Page 46 of Losing Wendy

As I peer around the corner, I’m shocked to find Michael isn’t alone.

Michael’s standing across from Peter, who’s pulled up a little stool and perched upon it. Peter’s a large enough man that it hardly makes him eye level with Michael, but it’s pretty close.

I tense up, immediately distrustful of this interaction. Peter can be cruel, and even if Michael is less than likely to pick up on the subtlety of Peter’s humor, I’ve always despised it when people talk to Michael as if he’s not in the room. As if he doesn’t understand.

“We don’t know that he doesn’t understand us,” I remember telling my father one day. “Even if he doesn’t always grasp the meaning of the words or the metaphor, he picks up a lot through our pitch.”

But there’s nothing mocking in Peter’s voice as he plays with Michael.

Michael’s gotten his hands on a wooden toy train, but instead of placing it on the tracks, he’s disconnected all the boxes, leaving the majority of the train in a horizontal line on the floor. The caboose has always been his favorite. He’s got it upside down in one hand, spinning the wheels as fast as he can with the other.

I wait for Peter to take it from him, to try to make him put the train back together and play with it “the right way”—on the tracks.

Instead, Peter just takes the train engine from Michael’s line, flips it upside down in his hand, and starts spinning the wheels along with Michael. At first, Michael pays him no mind. But then something extraordinary happens. Without looking at Peter, Michael sets the caboose to the side and takes the engine from Peter’s hands, testing out those wheels, too.

It’s complicated to explain why that snags on my heart like itdoes. I know it’s silly, tearing up over Michael paying attention to the engine of the train instead of the caboose. But there’s something about Michael wanting to explore an object because someone else did that has my heart twisting up.

Eventually, Michael goes down the line of the train cars, testing the wheels of all of them. I watch as Peter sneaks away the last car, popping the wheels off and hiding them behind his back before returning it to the line. When Michael reaches the broken toy, he stares at it, unblinking.

The two of them sit in the quiet for so long, it takes everything in me not to jump from the shadows and give Michael the words to ask for help, like I’m so used to doing.

But then he pushes the toy into Peter’s lap and says, “Do you want me to fix it?”

A smile brushes across my lips. Michael’s always used questions that way, but I don’t have to explain as much to Peter.

“Let me fix it for you,” Peter says, snapping the wheels back into place.

“It’s all better now,” Michael whispers, smiling pleasantly as he continues to play with the wheels.

It’s so odd watching him. It’s not that people outside the family have never attempted to play with Michael. It’s just that, typically, they have a set way they think Michael should play, and they can’t seem to understand when he isn’t interested. Why would he not toss a ball back and forth with them or make the horse go to sleep in the barn, when that’s how other children might do it? They mean well, of course. Everyone wants to teach Michael something. But sometimes I wonder if perhaps Michael might have more to say than others give him credit for.

I can remember countless men attempting to court me, boring me to tears with the state of their financial conquests. Often, I found I had nothing to say, not because I couldn’t possibly communicate about such things, but simply because I had so little interest, my will to converse about such things dried up.

So I watch in wonder as Peter plays with Michael, yet allows my brother to take the lead.

“Wendy Darling wants to play,” says Michael, and I jolt in place. I didn’t realize he knew I was here, and I’m not sure I love Michael calling me by my full name like Peter does, but I emerge from the shadows, nonetheless.

“Of course I want to play.”

Peter offers a hand, and when I take it hesitantly, he pulls me to the ground next to him.

“Michael here was just showing me a new way to play with the train set,” he says. “I must say, I’m rather partial to it.”

“The Lost Boys are on an adventure.” Michael tosses the train to the side. Taking a stick from the ground, he jabs Peter in the torso like it’s a sword.

I don’t see him do that often—pretend with objects that don’t look exactly like what they’re trying to be. I can’t help the smile that encroaches on my lips.

Once Peter is sufficiently stabbed, Michael loses interest in playing with us and grabs his pile of stick swords, retreating to the corner to play quietly, organizing them from shortest to longest.

Just then, Benjamin strides into the room, a knife and oblong block of wood in hand. “Oh, great! Michael is playing with the swords,” he says, bouncing on his heels as a smile stretches across his deep brown cheeks. He turns to me to explain. “Those are too small for the rest of us to spar with. Beginner mistake on my part. But I’m so glad Michael’s here now to play with them. It would have been dreadful if all that hard work had gone to waste. I can’t help but notice that he likes the train set I made as an experiment two months ago. Perhaps, if he prefers toys with wheels, I can craft him a wagon as well.”

“Benjamin here is a genius with a blade,” says Peter. “He made all of our spoons and bowls.”

“And forks,” corrects Benjamin.

Peter smiles softly. “Those too.”

When the conversation lulls to silence, Benjamin turns towardMichael. “I noticed he doesn’t talk much, but when he does, he uses quite peculiar turns of phrase. Peter says I didn’t talk until I was five, but that I make up for it now.”

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