up and brushed the dust off the top of its head. “Peter, this is Fuzzy Wuzzy,” she said, holding it up.
Peter gave a half bow and removed an invisible hat in greeting. “’Tis a pleasure, my good sir.”
Wendy let out a small laugh and shook her head at him. She hadn’t felt this close to her brothers in years. It was like they were in the room with her. She wanted to soak it all in. She couldn’t even imagine how perfect it was going to be to have them home.
Wendy walked over and sat on the window seat. “Michael was in love with this thing,” she said, placing the bear in her lap and moving its lumpy arms. “He took it with him everywhere. He did this weird thing where he chewed on the nose all the time, right? He did it so much that one time, when we were playing in the backyard, it popped off.” She pressed a finger to the bare space where the button nose should have been. “He was in hysterics, completely inconsolable. We must’ve looked for it for more than an hour, but we couldn’t find it.”
Peter slid to sit next to her. He tucked his hands into his pockets. “All because of a nose?” he asked with an amused look on his face.
“It was very traumatic.” Wendy nodded with a grin, bumping her shoulder against Peter’s. “I had to come up with a story about how Fuzzy Wuzzy had lost his nose in a daring lion taming–related incident,” she told him. “God, he made me tell that story at least a dozen times. Michael was always more sensitive. Then you had John, who acted like a little old man, even at ten.”
“Yeah, what’s all that stuff by his bed?” Peter asked, nodding toward it.
There was a collage of magazine, newspaper, and online articles printed out and tacked to the wall. “Oh, that,” Wendy said. “John was fascinated by things that scientists and archaeologists found at the bottom of the ocean. Shipwrecks, evidence of underwater cities, stuff like that,” she explained. “Whenever he found those stories, he would cut or print them out and then hang them up on the wall. He wants to be an underwater archaeologist when he grows up—or he used to, anyway. I have no idea if that’s still true.” Wendy frowned. It was strange to consider that her brothers had grown and changed enough that maybe she had no idea what they were like now.
“When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?” Peter asked. His tone was quiet, eyes locked onto Wendy’s with his head tipped curiously to the side. He sucked on the puffy cut on his lip.
“A nurse, like my mom,” Wendy said with a shrug. “I think most kids want to be like their parents when they grow up. And a nurse was a far more interesting option than a banker,” she added with a crinkle of her nose.
“And what about now?”
“Hmm,” Wendy hummed to herself, absentmindedly rubbing the bear’s ear between her fingers. She thought of all the forms and pamphlets back in her room. Of the academic roadmap she’d made for a nursing degree. Of the unfinished one for premed. “I don’t think I know yet,” she confessed. “Maybe a doctor?” A thrill ran up her spine. It was the first time she’d said it out loud. “But I haven’t decided. That’s what college is for, right?”
Peter’s expression fell and he busied himself with examining his palm.
“What about you?” Wendy asked, trying to bring him back.
“Me?” Peter said, furrowing his brow. He let out a small laugh that lacked any humor.
“Yeah, did you ever have dreams about growing up?” she persisted.
Peter shook his head. “No, I can’t grow up—or I wasn’t supposed to, anyway,” he said, looking down at himself.
“But everyone thinks about possible futures for themselves,” she said. “There wasn’t anything you wanted to be? Other than just yourself?”
“No, I never had that feeling,” he told her. “I was Peter Pan, the boy who never had to grow up. I got to live in Neverland and anything I could think up, I could become. A pirate, an explorer, a scuba diver,” he listed, staring out the window. “Growing up meant responsibilities: school, jobs, getting old and eventually dying—”
“But you had all those lost kids to look after,” Wendy pointed out. “That’s a big responsibility, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s still fun,” he countered. He chewed on the