Never is an Awfully Long Time

Gone Again

Mary Darling

Mrs. Darling had been up all night. She didn’t know when the last time was that she had been restless but she concluded it must have been when Michael was still a baby. She was sure the events of that night would have put her unconscious immediately, but instead she spent hours gazing at the ceiling in complete darkness, wondering when enough time would pass until her daughter calmed down.  Wendy and George had been in small tiffs before but, at the end of the day, they would always forgive and forget. Mary feared that this would be too much for either of them to put aside, for they were both equally stubborn.

George Darling was softly snoring right next to her but she knew he had been awake for almost as long as she. It hurt him to know that his daughter would be spending the duration of her birthday crying. Earlier, he and Mary had spent some time discussing the reasoning behind Wendy’s refusal to marry.

“Does she not understand how much good will come to her if she accepts? And not only to her, I might add! Our entire family would be in the good graces of his kind!” As he spoke, George paced back and forth from the bed to the window.

“His kind?” Mary was tucked in the bed with a book in her hand. She had been trying to listen to her husband but it was hard considering he had not entirely calmed down himself.

“You know what I mean, Mary.” George had stopped pacing and was now running his hands through his hair at the windowsill. “We would be more like them.”

Mrs. Darling could not stand to hear another word from George about how what they had was never good enough. “Are you really that disappointed with our lives that you would be willing to give up Wendy’s happiness for your own satisfaction?”

“She would be happy, too.”

“Would she?” asked Mary. “

After tossing and turning for almost half of the night, George had finally drifted off only about an hour ago and Mary had no intentions of waking him. He needed rest.

Mr. and Mrs. Darling’s bedroom was located on the bottom floor for the main reason of wanting to hear when their children were awake and moving upstairs. As Mary tried once more to get comfortable, the familiar sound of moving feet convinced her she couldn’t sit still for much longer. Without waking her husband, she rose from the bed, slipped on her slippers and robe, softly opened and closed the bedroom door, and proceeded to make her way to the stairs. For some reason, with each step she took, a sickening feeling began to take place in the pit of her stomach. Up and up she went and the feeling did not go away.

She reached the top of the stairs in no time at all and chose to first check on John and Michael. Michael was known for waking up in the middle of the night with an urge to play and it wouldn’t surprise Mary at all if that were the case tonight. Very quietly, she opened the door and peered inside the dark room. How strange, she thought. Both of her boys were sleeping soundly in their beds. Mary closed the door just as gently as she had opened it and turned to face the end of the hall.

If Wendy had even woken up in the middle of the night it would have been to use the bathroom or retrieve a cold glass of water from the kitchen. When she was younger, Wendy would sometimes run downstairs in the middle of a thunderstorm in the hope of sleeping in her mother’s protecting arms. But, she hadn’t done that in years.

Mary Darling softly tiptoed to the end of the hall and tried her hardest to listen for any more signs of movement. She pressed her ear to the cold wood of Wendy’s bedroom door and tried to make out anything that would confirm her suspicions of hearing noises coming from upstairs. When nothing happened, she took a step back and concluded that her lack of sleep must be the reason she was hearing things. Turning to go, she took a step back in the other direction before continuing to...wait…why was Wendy’s light on? Before moving another inch, Mary saw the obvious glow of light seeping out from under the door. So she is awake.

Having had enough of her children’s games, Mary swiftly made her way back to Wendy’s door and wasted no time flinging it open. Expecting to see her daughter with a look of surprise on her face and an apology at her lips, Mary let out a small gasp at the sight of an empty room. Sure, there was furniture and clothes and books on the floor, but no Wendy anywhere in sight.

In that moment, Mary was sure all of the air in the room had been sucked out. How could this happen again? How could she let this happen again?

She ran over to her daughter’s bed and tried, hopelessly, to find any indication of where she went. The devastating part was the open window was the only confirmation she needed to get a full understanding of where Wendy had escaped. 

As the tears began to race down her face, she found her voice again. “George!! George come quickly, please!!” From down below, Mary could hear George falling out of bed and scrambling to reach the stairs. He had always been a light sleeper, and Mary believed that ever since her children had run off five years ago, he would never sleep easy again. It took only a mere second for him to sprint up the stairs and make his way to the light at the end of the hall. When he finally dashed through the doorway, an immediate look of dread came over his face as he looked from the open window to the sight of his wife, who now held Wendy’s favorite doll close to her chest.

Mary’s usually delicate face was now littered with tear tracks and had turned red at the brim of her nose. Her short, straining sobs heaved from her throat as she buried her eyes into the dress of the doll. As she did this, George began to take slow steps to the edge of the window and with each touch to the carpet, his heart pounded within his skin. The cold air drew him close enough to the edge so that he could overlook the landscape of their town.

He didn’t know what he expected to see when he gazed into the sky. Wendy was long gone. Just as it had been five years ago, Wendy disappeared with anger in her heart for her father and there were no traces of her whereabouts or if or when she would return.

“Do you think she will come back?” Mary Darling asked through her muffled cries. Her eyes were bloodshot and her knuckles were turning white from gripping the doll.

George slowly turns his head from the window to his wife. Her whole being wanted to cling on to any hope that her daughter would fly back through the window. George could barely stand to look at the heartbreak that would soon be on his wife’s face. “No…” He whispered, tears welling up and daring to spill over, “I don’t think Wendy will ever be back.”