Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(45)

Except she won’t wake up. And she can’t stop growing.

Holly sets her packages down at the foot of the bed, brushes her lips across Eden’s forehead. She smooths a lock of hair off Eden’s face, then pulls a chair over and sits beside her daughter.

“Happy birthday!” she croons. There’s no response. Holly hadn’t expected one, not really, but three years later it’s still a gut punch to see her spirited daughter so still. Holly’s tried everything the doctors have given her as well as whatever she could find on her own—steroids, antibiotics, fish oil, animal hormones imported from South America, chemical compounds she’d go to jail for if anyone found out. But nothing wakes Eden. And nothing stops the growing.

Holly reaches out and holds Eden’s hand, massaging it between her own. “You’re five, big girl!” Her voice cracks, and she clears her throat before continuing.

“Jack sends his love. He’s getting to be so big and strong. You wouldn’t recognize him.”

Jack asked after his sister for the longest time. He cried during every visit when it came time to go, was depressed and lethargic for days after. Holly stopped bringing him.

The doctors Jack sees, the physical therapists he needs, are in the city. They’re all amazed at his physical recovery.

Holly glances at the IV bag and then away.

Eden, on the other hand, did not thrive in London. She grew thinner and thinner in her hospital bed on the second floor of Darling House, no matter what nutritional supplements the nurses put in her feeding tube. She broke out in angry bedsores no matter how often they turned her.

And at night, when shadows fell across the room, her blood pressure spiked to dangerous levels.

No matter how often Holly checked to make sure the windows were shut and locked, no matter how many times she argued with Jane about the importance of keeping them that way, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Eden was being watched. Couldn’t help but wonder what Peter would do with a damaged daughter.

A damaged daughter with special qualities.

So in a last-gasp effort based more on instinct than science, Holly moved her back to Grace House, a place Eden had always loved. Where miraculously the shadows didn’t seem to follow. Slowly the color returned to her face. She put on weight. Holly still holds out hope that someday the sea air and the surroundings Eden loved will bring her back.

Because nothing Holly’s tried so far has.

“I have some news,” she says, squeezing Eden’s hand. Her words echo in the room. “I’ve been offered a job. Well, not a job, exactly. More like a company. The compounds I’ve been working on to help you and Jack—it turns out they might have other uses. Isn’t that exciting?”

When the investors had first come to her, lured by a paper she’d published, she’d turned them down. She was a serious scientist. Not a bored rich housewife looking to start a skin care line for vanity’s sake. But they’d been insistent. And with the money and terms they offered, she could create a top-notch lab that just might help her save both her children. If that meant making skin cream during the day so she could research at night, it was an easy trade-off.

Other choices weren’t so simple.

“The only drawback is . . .” She hesitates, straightening Eden’s blanket. “They want me to come to New York.

“It’s a long ways away. Maybe too far. And I haven’t decided yet. But no matter what, I’ll still come to see you. And when you wake up, you’ll join us no matter where we are. And we’ll be a family again just like we were. All right?”

Jack is starting to forget. Not just Isaac and Robert, but Eden too. Hard as that is to witness, it’s made his life easier. New York would bring a new school with new friends, people who don’t know about his missing twin, his dead father, and his comatose sister. People who can’t remind him of his tragic past.

A fresh start.

“Eden?” Holly says softly. “Can you hear me?”

She waits, searches Eden’s face for some sign that she’s heard, some indication she’s listening. But the only answer is the steady sound of Eden’s breathing.

She won’t cry in front of her daughter. She won’t.

She takes a deep breath, blows it out, lets go of Eden’s hand and turns away. When she faces back, her smile is in place.

“Let’s look at your presents,” she says cheerily.

Ridiculous now, the pile of shiny gifts at the foot of the bed. Books for the nurses to read aloud to Eden. Soft cotton dresses in bright colors. Plush stuffed animals. Holly unwraps each one, holds it up, and exclaims over it in the empty room.

When she’s finished with the last one, she is so very tired. She puts her head down next to her daughter’s and closes her eyes. Beneath the scent of antiseptic, she still smells like Eden, fresh and clean.

Like spring.

“Eden,” she whispers. “Please wake up. Please.”

Nothing.

Holly sits up. “Right. Cake time,” she says unsteadily. “I’ll just fetch the candles.”

The corridor is dark and cool after the warmth and brightness of Eden’s room, and Holly is glad for it. She finds the candles and matches in the kitchen drawer, grabs them, and starts back down the hall when it hits her. The candles are blue and green. The twins’ favorite colors.