"Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself."

-The Parent's Tao Te Ching

Dairine used the table to flatten a crumpled paper in front of him, smoothing the edges that wouldn't quite go flat. Harry sighed as he reached for his reading glasses in his pocket that wasn't there. He had to hold the paper far from his eyes so that the letters would focus, as well as find those glasses before work. "Dairine, this permission slip was due a week ago."

"I don't need permission to leave the solar system, why should I need permission to go to the Museum?" Dairine leaned against the counter and ripped open a package of Pop Tarts.

"You need permission because the school is liable for you when you're under their care," Harry said, resigned. Dairine was smart enough to know this. She had to know this. It obviously wasn't a concern of hers.

"And I'm liable for the universe." Dairine's mouth was full of Pop Tart and small crumbs tumbled over her lip.

"Ew, Dari," said Nita, walking into the room, bookbag slung over her shoulder. "Don't talk with your mouth full."

"This field trip is today," said Harry. "You really should have brought me this sooner. It says for you to bring a bagged lunch." Betty used to do the shopping. When Betty did the shopping, there were bagged lunches for his daughters daily.

Dairine swallowed her Pop Tart before answering, but it was clear that the gummy, sugary mixture still coated her mouth. "The teacher said we could bring money and eat in the museum cafeteria."

Harry sighed resignedly and looked over to where he emptied his pockets when he came into the house, after a long day at the flower shop. Nita was already standing there, pulling out three dollars – the cost of a school lunch – from his wallet. She handed the wallet to Dari, who pulled out ten. "We're going to be late, Squirt," said Nita, who folded the money and put it in her back pocket.

Dairine looked at the time, and jumped to attention, scooping her books off of the breakfast table into her bookbag that sat on one of the chairs. Harry looked at the time in dismay. Why were his girls always late? Nita lead the way out of the door. Dairine followed shortly, and the door swung wide. Harry got up from the table to close it behind her.

He was late to the shop. Once upon a time, Betty used to get the kids off to school. Harry used to get to the flower shop early. He used to kiss his daughter's heads as they picked at their breakfast with fingers and forks, he used to take the travel mug of coffee and cream that Betty prepared, he used to kiss his wife, take the car keys off the hook, and go to work. Betty packed lunches and backpacks, collected homework, signed papers, took meetings with teachers, counselors, principals. Betty defended the children, cared for them. Harry provided for that.

But now, Harry turned slowly and looked at the kitchen. Dishes were piled in the sink, there were unneeded papers on the table that had been left there by both of his daughters, a trash can that sorely needed to be emptied. The refrigerator was empty, and what was there was too old to consider eating. Beneath Harry's ribcage, right around his heart, something niggled.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number on the post-it taped next to the phone. It rang, and then it stopped, and line crackled when it picked up. "Hello?" said the voice on the other end.

"This is Harry Callahan. Are you busy?"

"Harry, this is Carl." Carl pushed back from his computer. He looked at his work – a deadline was looming – and he listened to Harry's voice, and decided he couldn't deny him. "What can I do for you?"

Harry didn't know exactly … he didn't know what possessed him to pick up the phone and call…. he tried to come up with a social reason … some inane small talk… but it didn't work. "Why is my daughter liable for the universe? Why doesn't she need permission to go out of the solar system? Doesn't it matter that I am her father?"

Whatever Carl had been expecting – maybe another explanation of exactly what had happened to Harry's daughters and house guests while Carl himself was no longer in possession of his wits – it wasn't that. He wasn't expecting an existential question of parenthood. Carl rocked back in office chair, and on the rock forward he stood, taking the cordless phone into the kitchen. It was before 8am. He needed another cup of coffee for this.

Carl poured a mug of coffee and listened more to the sound of the liquid filling the ceramic than the breathing on the phone. He searched for what to say. "Nita and Dairine are powerful," said Carl after a moment. The words came slowly, carefully. They were more powerful than their father, in a lot of ways. Nita once held the power to save the entire east coast in her blood – she only had to shed it. But Carl wasn't sure if the reality of that had ever been fully explained to Harry. "They need their father. You're necessary, don't think you aren't." And he was particularly necessary now that Betty had gone. Carl couldn't imagine losing Dairine and Nita as wizards. If they didn't have Harry, didn't have him as an anchor, that would have been a very real possibility. At least, Carl thought, there would be Timeheart.

"Nita used to be bullied," Harry said. He was strung to the wall with a cord that he wrapped around his wrist to pull it straight, so that he could sit back down at the table, to sip the coffee that Dairine had prepared. Perhaps that was what had made her late. He leaned on the table with his hand on his forehead, and he peered into his coffee cup like there might be answers hidden in the depths.

"I put her in self-defense classes, did everything I could to raise her self-esteem, everything I could to make her strong, and nothing worked. She kept bringing home bruises. I couldn't do anything. But then she found that book, she toke that Oath, she becomes this wizard and she isn't bullied anymore." Why had he tried so hard to make Nita fight for herself? If Harry understood correctly, she could fight tooth and nail, hours and days at a time for the universe, but she couldn't stand up for herself. "I wasn't necessary there."

Carl looked out the window above the kitchen sink, he looked out into the yard where the dogs were napping near the edges of the pond. He didn't know that made him think of it, and he didn't know if it was the right thing to say. But he said it; he quoted the parent's Tao Te Ching. "Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness."

Harry closed his eyes, he shut out the world, he shut out the light and he heard Carl's voice speak the words he didn't want to hear. "Carl?" he asked, pained.

"It's a poem," said Carl, coming out of his reverie enough to realize that what he had said was probably not the gentlest advice. "Do you want to hear the rest?"

"Sure." Harry sighed, and the tips of his fingers gripped the table without slipping, turning white. What did he have to lose? His daughters left the solar system without his permission. He could hear a poem.

Carl paged through his manual, asking its help to find the right thing. There it was, plain as day on the page. He picked up reading from where he had stopped reciting. "Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life." Carl heard Harry scoff on the other end of the phone. Harry lived the ordinary life. "Wizards, young wizards, love what they do. We all do, Harry, or we wouldn't do it. But sometimes… we wish for the ordinary."

"It isn't ordinary to leave the solar system more regularly than you go to the museum." Harry was in a foul mood. Foul. He realized it, and it wasn't right to take it out on Carl. "You didn't deserve that," he said.

Carl couldn't fathom how he would feel in Harry's position. In a way, Carl was glad he would never have children – the young wizards he mentored were more than he could handle some days. But… Harry was missing the point. "Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears," he continued, his reading voice apparent. Carl knew that Nita loved fruit – much like her father loved anything of plants. He knew that Nita's original specialization, her ability to commune with living things, came from her father, but Carl didn't know how much Harry knew of that.

"Show them how to cry when pets and people die." Carl sunk into the chair that he had been standing by, his manual open on his kitchen table, his coffee cooling beside the book. Carl and Tom had gone to Betty's funeral. "They know how to cry, Harry," he said softly. "They know how mourn loss." Harry bit his knuckle. His chest tightened, the image of his beautiful wife swam in his vision, and he couldn't help it. A tear ran down his cheek. Carl took a shuddering breath, and continued. "Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them."

Harry wished that Betty was there; her hands, her touch. That she was there to comfort him, and together they could figure out how to deal with their girls. He hoped that their example would be enough for both Nita and Dairine. He hoped that Nita would come to realize what she already had, and that Dairine would let someone in – would trust someone to be close. Betty made the ordinary alive. Betty danced through their home with laundry baskets on her hip; Betty sang songs, and made them all laugh.

"The extraordinary will take care of itself," said Carl. He finished the poem with a note of finality. "You have extraordinary daughters, Harry. You should be proud. Betty would be proud. They are extraordinary all by themselves… make the ordinary your domain." Carl sat at his kitchen table; his phonebook sized manual open in front of him, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other gaining the warmth of his coffee cup. Carl was a wizard, extraordinary by definition.

Harry, across the small suburban town, similarly sat; the cord of the phone was wrapped around his wrist, his coffee long cold in front of him. No book. Harry was ordinary by any measure. He had put on a good face for the houseguests, his sister, the world. But there was a reason the fridge was empty, there was a reason the dishes piled in the sink. He didn't want to take Betty's role. He didn't know how to fill that gap. Carl was offering him a way. "The extraordinary will take care of itself," Harry repeated.

His extraordinary daughters needed him for the ordinary. Dairine would have been stuck in school all day if he hadn't signed that permission slip. Nita would eat all her meals at Kit's house if Harry didn't buy the groceries. They needed him to be anchors for their extraordinary.

"Yes," said Carl. "It'll take care of itself." He smiled, softly, looking out of the glass door where the dogs were asking to be let in. "In fact, you may want to make sure the homework gets done before anyone goes leaving the house, let alone the solar system. Even wizards have to get jobs, which means looking after your GPA."

"Thanks," said Harry. "Listen, Carl, I'm late for work." Harry stood, and began wandering around the kitchen as far as the cord would carry him. He loaded the full dishwasher with soap, and set it to running. "Can I call you some other time?" He located his wallet from where his daughters left it, and put it into his pocket. His glasses. Where were his reading glasses?

"Sure," said Carl. "I have to get back to my article anyway. It's due to Time by five." Carl opened the door and let the dogs in, their nails sliding across the ceramic tile floors.

"I'm sorry I kept you talking, then," said Harry, lifting his keys off the hook near the door. "You and Tom should come over for dinner sometime soon."

"We'd like that," said Carl. "Bye, then." He stood still in the kitchen, the dogs yipping at his feet, demanding attention.

"Thank you," said Harry. He hung up the phone, took a pen and wrote a note twice. One, he put on the television, the other on the refrigerator. Both said the same thing: Girls, we're going to have to talk tonight about the way this house is run. Do your homework!