“She wasn’t a dog, John.”

“I know that, Mike.”

“We didn’t save her from a garden.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“She didn’t have paws. She didn’t bark at the moon. She didn’t make us rhubarb leaf.”

John didn’t reply this time. He knew I was being emotional.

“Why doesn’t this piss you off, John? It pisses me off.”

“The guy got it wrong, Mike, relax.”

“I can’t relax.”

“Why not?”

“Because…he got a lot right.” I read further into chapter two, then saw something else that pissed me off. “She didn’t live in a kennel, in our basement.”

After some silence, John asked. “Why do you think the guy wrote her as a dog?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “maybe she was too beautiful. Nana was good at her job, but we all knew she wasn’t certified. Maybe it was easier than admitting what she really was.”

“You have a thing for Nana, don’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your description of her, and you’ve been bitching about Barrie’s depiction for…” he checked his watch. “…going on forty minutes.”

He had a point. She left a hole in my heart, went back home a few weeks into my senior year of high school. “I am…very fond of Nana, shut up.” John leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes, his head on the armrest. I read on but remained silent. Until…

“Hey John?” I asked, a finger on the second paragraph of chapter two. “What does this mean?” I leaned in and read “‘Mrs. Darling returned to the nursey and…found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy’s shadow.’ What is that supposed to be?”

“It’s the shade that his body makes under the sun.”

“I know what a shadow is, John. I’m not stupid. What’s it supposed to be in our world?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I…remember something.”

John looked at me. “You do?”

I nodded. “It looks like a dream, but it feels…like a memory. Something…fell off the flying kid, like something legit fell off of the kid. Or did it try to flee?” I returned to the book, then scoured the pages that lead into chapter three. John sat up, then took his pipe from the coffee table. He packed a little extra this time, then placed both the pipe and the lighter in front of me. “What are you doing?”

“Hit it.”

“I don’t need to get—”

“Stop trying to force it, okay? Hit this, focus on the memory, and let your mind take over.”

I bookmarked the chapter, then took the pipe. When I was done, I passed it back to John, then let the plant take over. I steadied my breath, then reopened the book.

“Don’t force it,” John said, “Focus on the shadow, then let the rest happen.”

I focused on chapter three, then read slowly. Slowly, but surely, the room came back. My bed. John’s bed. Wendy’s bed. The open window, and the dresser next to it. The door that led out into the hall, and the sound of Dad and Mom arguing about something in the street.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I did…

I woke up an hour later. “Oh my god!”

John woke up too, looking at me from the couch. “You get something?”

“The shadow, the thing Wendy sewed back on to the kid’s foot. I think I know what it is.”

John put his glasses back on, then sat up. “What is it?

“You got a tape recorder or something?”

John went to his desk by the bookcase. He took a gray recorder from inside, threw in a fresh tape, then set it in front of me. “What is it? What did you see?”