Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(20)

Maria nods again. “No, she is not like others,” she says, and Holly tenses, but Maria’s next words let her relax. “She has the growing disease, as you explained. I have seen it for myself.” She puts her hand on Holly’s arm again, this time more confidently. “But you will find her, Dr. Darling, and you will fix her.” She pulls a phone out from her uniform’s pocket and passes it to Holly. “You have not seen this one yet.”

Holly takes the phone. Maria sends her a photo every month, so that she can see Eden for herself. In this picture, her daughter’s face looks like someone who is almost an adult. Holly pulls out her own phone and opens the album where she stores Eden’s images, compares last month’s photo with the one on Maria’s phone. Eden has lost the roundness of middle school. Her cheekbones are sharp, her face elongated. Even with the softness that comes with sleep, she could easily pass for eighteen. Her disease is worsening.

Holly returns the phone. “Send it to me, please,” she says, her voice unsteady. “And now, the gardener?”

“He is outside.”

Even before Holly crosses behind the hedge wall, the scent of the garden calls to her, as familiar as a lover’s skin. Rich, loamy earth. Sweetness and rot. Primrose and bluebells. Fat bees buzzing against spiky lavender blooms. She’s dizzy suddenly, intoxicated, drunk on a wave of heat and memories. There’s a rosemary plant near the entrance, and she crushes a sprig in her hands, brings the bruised stem to her face. The clean, astringent scent helps settle her.

The gardener is watching her, clearly concerned. A quiet, gawky man, he’s eager to help but clueless. Holly runs through all her questions, but it’s pointless.

“It was a regular spring day,” he says. “Quiet. But really bright. I remember on account of my shadow.”

Holly freezes. “Excuse me?”

He scratches the back of his neck, looks down at the ground. “It’s balmy,” he says apologetically. “But I remember thinking how big and black my shadow looked. The kind you get on the beach late in the day, where it just stretches for miles. I was working in the back garden, mowing, and every time I passed the house—”

“Yes?” she prompts, impatiently.

“It was like my shadow reached for it.” He looks at her face. “You must think I’m daft.”

“No,” she says. But it’s as much a response to his story as it is a plea. That kind of shadow can’t be here. Not at Grace House. Not near Eden.

The gardener is walking down the drive to his truck when he stops and turns back to her. “The village will be real sorry about your girl,” he says shyly. “We still remember you, from the summers. Your boys were some fast little ones. I tend the cemetery too, you know. There’s speedwell growing about, and I always leave a bit on your little ’un’s grave. You probably never seen it—it dries up and blows away after a day or so. But, well, he’s not forgotten.” He scuffs his shoe against the gravel, then walks away.

As his truck pulls out, Holly walks to the tree. She leans her forehead against its trunk, closes her eyes. The leaves rustle overhead and it’s as if they’re whispering secrets too low for her to understand. It’s the time of day she used to love, a sleepy early evening when the sky is still unnaturally light. The rich smells of earth and cut grass fill the air, and beneath it all is the sharp scent of the sea. What time does it get dark in England in the spring? She’s been away for so long she’s forgotten. She’s let herself forget so much.





Chapter Eight



The day of the accident, Holly forgot the cocoa.

It was a beautiful day. The first morning since the car crash that Holly had woken up and realized there was still color left in the world. She looked out the window and saw blue sky, saw green grass, and it shocked her. Everything had been a flat, monotonous gray since Isaac and Robert died.

The day demanded to be recognized. So she bundled the children up and took them outside, carrying Jack, letting Eden run ahead in her favorite blue party dress. At two, she was almost as big as her five-year-old brother. Holly spread a blanket under the tree, unpacked the hamper that she’d filled with sandwiches and fruit and a cake. A party, of sorts. A quiet celebration that they were still alive, even if the ones they loved were not.

While Holly set out the food, Eden took a book from behind her back and began reading it to Jack. It was Peter Pan. “Where did you get that?” Holly asked, trying to hide her loathing for it. Not, How did you learn to read? She’d almost ceased being surprised by what Eden could do. After all, she’d been a surprise since the beginning.

The doctors estimated Holly was four months along when they found the pregnancy. Their shock was obvious—how had they missed it, with all the tests and exams they’d performed during her hospital stay and recovery?

But Holly knew better. This baby came after the car crash, no matter what the growth charts and sonograms said. And she grew crazy fast, at a rate the doctors couldn’t explain. They fiddled with Holly’s medication, blaming the growth on the drugs she took after the wreck. Still, she went into labor almost two months early, delivering a perfect baby girl. Perfect, and by all appearances full term. Eden hadn’t stopped amazing everyone since.

Now Eden paused her reading as Holly looked for the thermos, then realized she’d left it in the kitchen of Grace House.