In my backyard, there was magic. Small, dark rectangles scattered the patio floor. Hidden inside the sprawling pink trumpet vine sat a light green caterpillar, decorated with purple stripes. Manduca rustica. Its nubby hands held the plant stems tight. My mother and I gently pried the squishy mass off. We took leaves and sticks to make a habitat in a plastic container. We were self-made scientists. Our caterpillar devoured wilted greens before turning dark purple.

       My mother never remembered seeing a hanging cocoon and had the idea to place our caterpillar into a pot of soil. Sure enough, our caterpillar dug down, out of sight. It had been days. We were too curious, too eager. We dug into the soil to find our caterpillar.

       The cocoon had just started to break. A sliver of a wing and antennae inside. I wanted to help. My fingers broke through the dark chrysalis. I expected a monarch or the two-tailed swallow butterfly I saw swaying among wild, purple blooms. Instead, we got a moth. The rustic sphinx. This was the same moth we watched beat itself against the window at night, craving the light inside our home.

       It was a confused little thing as it existed in its new body. I tried to encourage flight, throwing it in the air hoping instinct would take over. Its wings never opened. It didn’t survive the night. We never made a caterpillar ours again.