She couches it carefully. “I’m not certain. It’s possible she woke up, that she was confused and wandered off. But whatever the case, she’s disappeared.”
“My dear,” Jane says. “How terrifying. You must be out of your mind with worry.” A pause. And then, slowly, “But no police.” Again it’s not a question.
“No police,” Holly echoes.
“You know what would happen.” The Darlings have learned the hard way over the years that police inquiries and press coverage lead to unpleasant questions that often cannot be answered satisfactorily, starting with the disappearance—and then return—of Wendy and her siblings. In Eden’s case, what would they make of the equipment at the Cornwall house? What might the nurses let slip? Holly could lose Jack if that happened. She could lose everything. So she nods.
“Her waking. It could be a miracle,” Jane says lightly. The silver-framed charcoal sketch of Wendy, John, and poor Michael on the coffee table in front of her is slightly askew, and she reaches out a hand to adjust it.
“If she’s woken up, yes, it could be.”
“But you don’t think so.”
Here is where it becomes very, very dicey. Jane has never directly inquired into Jack’s astonishing recovery. She’s never visited Eden since she fell. And aside from those very early days, Jane has never commented on Eden’s frighteningly premature birth, her rapid growth rate, her abnormally clever and advanced mind.
Because she knows. She has to. Even though they’ve never talked about it. She knows and she wants to forget. Because recognizing who Eden’s father is destroys the narrative of Peter Pan, the unspoiled innocent.
Of course Holly can’t be certain. But Jane spent her childhood and adolescence believing in the Darling story. She always slept with her own window open and probably does still—if she’s not spending nights in the nursery when no one else is home. She’d told Holly, as she grew into a teenager and then a young woman, that she’d have to wait her turn, because Jane had never yet seen Peter, and it was only fair she got to see him first. The words may have been teasing. The look in Jane’s eyes was not. Neither is the look today, when she makes it clear that she knows more than she has let on.
“If there’s any chance that Peter is involved, that settles it. Imagine what a police investigation would do. He’d never forgive us. He’d never come back,” she says.
If Holly’s ever had any doubts about who her mother would choose if it came down to it, Jane’s last comment is just the latest in a lifelong series that has made it abundantly obvious.
Which may be why, in hindsight, Holly didn’t say a word when he finally came for her.
* * *
It was a cold winter night the first time she saw him. She was alone in the house, Jane gone to a party. “Just for a bit, darling. We must try and be brave.”
For days and days, Holly had been nothing but brave. She’d put on a courageous front for Jack, who was still in hospital. She’d nodded and taken notes and struggled through her own operations and physical therapy. But tonight, unable to sleep, she’d gone to the nursery, and it was on her childhood bed that she gave into her grief, huge, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.
How was she going to get through this night, and the next, and all the long painful nights that stretched endlessly in front of her? Even if Jack lived, it would never be the same. She would never be the same.
She would have wished she were dead. But that would leave Jack. And she couldn’t.
She remembers what happened next so clearly that shame flushes her cheeks. She’d thought of Jack dying, how it would free them both, how the struggle wasn’t worth it anymore. At that moment the faintest whisper of a breeze caressed the back of her neck, a slight, icy hand. She’d raised her head, thought muzzily that the nursery window must be open. It was always open, no matter the weather, because Jane wanted it that way.
And then he spoke.
“Why are you crying, girl?”
She froze. It took a moment to find him, hidden against the curtains. He took a step forward and she gasped. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and much older than he’d been described in the stories. He crossed the room to her. It was like having a hummingbird alight on her hand. She didn’t move, not even when he reached out and his finger brushed her cheek, capturing a single tear. He studied it, clearly fascinated.
This close, she could feel how warm he was. His scent was like springtime, like new grass. Like that first cup of coffee on vacation somewhere magical, rich and full of promise. It was heady and redolent of everything she wanted back: youth and beauty and not happiness, exactly, but a wild exultant joy, a fierceness that knew nothing of loss or pain. She breathed it in. So sweet.