“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.
The last time she’d used them was for their third birthday.
She stops where she is. Takes deep, calming breaths the way her therapist taught her. Leans against the wall to steady herself. When she looks up, it’s to see Isaac gazing back at her from a black-and-white photo. He’s on the staircase, caught in the moment before he leapt into her arms, rosebud mouth open in a shriek of glee. His delighted gaze goes straight through the glass and into Holly’s heart. Instinctively she finds herself reaching out to catch him. To feel the warm weight of him nestled safely into her body. Instead she stretches out a finger and touches the frame.
And then pulls it from the wall and smashes it to the floor.
The next photo is of the twins. They’re on the beach in Irish knit sweaters, arms wrapped around each other, chubby faces beaming. Holly looks at it for the longest time. She’s never noticed before, but together their two bodies form the shape of a heart.
She lifts the frame high and smashes it down. It breaks, glass shattering across the floor.
The hallway wall is lined with pictures, moments she’d once wanted to remember forever: Robert, his shirt off, chasing the twins on the beach. Jack, Isaac, and Robert cuddled together on the couch, sound asleep. She and Robert captured in candlelight, leaning in, about to kiss. She remembers that night with crystal clarity: the heat of the flame on her face, the warmth of Robert’s knee pressing into hers. The pictures stretch on and on.
Holly smashes them all.
Dimly, she knows she’s out of control, but she can’t stop. She’s tired of deep breaths, of holding on, of being strong. She can’t do it anymore.
When she reaches Eden’s room, she leans her forehead against the door. The wood is damp, and it’s not until she touches her face that she realizes she’s crying.
She’s still clutching the birthday candles in her hand.
She stays there a long time, alone in the dark corridor. There’s no sound other than her ragged breathing. At last she rubs her eyes, swipes her sleeve across her face. Glances at the trail of destruction behind her. She’ll have to clean it up. But for now she turns her back on it and pushes open the door.
“I found them,” Holly says. “Let’s light them up, shall we?”
There are ten candles left in the package. Her daughter is only five, but Holly lights them all. She doesn’t blow them out, just watches them burn. It takes longer than she’d thought, and when they’ve extinguished themselves and dripped wax all over the frosting, she throws out the ruined cake that her daughter was never going to eat. She sweeps up the glass and piles the broken frames in the trash. She can’t bear to throw the photos out, so she shoves them in the bottom drawer of a dresser. Later, she’ll have them boxed up and sent to her mother’s house for safekeeping. And then she sits in silence beside Eden, staring at the floor.
When she hears the nurses return, she kisses her daughter’s forehead, trying to store up the scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin. As she stands, she notices one last photo on the bureau. It’s of Eden. She’s sitting on a low tree branch in the garden, and her face is alive with mischief and energy. Holly picks it up. Hesitates. Looks at it for a long time. Glances at her daughter.
“Goodbye,” she whispers.
She slips the photo into her purse. Then tugs her jacket straight, opens the door, and steps across the threshold, toward New York.
Chapter Seventeen