“That was my favorite spot in the whole house,” she said, nodding to the blue-and-white-checkered seat. “I used to sit there and tell John and Michael stories before bed.”

“I know,” Peter said with a tired grin. “I spent a lot of nights listening to them just outside the window.”

“Yeah, that’s still creepy,” she told him, throwing a smile over her shoulder as she walked over to Michael’s bed. A small teddy bear sat slumped against the pillows. “I almost forgot about this little guy,” she said. She picked it up and brushed the dust off the top of its head. “Peter, this is Fuzzy Wuzzy,” she said, holding it up.

Peter gave a half bow and removed an invisible hat in greeting. “’Tis a pleasure, my good sir.”

Wendy let out a small laugh and shook her head at him. She hadn’t felt this close to her brothers in years. It was like they were in the room with her. She wanted to soak it all in. She couldn’t even imagine how perfect it was going to be to have them home.

Wendy walked over and sat on the window seat. “Michael was in love with this thing,” she said, placing the bear in her lap and moving its lumpy arms. “He took it with him everywhere. He did this weird thing where he chewed on the nose all the time, right? He did it so much that one time, when we were playing in the backyard, it popped off.” She pressed a finger to the bare space where the button nose should have been. “He was in hysterics, completely inconsolable. We must’ve looked for it for more than an hour, but we couldn’t find it.”

Peter slid to sit next to her. He tucked his hands into his pockets. “All because of a nose?” he asked with an amused look on his face.

“It was very traumatic.” Wendy nodded with a grin, bumping her shoulder against Peter’s. “I had to come up with a story about how Fuzzy Wuzzy had lost his nose in a daring lion taming–related incident,” she told him. “God, he made me tell that story at least a dozen times. Michael was always more sensitive. Then you had John, who acted like a little old man, even at ten.”

“Yeah, what’s all that stuff by his bed?” Peter asked, nodding toward it.