Gwendy's Magic Feather

26

MR. PETERSON IS PREPARING chicken and dumplings for dinner, Gwendy’s favorite, and the three of them catch up on everything from the two missing girls to across-the-street neighbor Betty Johnson’s sudden conversion to bleach blonde to the New England Patriots three-game losing streak. Mrs. Peterson, looking better than Gwendy has seen her look in months, complains about still needing to take daily naps and her husband’s constant coddling, but she does so with a grateful smile and an affectionate squeeze of Mr. Peterson’s forearm. She’s wearing a different wig tonight—a shade darker and a couple inches longer—than the one she was wearing the last time Gwendy was home, and it not only makes her look healthier, it makes her appear years younger. Her face lights up when Gwendy tells her so.

“Any more news from Ryan?” Mrs. Peterson asks, as her husband gets up and goes into the kitchen to silence the oven timer.

“Not since he called two nights ago,” Gwendy says.

“You still think he’ll make it home in time for Christmas?”

Gwendy shakes her head. “I don’t know, Mom. It all depends on what happens over there. I’ve been keeping an eye on the news but they haven’t reported much yet.”

Mr. Peterson walks into the dining room carrying a plate stacked high with biscuits. “Saw President Hamlin on the tube earlier this evening. I still can’t believe our Gwendy gets to work with the Commander-in-Chief.”

Mrs. Peterson gives her daughter a smile and rolls her eyes. She’s heard this spiel before. Many times. They both have.

“Have you spoken with him lately?” he asks eagerly.

“A bunch of us were in a meeting with him and the vice president last week,” Gwendy says.

Her father beams with pride.

“Trust me, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.”

As is often the case, she’s tempted to tell her father the reality of the situation: that President Hamlin is a sexist bore of a man who rarely looks Gwendy in the eyes, instead focusing on her legs if she’s wearing a dress or her chest if she’s wearing pants; that she purposely never stands too close to the Commander-in-Chief because of his tendency to touch her on the arms and shoulders when he speaks to her. She’s also tempted to tell him that the President’s as dumb as a donut and has horrible breath, but she doesn’t say any of these things. Not to her father, anyway. Now her mother is a different story.

“I liked what he said about North Korea,” Mr. Peterson says. “We need a strong leader to deal with that madman.”

“He’s acting more like a petulant child right now than a leader.”

Her father gives her a thoughtful look. “You really don’t like him, do you?”

“It’s not that…” she says. Careful, girl. “I just don’t care for his policies. He’s cut healthcare funds for the poor every year he’s been in office. He cut federal funding for AIDS clinics and reinforced anti-gay legislation across the board. He spearheaded a movement to reduce budgets for the arts in public schools. I just wish he cared more about people and less about winning every argument.”

Her father doesn’t say anything.

Gwendy shrugs. “What can I say? He’s just a muggle, Dad.”

“What’s a muggle?” he asks.

Mrs. Peterson touches his arm. “From Harry Potter, dear.”

He looks around the table. “Harry who?”

This time his wife smacks him on the arm. “Oh, stop it, you smart aleck.”

They all crack up laughing.

“Had you going for a minute,” he says, winking.

For the next several hours, Gwendy relaxes and the button box hardly crosses her mind. There’s one brief moment, when she’s standing at the kitchen window overlooking the back yard, and she spots the old oak tree towering in the distance and remembers once hiding the box in a small crevice at the base of its thick trunk. But the memory’s gone from her head as quickly as it arrives, and within seconds, she’s back in the den watching Miracle on 34^th Street and working on a crossword puzzle with her father.