped across her arm like a six-year-old maître d’, ran drinks to the workers. She felt important, like the butler in a bad sitcom. By sundown, the men were drunk, the pool listed left like a sinking ship, and walking across the floor of it felt like tiptoeing over a crocodile’s back. Still, it was water, and in 1980s suburbia that counted as success.

Another boyfriend was a skate guard at Skateaway, which immediately made him Evelyn’s personal hero. He slipped her and Kit in for free and let them stay until their legs ached. Roller skating was Evie’s gospel back then. She even wrote a persuasive essay in fifth grade declaring it should be an Olympic sport. The kind of essay that, if she’d known it would be her life’s most passionate argument, she would’ve laminated. Years later, when she thought about her so-called “glory days,” it wasn’t graduation or prom she remembered. It was winning “4 Corners” at the rink one random Saturday night. If Instagram had existed, that Polaroid would’ve been her profile picture forever.

A few men leaned into sincerity, bless their misguided hearts. One of them, clearly operating on the fumes of optimism, made them chili and talked dreamily about marrying their mum. Evie wasn’t sure how chili factored into a proposal strategy, but given the competition, he might’ve been her best shot. Unfortunately, her mother was still hopelessly, masochistically in love with Evelyn’s father, so chili guy never stood a chance.

And then there was Jackson.

He wasn’t like the others. The pool guy stumbled. The skate guard charmed. Chili man dreamed. But Jackson—he performed.

He had dark hair, darker eyes, and a smile that probably came free with the purchase of whatever he was selling. Married, kids at home, but still finding time to orbit the Harlow townhouse like it was a second job. Evie’s mother never stood a chance. Where the others hovered around her loneliness, Jackson sliced right through it with a salesman’s ease. He spun words like silk, tied her in knots, and left her drunk on him long after he was gone.

Evie noticed the routine. Jackson would arrive like a storm system—doors slamming, voices rising, then muffled laughter through the walls. The house filled with cigarette smoke and the clink of glasses. Then came the sound Evie hated most: her mother’s laugh, the one that belonged only to him. It was lighter, younger, like a version of her mother that had never existed for her kids. Jackson got that version. Everyone else got the aftershocks.

The ritual never varied. Wild, frantic sex behind a half-open door. Drinks and smokes in bed, like they were the stars of some noir film. Then Jackson would pull himself together, drop folded bills on the nightstand, kiss her mother’s shoulder like a man punching his timecard, and disappear back to the family who didn’t know—or pretended not to.

And Evie’s mother? She unraveled the second the door closed. She’d pace, she’d pour another drink, she’d burn through her bitterness like firewood. She was hopelessly in love with him, and Jackson thrived on being both the cure and the wound.

Even as a child, Evie could see it: this man wasn’t just another boyfriend. He was the main act. The magician. He could make her mother disappear into someone Evie didn’t recognize and reappear just as broken as before.

Evie hated him for it. She also couldn’t look away.

One afternoon, she wandered past her mother’s half-open bedroom door. She should’ve kept walking — six-year-olds are not built for noir film sets — but Jackson’s voice, low and syrupy, reeled her in like a moth to a flame. He was leaned back against the headboard, skin damp with sweat, cigarette balanced just-so, like he’d been practicing this pose since puberty.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he said, and Evie, being Evie, obeyed. Because kids always do when the grown-up sounds like they know something you don’t.

She hopped onto the edge of the bed, her knees pressed together, her eyes darting anywhere but the man who seemed to take up the whole room. He chuckled, the sound vibrating the air, and even at six she felt the shift — like she’d been tricked into watching a magic act she hadn’t signed up for.

Whatever came next, Evie’s memory sealed it into a blur. What she remembered most wasn’t the act itself, but the way the air in the room seemed heavier, sticky, the way her stomach dropped like she’d missed a stair. She remembered her mother’s drowsy voice — dismissive, almost amused — as if the whole thing were nothing more than a joke. She remembered the heat rushing to her face, the desperate need to disappear.

And then she did disappear. Bolting down the hall, into the bathroom, into the tub. She turned on the faucet and shoved her hands under the water, scalding then freezing, as though she could scrub the moment out of existence. She sat there until the water ran cold, until the walls stopped echoing, until Jackson’s footsteps finally left the house.

That was the first time Evie noticed silence had a sound.

And it was also the first time she realized the Harlow family rule: if you don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.

Except, of course, it did. And she never forgot.

A few days later, Jackson was back — because of course he was — and this time he came bearing a treat. Dorney Park. Roller coasters, skee-ball, cotton candy, the whole suburban kid fantasy. Evie’s mum was supposed to come along, but something came up (translation: something came in a bottle), so Jackson piled Evie and her best friend Tina into the car instead.

It should have been perfect. An August afternoon at an amusement park, sticky and loud and endless. But Tina had forgotten to mention she hated rides. Hated them. Which meant Jackson had Evie all to himself, the two of them tumbling from the Iceberg ride to skee-ball to cotton candy like some lopsided family outing no one had signed permission slips for.

Evie loved it anyway. She was six, and to be seen — really seen — by an adult, even one like Jackson, was intoxicating. The Iceberg was her favorite: a dark, spinning tunnel with fake penguins and air-conditioning so cold it felt like Narnia. Each time the ride jolted, she slid across the seat, and Jackson folded her against his side like she’d always belonged there.

They played skee-ball until their wrists ached. Jackson bought them the biggest clouds of cotton candy Evie had ever seen, pink and blue spun sugar that stuck to her lips, her hands, her very soul. She and Tina sat under the leering gaze of the park’s creepy clown mascot, stuffing their faces, fingers sticky enough to glue a small animal in place.

And then, as if the whole day had been waiting for it, the speakers cranked out “You Can Do Magic” by America. Synths, harmonies, pure 80s optimism floating over the sticky pavement. Tina half-sang through her mouthful of sugar, but Evie belted it. She sang like she believed it. Like maybe she could do magic too, make the whole strange, messy day transform into something simple: just a girl and her friend, laughing at an amusement park.

Jackson leaned against the fence, smoking, watching them with that look she couldn’t yet translate. He didn’t sing. He didn’t need to. He’d already convinced her mother he was magic.

For Evie, the song branded itself into her memory. It wasn’t about rides or candy or even Jackson. It was the first time she realized that magic was always double-edged. Beautiful one moment, brutal the next.

By the time they drove home, windows rolled down to let the humid night air stick to their skin, Evie was both giddy and exhausted. She didn’t know yet that the song would follow her like a curse.

But she would.

That night, after Dorney Park, Evie fell asleep with sugar still crusted on her lips and the song still looping in her head. You can do magic… you can have anything that you desire…

Sometime in the dark, she heard a sound she’d never noticed before. A click. The quiet release of her doorknob from its plate.

It was such a small sound, barely more than a hiccup in the air, but her body logged it instantly, the way some people can detect earthquakes seconds before the tremor hits. That click would follow her for the rest of her life.

She kept her eyes closed. That was her strategy: if she looked asleep, maybe the moment would pass. But she didn’t need her eyes open to know who it was. She smelled him before she saw him — cigarettes, sweat, and the faint tang of something sour.

The rest blurred. Fragments. A hand too heavy on her wrist. The weight of expectation pressing in the dark. Her heart hammering in her ears so loudly it drowned out every other sound. The sticky taste of cotton candy still clinging to her teeth while everything else soured.

Evie focused on objects. It was the only way to survive the moment. The ridges of her blanket against her skin. The faint glow of her nightlight casting crooked shadows on the wall. The sharp edge of a pinky ring glinting in the dark. Anything but him. Anything but this.

When it was finally over, the click came again — the door shutting, as quiet as it had opened.

And then Evie broke. She slid off the bed and collapsed by her trash bin, where she threw up until there was nothing left but air and pain. Cotton candy, bile, salt — it all burned up her throat and into her nose. She curled against the bin like it was the only thing holding her together.

She stayed that way until exhaustion overtook her, her body wrung out and hollow. When she woke, sunlight was already pressing through her window, heating the room, baking the smell into the carpet, into her sheets, into her skin.

She went straight to the bathroom, climbed into the tub, and turned the faucet full blast. She scrubbed until her skin went raw, until soap stung her eyes, until the water turned from scalding to freezing and back again. She thought, just for a moment, about opening her mouth under the water and letting it drown everything out. But she didn’t.

Instead, she stood, stripped, dropped her soaked clothes in the tub, and watched the water carry away the pieces of her. Then she cleaned up. Because that was what the Harlows did: clean it up, never talk about it, pretend it never happened.

Except it had. And Evie would never forget.

Nearly a week later, Evie’s mother called her into the living room, giddy as though she’d won the lottery. Jackson was back, of course, standing in the corner like he owned the walls, cigarette dangling from his fingers, stroking it with the same absent affection he gave everything he planned to use and discard.

“This time,” her mother beamed, “Jackson brought you a gift.”

It wasn’t flowers. It wasn’t a doll. It wasn’t anything you’d expect a grown man to give a six-year-old. It was a record player. Brand new, gleaming, with a small stack of 45s balanced on top.

Jackson leaned down, picked one up, and held it out to her without breaking eye contact. Black and purple label, the A-side title glinting under the lamp.

“You can do magic,” he said, voice soft, rehearsed. “You’re such a good girl.”

Her mother clapped her hands like this was Christmas morning. “Oh, Evie, what do you say to Jackson?”

Evie’s throat closed, but the script was already written. “Thank you, Jackson.”

“Give him a hug and a kiss too,” her mother prompted, eyes shining. “What a sweet gift.”

So Evie did. Because that was survival. Because refusing wasn’t an option. Because sometimes magic tricks are just traps dressed up with smoke and mirrors.

Later, when the house was quiet again, she set the needle on the record and let the song play. You can do magic… The speakers crackled. The room spun. Cotton candy and bile clung to her memory.

For most people, a song like that is nostalgic. For Evie, it was a curse. Every time she heard it, she was back there: six years old, a record in her hands, and a lesson burned into her bones — that sometimes the sweetest gifts come with the sharpest teeth.

And she never forgot.