He paused from scraping his spoon along the bottom of his bowl. “Michael’s got excellent taste.” Peter’s soft smile encouraged her to keep talking. He was the only person who didn’t give her that look of pity, like she was some wounded dog, whenever her brothers came up.

Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Whenever we came here, he picked out all the gumballs as he ate and saved them in a little paper cup,” she explained. “After he finished all the actual ice cream, he’d shove this pile of slobbery gumballs into his mouth all at once.” Wendy crinkled her nose. “It was disgusting.” She let out a small laugh. “He would crash so hard from all the sugar, my dad would have to carry him back to the car.”

Wendy remembered Michael’s small body draped across her father’s strong arms, brown curls bobbing with every step, completely knocked out. She and John would follow behind, holding their mother’s hands and dancing along dusk’s shadows as the sun set behind the hills.

Peter laughed. “That seems like something he would do,” he mused. “Michael was always sucking all the nectar out of the honeysuckles in Neverland. Really pissed off the hummingbirds.”

Wendy put her spoon down and listened intently, eager to hear stories about being on the magical island with John and Michael.

“You gathered up all the flowers and strung them into a canopy over your bed,” he explained. “You said you liked how the light shone through the pink petals. Do you remember that?”

Wendy gave her head a small shake. “No. Not really, anyway,” she confessed. “All I ever get are flashes of Neverland, short glimpses of it in my dreams sometimes. I remember you, though you were a lot younger looking.”

Peter made a sound of acknowledgment. Clearly, the fact that his body was aging was weighing heavily on both their minds.

“The jungle,” she continued. “And a beach?”

“John really liked the beaches,” Peter told her. “We had to beat some sea lions at a game of tug-of-war to get dibs on the nicest one.” He said this like it was a completely normal, run-of-the-mill, everyday occurrence.

Wendy’s brows furrowed. “I’m still having a hard time with all this,” she confessed, dropping her voice low so no one could overhear. “It still sounds like a children’s book or something. A story.” And it had been. Several stories, ones her mother had told her, and Wendy had told her brothers, and now the kids at the hospital. “Like it’s all make-believe.”

“That’s the point, though, isn’t it?” Peter said. “Whatever you can imagine, you can do.” His tone sounded nostalgic as he stared off toward the river, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips.

Wendy wondered if he ever got homesick.