It is on an August evening that the young mother of three steps outside her back door to gaze at the moon. The air is warm and humid, as is typical of the land of magnolia trees and antebellum homes in late summer. There is a slight breeze, however, that foreshadows the coming season, a time filled with hayrides and visits to the pumpkin patch.
The moon hangs low over the trees, a large white orb that brings comfort as it always has, even before she saw it as a symbol of deity. August is a month of change, and she has never liked change, her life being so constantly full of it. She wants things to forever remain the same.
Her oldest child must grow up tomorrow, must leave the nursery, as Wendy told Peter Pan. The first star of the evening twinkles, and she blinks away a tear. She remembers the old rhyme and before she can stop herself, she makes a wish.
She thinks about the story of Thumbalina. What if her child were tiny enough to need her always? What if a wish could make it so? Would she make him a bed from a walnut shell and tuck him in every night? Would he long to fly away, as Thumbalina did with the fairy prince?
"All children must grow up and leave their parents," he would say, and she would know this was true. "But I'll always need you, in some way," he would tell her, and she would know this was true, too.
She leaves her thoughts where they belong and finds him ready for bed. He curls his fingers around her hair as he has always done for comfort, and she pulls him into her lap. She kisses his head and he places it on her shoulder. "I love you," she whispers.
"I love you, too, Mommy."
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