Crossing Over
Wendy sat in the quiet nursery. It was one of those still spring nights which seem designed for reflection and thought, when any sort of wild romp would be wrong and disruptive. The sort of night on which she would kept the boys inside and told them stories, not of adventures and battles, but of soft winds and whispering trees. And though they would never admit it, she found those stories wrapped in their minds most carefully of all.
Of course, the nursery was also quiet because Jane was gone. Wendy's husband had rather modern ideas, and when Jane's questions had become more searching and intelligent, he had decided that the girl had Potential and was to get an Education. Jane was now at a boarding school by the sea and let her contentment at her new residence be known by a total lack of interest in communicating with her parents, preferring to spend her time learning and swimming and generally having a far better time than a girl of her age would be having in London.
Wendy had always thought of herself as a modern sort of person too, but Jane's absence weighed on her heavily and she longed for the old days. But there was nothing to be done but to sit by the nursery window and wait for summer.
Luckily the nursery was not so quiet as it might have been. Two babies had come the previous year, and Wendy felt comforted by their presence, comforted that the nursery would not be emptied for many long years. They had come together, but Wendy never called them twins. Twins were alike as two apples, like the Twins who still sometimes visited on Sundays, and these two, boy and girl, large and small, placid and fretful, were as different as could be. Tonight the nurse had gone off to do who-knew-what (Nana had never expected every other Thursday off, Wendy thought with a sniff) and Wendy was sitting up with little Anna, whose forehead was hot.
The large window rattled, and Wendy, so grown-up as she was, smiled at imagining that it was anything but the wind. But then it rattled again and she looked up and there he was.
She had been so afraid he would come this year, when Jane was gone. He would be so disappointed, and would not understand. Jane was his mother, and that was more important than anything. Now she admitted that that was the real reason she had sat in the nursery on this perfect spring night and not in her own room, in case he came.
She rose to open the window. "Hello, Peter."
He landed without a sound on the floor, light-footed as ever. In a panic, she decided to talk before he asked.
"I am afraid Jane cannot come for spring-cleaning this year, Peter. She is pretending that it is still winter and had gone to play in the snow. And you know it would be no use to have a mother for spring-cleaning if it is still winter for her."
She had quite expected Peter to accept this; after all, pretend and real were so often the same to him. He would fly off, promising to return tomorrow when Jane's game had finished, and he would return another time, maybe in time for Jane and maybe not.
But Peter did not nod his understanding, giving the game his stamp of approval. Nor did he fly into the rage Wendy had most feared. He shook his head, causing his wild curls to shake in the night air, and said, "I've come for her." He pointed to the crib, where Anna lay with a wet cloth on her forehead.
Wendy laughed. "Oh, Peter! Anna is far too small to be your mother. She is but a baby; she cannot tell stories or sew or do anything that you would want." She smiled and drew the silly boy onto her lap. And then she looked down.
"Oh my boy, why are you crying?" And she was so upset in that moment that she quite missed the echo of their first meeting. The tears shone like jewels, and one somehow felt that the world would shatter if they fell.
"Oh, Wendy! I am not here for a mother." The tears flowed, each one breaking Wendy's heart. "I am here to Show the Way."
For one blissful moment, Wendy did not understand him. And then her own mother's voice echoed in her ears, telling her the very first stories of Peter Pan, long before that Friday night, when the Neverland was only visited in dreams. She had told her that Peter went with children when they died, that he showed them the Way.
"No! No, Peter! You cannot do this; she only has a little fever. Look, I will give her some medicine and she will be fine!"
Peter's tears flowed ever stronger. "I'm sorry, Wendy. Truly I am. But it is not mine to decide. I only came to make sure she would not be scared."
"Please, Peter! May I not go in her place?" Wendy had sunk to the floor and drawn her nightgown around her.
"This is Anna's adventure. You will see her when you start your own adventure."
She ran to the cradle and caught the babe up in her arms, holding her away from Peter, who she had never seen look so small. "No, she is mine. You cannot take her."
"She is not lost. You will see her soon." Peter's uncharacteristically kind words were belied by his wet cheeks and heaving shoulders.
And suddenly Wendy knew that Peter shared her pain, felt the loss of Anna as keenly as she ever could herself. Those precious shining tears described this moment as no words ever would. She ran to comfort her boy. For a few moments, Mother, Boy and Baby embraced and cried together.
When she let go, Peter was still crying. And suddenly, there were two Anna's; one in her arms and one in his. And Peter's Anna was laughing and seemed so excited to be going away on her adventure like Sister Jane. And now Wendy knew that she would grieve for Anna as her own mother had longed for her when she was on the Neverland, but the time would pass as nothing for the little girl until her mother joined her. She would be happy; the suffering was Wendy's. And Peter's; she must not forget that. Peter had also cried for her.
She laid down Anna's old home of a body in the crib and turned back to Peter, who was turning towards the window. "Peter?"
"Yes?" He seemed stiff and uncomfortable, not knowing what to say.
"When the time comes, will you come to show me the way? Please."
"I only come for children. But you were my mother. Maybe."
Wendy nodded; that would have to be good enough for now. "Goodbye, Peter. Take care of my baby."
She turned away; she did not want to watch him leave. She cried, but the tears seemed empty and hollow now. She waited for her husband to return.
When she looked in the mirror the next day, she saw Peter in her face, in the same way he appeared in the faces of women with no children. It was the shadow of immeasurable sorrow, the dark side of childhood's boundless mirth.
"Oh mother" she said. "How could you have borne it when we were all gone away?"