“Is Jack okay?” he asks, putting a hand on Holly’s arm.
“It’s not Jack,” the girl says, and relief rushes through Holly. She inhales deeply, aware for the first time that she’d been holding her breath.
“Then why the hell did you interrupt us?” says Barry. “If it’s not about Jack, whatever it is can wait.”
“It’s not Jack,” the girl repeats. “It’s about your daughter.”
“Her daughter? Holly doesn’t have a daughter. She has Jack. Everybody knows that,” Barry says. He glares at the girl, who looks as if she’d like nothing better than to flee. “Come on, Holly. We need to get back in there.”
But Holly’s not moving. Her limbs have grown cold. She feels sick and shaky, as if she might faint. Barry takes one look at her and wraps an arm around her for support.
“Holly?” he says. “What is it?”
For once, Holly’s iron self-control deserts her. Because the truth is, she does have a daughter, a secret clutched so tightly to her heart that no one here, not even Barry, knows about her.
“What did they say?” Holly manages to ask.
“Holly?” Barry’s looking at her, his eyebrows raised in disbelief even as he holds her up, but she can’t answer him right now.
The girl shakes her head. “Just that you should call right away. They left the number.”
Holly doesn’t need to look at the slip of paper the girl is holding. After ten years of calling that number, she knows it by heart.
“Then get them on the phone,” Barry barks. He may not know what’s going on, but the good thing about Barry is he’s always on Holly’s side. “We’ll take it in there.” He points to an unused office a few doors down from the conference room and guides Holly into it.
Once there, he paces around the small space, his large form making it feel even tinier. “I don’t understand, Holly. How could you not tell me you had a daughter? I mean, Jesus, we’re like family.”
“I’m sorry,” Holly says wearily. She’s been waiting for this call for over a decade, and now that the initial shock has passed, she’s exhausted. She wonders if all her preparation will be enough. But there’s nothing she can do now. She takes out her own phone and tries the number. It clicks straight to voicemail, so she hangs up.
“It’s just . . . I found out I was pregnant after the crash. The pregnancy was a struggle the whole way.” The truth. But not all of it.
“But how could you not tell me? Why haven’t you ever talked about her? For Christ’s sake, what’s her name?”
“Eden. Eden Estelle. Her birth was . . . complicated,” Holly says. She hits redial. Still nothing. “And then, a few years after, she had an accident. She and Jack had been playing. They climbed a tree and she fell . . . The doctors didn’t think she would survive. She’s been on life support ever since.” Also true, in its own way.
“Oh, Jesus, Holly,” Barry says again, but his tone has softened. “I wish you would have let me help.”
“I didn’t talk about it because I couldn’t bear to go through it again.” And that is true, completely. Losing Robert, and Jack’s twin, Isaac, and almost Jack . . . if Eden had died that day, she’s not sure she would have recovered. Even now, with all the years she’s had to prepare, all the time she’s spent already mourning her daughter, there’s a deep well of sadness opening at her core. If she’s not careful, she’ll fall back in. “Losing Eden has never been a matter of if, just when. Being here, at work, helped me forget at least part of the time.”
“What do you mean, losing? Maybe she’s sick. Pneumonia or something. Kids get sick all the time.”
Holly shakes her head. “I have round-the-clock care for her at our old house in Cornwall. I get an email update at the end of every day, and talk to the nurses at least once a week. They wouldn’t call if it was anything but . . . but this.”
She doesn’t say what “this” is, but Barry has always been talented at reading between the lines.
“I’m so sorry. Do you need me to call Jack?”
“He doesn’t know, Barry.”
“Doesn’t know?” His face is puzzled.
“Doesn’t know about Eden. At all. And I want it to stay that way.” Holly’s firm on this.
Barry stares at her in disbelief, as she’d known he would. “Yeah, but Holly, come on, this is his sister you’re talking about. He has a right to know about his family.”