Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(11)

Chapter Four



The apartment is silent when she lets herself in. There’s a note from Manuela, the housekeeper, saying there’s a roast chicken in the oven. Holly texts her that she can have the week off. She texts Barry too, telling him she’s on tomorrow’s flight out, that she’ll have Jack dropped off after school. And then she takes a deep breath, soaking in the quiet of the sanctuary she’s created.

With its clean-lined modern furniture and bright white walls, the apartment is about as far from her family’s London home as can be. No dust-collecting antiques, no gloomy corners, just white leather couches and gleaming hardwood floors. The first time Holly’s mother, Jane, visited, she’d taken one look and offered the loan of some family artwork. Not the Sargent oil, of course, which displayed Grandmother Wendy in all her luminous, adolescent glory, but perhaps the sketch he’d done of all three of the famous siblings? Holly thought of Great-Uncle Michael’s vacant stare and shuddered before firmly declining. It might be beneficial to trade upon her name at work, but she wanted no ties to the Darling family and its pedigreed history here.

Instead she’d purchased a few pieces of modern art to add color to the walls. And while there’s a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the living room, there are no curtains, no space for anyone to hide behind. Most importantly, only a handful of the windows open, and those only a few inches wide.

Her quiet is broken by the thud of feet in the hallway outside. Even the apartment’s sound-dampening acoustics are no match for the energy of a teenage boy. She hears his key in the lock moments before the front door opens and tries to compose herself.

“Jack?” she calls from the kitchen, in the cheeriest voice she can muster. “I’m in here.”

He slouches in, all long limbs and effortless grace. Seeing him, Holly has to fight the instinct to wrap him in her arms. It would annoy him or, worse, freak him out. Instead she conjures up a bright smile, pushing her panic down as hard as she can.

“Hi, honey. Did you . . .” She catches sight of a long, ugly scrape along his chin. Instantly her smile disappears. “You’re bleeding!”

“It’s a scratch,” he says. “I took an elbow to the face going after the ball.”

“Let me see.” She crosses over to him, grabs his chin in her hand, angles it toward the light. “How much did you bleed? Did it get on anyone else?”

“No!” he says, twisting out of her grip. “Jeez, you germ-freak. I know the rules by heart. Some kid whacked me. I covered the cut with my sleeve until I stopped bleeding—not even a drop hit the floor. End of story. Relax.”

“Fine,” she says, feeling anything but. “Make sure you wash it really well, and put some antibacterial cream on it.”

She’d keep him from all sports if she could, rues the day she allowed him to talk her into letting him go out for lacrosse. He’d caught her at a weak moment, a day when he’d been playing at the park and she’d marveled at how quick he was, how far he’d come from the days he could barely drag himself from bed to wheelchair. Jack thinks she freaks out when he gets hurt because she’s worried about him, and she is. But that’s not all she worries about.

He has no idea how precious each drop of his blood is. Or of the high cost that has been paid for it.

He sniffs the air, pulls open the oven. Takes the serving fork off the stove and tries to stab a potato.

“Jack!”

“What? I’m hungry.”

“They’re not done yet. You’ll . . .”

“Get salmonella,” he choruses in unison with her, his voice a perfect mimicry. He successfully captures a potato, slides it into his mouth, and grins at her. The same grin that gets him out of late assignments at school, overdue library books, and trouble Holly doesn’t want to know about. She can’t help but smile back.

“Aside from the elbow to the face, was it a good session?”

“Yeah. We wound up scrimmaging a team from New Jersey that’s renting practice space for the weekend. We totally decimated them.” He ransacks the cabinets, searching for more to eat.

“Chicken,” she reminds him. “It’s almost dinnertime. Go shower.”

“?’Kay.” He grabs a fistful of pretzels before she can stop him and heads toward his room.

As soon as she hears water running, she carries her tote bag into her own bedroom and locks the door. Reaches into her closet and pulls out the box that contains her needles and vials. She selects a syringe, then uses it to draw the blood from the tube. When the syringe is full, she caps the needle, puts the syringe into the cooler bag, and puts everything else away.

She brings the syringe with her to the kitchen.

Jack’s still in the bathroom, so after she pulls dinner together and pours herself a glass of wine, she checks her phone. Plenty of emails and texts, but nothing from Cornwall. She’s about to ring the cottage again when Jack walks in. Swiftly she puts her phone down.

“How was school? Anything good happen?”

“It was okay.” He’s pulling the platter of chicken toward himself, more intent on filling his plate than on conversation.

“The meeting went well today—it’s a done deal,” she says. “This time next year Darling Skin Care will be in every premiere makeup counter and store in the nation.”