Page 28 of Never Landing

I nodded.

“Great. Same time?”

“I think so, if it’s okay with Everett.”

“I’ll double check with him.”

She opened the door, and he was sitting there in the waiting room just like he’d promised. He got up when we came out, fidgeting a little like he wanted to ask about what he’d missed but didn’t think he should.

“Everything okay?” he said.

I nodded. I felt kind of empty and tired, but not bad.

“I don’t have any more clients today,” Dr. Hawking said, “so if you have a couple minutes, I’d love to have a word with you, Everett.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Sure.” He patted his pockets, almost like he thought he’d forgot something. “Will you be okay for a minute, Peter?”

“Yup.”

I sank into the chair he’d been sitting in. It was pretty comfortable, still warm from his butt.

Everett had a cute butt.

I smiled as I leaned down in it. I’d just shut my eyes for a minute until it was time to go.

17

Everett

For some reason, I felt like I’d been called to the principal’s office at school.

No, not some reason. I knew why. Because Peter was a child, and she was about to tell me that my love for him was too much. Codependent and way out of line and inappropriate and?—

“Are you planning on staying in Cider Landing?”

That hadn’t been the first question I’d expected. “I—” Heck, I hadn’t even thought about it. “I own a house here. But I’m—I’m having trouble finding anyone who’s willing to come out and fix what’s wrong with it. We’re talking some pretty bad stuff, not just leaky pipes or a broken window. Part of the roof looks like it’s about to cave in.”

She didn’t respond, just continued to sit there, waiting for her answer.

“I want to,” I finally admitted. “I want to fix up my grandmother’s house and stay there. I just don’t—I don’t have any clue how I’m going to do that. I’m an artist. It’s not exactly a thriving small town job market.”

At that, her expression finally changed, going sympathetic. “That’s an understandable concern. And frankly, so is finding a contractor, or even a simple handyman here in Cider Landing.Hal Logan retired last year, and he was the only one. Since then, everyone has a broken something and a breaking something else, and we’re far enough from any larger city that it’s hard to get people to come out. But you have to be firm in your choice here. Peter needs an absolute.”

“You’re not bothered by—by us?”

Oh shit, that had been a terrible way to put it, hadn’t it? She was going to think I was some kind of?—

She was smiling, though, and it wasn’t some kind of enigmatic thing that I had to guess what it meant, but sympathetic and understanding. “I’m not going to pretend this dynamic would be the healthiest thing for most people. You’re literally the center of Peter’s world, and that’s downright dangerous for anyone. For both of you. And eventually, yes, I’d like to see him expand that circle to include other people. You too, since what you’ve said implies maybe yours isn’t so big either. But I don’t think I need to explain that this situation is unique. I’ve only seen a few lost children manage to make it back, and it’s an immense struggle. The real world sets in, and it’s very easy to look back to the woods and think...things were a lot easier out there.”

It was easy to imagine. It was what every single adult I knew dealt with, daily. How many jokes and memes were there about people wanting to go back to the days when they didn’t have bills, or jobs, or a need for therapy? I myself had longed for my time with Peter constantly, despised my job and my apartment and...well, everything.

Meanwhile, Peter had proof beyond doubt that he could just run back into the woods and play forever. He’d done it.

I swallowed hard and nodded. “You’re basically saying if I plan to leave, to go right now instead of dragging it out and hurting him in his recovery.”

Her grimace was apologetic, but she nodded anyway. “It doesn’t help either of you, for you to walk out in the middle of this. Our experience with lost children is that they have an incredibly accelerated adolescence, because their muddled memories start to come back. They don’t get to the age they would have been, which in this case is a good thing, but they do catch up with things they’ve missed. We had a young lady a few years ago who was married three years after leaving the woods, and it was a very healthy progression from lost to marriage for her. But it’s fast and enormous and...entirely related to the person she came out of the woods for.”

I took a moment to consider that, and realized what she was saying.

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