Wendy thinks back on that first night with Ned, their wedding. It seems a lifetime ago. They’d been strangers, but Ned had reached across the gap, taken a chance on her. She’s never given anyone his secret, but is withholding her own worse?
After reading the letters, Wendy had asked Ned whether there had ever been anyone besides Henry, and he’d told her no. Awkward and blushing to even think of it, she’d told him she wouldn’t mind if there was. He’d told her the same, and they’d laughed together at their nervousness, their embarrassment. That was the moment, Wendy thinks, that she’d begun to love him. Not as a husband, but as a friend. One of her best friends.
Those early days of their relationship had been a careful negotiation, but never had things turned bitter between them. There had been no jealousy. They rarely fought. Tension only ever came with his father’s presence in their home, and then he was a shadow over them both.
They’d even entered into parenthood the way they had entered into their marriage, as partners. When Jane had arrived, she’d increased the love between them. Mary had taken to Jane immediately, too, just as she’d taken to Ned. She became something like a sister to Ned, something between a sister and an aunt to Jane.
When she was young, Wendy and Ned had carefully instructed Jane to call Mary by the title Cook rather than her name, lest she slip up when Ned’s father was around. It hurt Wendy’s heart to do it, but Mary, for her part, had seemed amused. Alone in their home, Mary had them all in gales of side-splitting laughter with her spot-on impression of Ned’s father. Together, they were happy. A family by choice.
And even so, through all the years, Wendy held Neverland close and never let a bit of it go. Not to her daughter. Not to her husband. Even now she isn’t certain why. A childish thing, a desire to hold some part of herself in reserve, to control her truth after so many years of lies? Or were her motives worse? Had a tiny part of her left her daughter unguarded, bait, in hopes that Peter would return?
A sound at the parlor door draws Wendy’s attention. Mary enters carrying a tray laden with tea. She sets it down and sits, and Wendy reaches automatically for the pot, pouring for both of them. It’s a moment before Wendy notices the uncharacteristic straightness of Mary’s posture. The weight of words hangs about her, and Wendy’s stomach clenches even before Mary opens her mouth.
“This isn’t a good time for this, but there won’t be a good time, really,” Mary says, blunt and forging onward. “A place has recently come up for sale that would be perfect for my shop. I know it isn’t the best time to open up a business, but I’ve saved up most of the money I need, and the location is too perfect to let go. I’ve already spoken to Ned, and he’s agreed to help me talk to the bank to get me a loan for the rest. I’m not officially giving you my notice yet. The place will take a while to get ready, but I just wanted you to know now rather than later. I like to get unpleasant conversations over as quickly as possible.”
Mary keeps her gaze locked on Wendy’s, her mouth twisting in a wry smile at her last words. Even now, Mary is needling her, and she knows Mary is right—unpleasant conversations are best gotten over with as quickly as possible, rather than leaving them to fester. At the same time, Wendy sees the brave face on the words, the fear behind them. She knew this day would come; it’s long past time, and yet she still can’t help feeling as though another part of her is being ripped away.
Wendy had been heartbroken enough when earlier this year Mary had expressed her desire to move into a small rented room of her own. She’d come to Ned and Wendy both with her plan, assuring them she could afford the rent and still set aside money to build the life she wanted for herself, everything balanced out. Mary living with them was always meant to be temporary. Wendy understood, of course she did—Mary had never had a life and space of her own, carried by her mother’s marriage across the sea, locked away in an asylum. Now Wendy thinks perhaps Mary had been trying to prepare her for this moment, making her departure by degrees so it would hurt less for both of them.
“It won’t change anything,” Mary had told her then. “We’re still family.”
Wendy had struggled to believe it then. She struggles still to believe it now. But once upon a time, she had believed she wouldn’t survive leaving St. Bernadette’s and not seeing Mary every single day. She had survived that, and their relationship had only grown stronger. She will survive this too, and it will be the same. Living apart from them, working apart from them, living her own life fully—it is what Mary deserves. And Wendy trusts that Mary will still choose them, they will choose each other, as they always have. The love that binds them all now will keep them together, always. “Actually,” Mary says, looking down at her hands, “I’ve had the money for a while, but I’ve been a coward.”
If Mary has been a coward, then Wendy has been a bigger one. She’s leaned on Mary for too long, and if Mary leaned back, it was never as heavily.
“You’ll be brilliant.” The words come too fast, and Wendy feels tears wanting to rise. “I mean, you taught me to cook, after all. If you can do that,
