Peter Pan Redux

I’m about eight years old and watching the Mary Martin Peter Pan special while sitting on the floor of our living room.

My mother has brought the ironing board in from its home in the kitchen so that she can iron and watch it with me.

Finally, we reach the crisis point: Tinkerbelle will die unless all the children in the audience say “I believe in fairies.”

I can feel my mother looking at me, waiting for me to speak and provide an anecdote to tell her friends about me.

But I refuse to become the raw material for cute stories of childish naiveté.

Instead, I turn my head away and say silently in my mind “I believe in fairies.”

I hope it’s sufficient.