Eventually, you stop looking for him.
You stop turning every time you feel a draught on a still night. You stop catching your breath every time you hear a noise in an empty room. You stop squinting at the night sky, trying to make out a dark shape against the stars.
You almost convince yourself that it never happened. That a boy never flew into your room, desperate for a shadow and for stories. That you never took his hand and flew miraculously above the sleeping London streets. That you never befriended Indians, nor battled pirates.
But you hold his acorn button in your hand ("His kiss," part of you still whispers) and wait.
You wait.
Years pass, and you stop waiting.
The world changes, and you change. You meet a kind, sensible man, and he tells you he loves you, and it is enough. You name your first daughter Jane, and you tell her stories. Wonderful stories, like the ones your mother told you when you were small.
And you tell her about Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. You tell her about his home, second star to the right and straight on till morning. You tell her about a group of boys with no mothers, and a man with a hook instead of a hand, and an impertinent fairy, and a crocodile with a clock in its belly.
And then one night, as you tuck your daughter into bed, there is a rap at the window, and he is back. He balances on the windowsill, and he looks just as you remember: crooked grin, devilish eyes, and an air of mischief. And he asks you to go with him.
It is as if no time has passed at all, and your heart aches for all the things that could have been.
But your daughter is not quite asleep, and your husband is in the other room, and you are too old, too old, too Grown Up.
Jane goes with him, as you knew she would. He bewitches her, as he bewitched you, with stories of his island and of the adventures she'll have there. You know you cannot stop her, but you also know she'll be back, that as magical as Neverland is, it's not a place you can really live.
You close the window, and, as you have done so many nights before, you search the sky before turning and extinguishing the lights.