I went out for a walk in the park so I wouldn’t run into him. When I got there, I sat down on a bench buried deep in the undergrowth between a fountain and the trees in one of Detroit’s green spaces. Despite the low temperatures, lots of people were out walking their dogs, while sportier types jogged by briskly. And, of course, there were the couples snapping pictures of one another and kissing on those benches that were hidden in the shade of the trees.
I grinned because I had always loved coming here to enjoy the peaceful outdoors along with a good book. Today, I broughtPeter and Wendyby J. M. Barrie—the very book that first set me on my path in New York.
That journey, however, had ended too soon, before I even had a chance to read a page of the famous work. In fact, with everything that had happened at my father’s house, I had pressed pause on my reading. But I stillloved reading any genre, any period, though my favorites were the classics likePeter Pan. I had heard great things about Barrie’s masterpiece. I’d read that the driving force behind the story was the fusion of reality with fantasy. Thus, surrounded by greenery, I felt a powerful urge to sink into Peter Pan’s enchanted world and return to the familiar ease of childhood. One could say I was a little too old for a book like that, but, just then, I needed it.
“‘It was because I heard Father and Mother,’ he explained in a low voice, ‘talking about what I was to be when I became a man.’ He was extraordinarily agitated now. ‘I don’t want ever to be a man,’ he said with passion. ‘I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long, long time among the fairies.’”
I read those lines under my breath and paused to consider the character. Peter Pan was a complicated figure. To begin with, he was a very cocky little boy who did nothing but talk himself up. He lived in isolation with the Lost Boys, and that was why he tried to get Wendy to follow him to Neverland—he was trying to compensate for their lack of any feminine presence. Then, using all his cleverness and powers of persuasion, he managed to convince her to leave her parents behind and go with him.
But Peter also had an authoritarian streak, to say the least. He made the rules and forced all the Lost Boys to follow them. He was very blunt and said whatever came into his head, which sometimes made for ridiculousness or contradictions because he wasn’t always able to separate reality from his imagination. He was the quintessential child: sometimes irresponsible, sometimes bursting with creativity and a need to live in the moment, never holding back.
He was buzzing with vitality, just like Neil.
“May I?” An elderly woman with a limp and a cane to support her frail, weary body gestured if she could sit next to me. I smiled and moved to make room for her. She had a kind face with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her cheeks were a bit hollow, and her eyes were silvery gray.
A light breeze ruffled a lock of my hair and flipped the pages of my book, making me lose my place.
“Oh,Peter and Wendy?” The old woman glanced curiously at my book, and I showed her the cover.
“That’s the one,” I answered.
“Interesting,” she noted, a sweet tone in her voice. “Do you know why the protagonist is named Peter Pan?” She rested her cane on the bench next to her and adjusted the nice blue dress she had on under the long coat she wore to protect her from the cold.
“I don’t, actually,” I admitted.
“Some say it’s a reference to the Greek god Pan, who was half man and half goat. According to the old stories, he was strongly associated with sexuality, like Dionysus. In fact, he was often depicted with a really big…” She glanced around furtively and then cupped a hand around her mouth to whisper, “phallus.”
I giggled and blushed. This old lady was wild. Imagine that: In a park full of people, I managed to attract the hopefully harmless eccentric and local J. M. Barrie expert.
Since she was already on the topic, I thought I’d ask more about the connection between the god Pan and the character Peter Pan. “And what—” was as far as I got before she continued talking.
“Pan—the god, I mean—had trouble finding a mate due to his appearance and his small stature, so he would vent his reproductive urges through masturbation. And also sexual violence,” she said, keeping her voice low in deference to the delicate topics she was discussing. I shifted uncomfortably, wondering just where this conversation was going. But then I began to wonder if there wasn’t a connection between my book, the god Pan, and even this old lady who was telling me all of this. I was a firm believer in destiny, and I began to think that this was fate trying to draw my attention to something.
“So, the author was inspired by this god Pan to write a children’s story?” I asked, interested despite myself. It didn’t make much sense to me, and my skepticism was tangible, but the lady just nodded.
“According to some scholars, there are many points of commonality between Peter Pan and the god Pan: Both are only partially human, and they both suffer a rejection from their maternal figure, albeit in different ways. They also then go out and live in the wild with strange creatures, and they’re both divine flutists.” She raised a single pedantic finger as thoughto underscore this concept, and I began to doubt that any of this was what Barrie had been thinking, but I just nodded. I didn’t want to argue with this strange woman’s claims, which were increasingly inappropriate for a public park.
“Why are you reading that work, dear?” she inquired, scrutinizing my appearance.
“A while ago, I went to this bookstore looking for something to read, and this book literally fell at my feet, out of nowhere,” I explained, delighting again in the memory of walking into that beautiful New York bookstore.
“Sometimes a good book can be the reason for all reasons. The answer to all answers.” She glanced down at the book resting on my legs. Then she looked back at my face, smiling in that sweet way that reminded me so much of Grandma Marie.
I even imagined I could smell her perfume in the air. I sighed; my brain must have been playing tricks.
I chatted for a while longer with the old woman—fortunately, we changed the subject—before I noticed that it was time to go. Reluctantly, I told her goodbye and headed home.
Since everything that happened in New York hadn’t changed anything between us, I thought it was pointless for my father to keep trying. But there he was, in my house. Waiting for me.
I threw open the front door and tucked my keys in my pocket, leaving my purse on the rack next to me. I sniffed the air in the living room and detected the strong smell of my father’s cologne.
I screwed up the necessary patience before following my parents’ voices into the living room. Not so much as a flicker of surprise crossed my face when I caught Matt standing in the middle of the room with a glass of wine in one hand and the other stuffed into the pocket of his elegant trousers.
My mother, meanwhile, sat on the sofa with a tray of snacks situated on the table between them. That and a bottle of wine served as a backdrop to this scene of two ex-lovers who were now chuckling and chatting as if they had never gone to war with each other.
I heaved a sigh and looked to my mother, who shot me a dirty look indicating that I should watch my mouth.
Matt, for his part, drained the last drop from his wineglass and stooped to put it back on the table before he turned his dark eyes to me like a sharpshooter acquiring a target.
