Accident

“I think tomorrow would be much better, dear. Don't you think so, Brad?” she asked as he came into the room, looking dazed. Stephanie had just called him at home right in the middle of the day and issued an ultimatum. And she was insisting that he take her out to dinner that night to discuss it.

“I … uh … I think you're right, Mari-belle. You're probably both tired, and seeing her is pretty upsetting.” It annoyed Page to hear what he said. She went to get her bag without a word, and told them she'd be back at six o'clock to fix dinner.

“Will you be here to keep an eye on Andy?” she asked Brad before she left, and he nodded.

“I have to go somewhere when you get back though. Is that okay?”

“Do I have a choice?” she said sotto voce.

“I really need to pick up some papers in the city.”

She nodded and didn't say more, and told her mother she'd see her in a little while. Alexis was lying down on Allyson's bed, resting.

Page fumed all the way to the hospital about how stupid she had been to let them come out, and then she laughed at herself. What a mess it all was. Allyson was in a coma, Brad was having an affair, Andy had broken his arm, and now she was stuck with her sister and her mother. It was the classic definition of a nightmare.

She saw Trygve leaving the hospital on her way in, and he stopped for a moment to talk to her. He had dropped in to see her at ICU, but figured he had missed her.

“How's Mom?” It was obvious from his eyes that he was happy to see her.

She laughed, suddenly amused at the absurdity of her situation. “So predictable it makes me laugh. You wouldn't believe them.”

“Where are they now?” He was surprised not to see them.

“My mother is admiring my new couch. And my sister is resting. Actually, she looks like she's gotten even more anorexic. She arrived dripping Chanel, and carrying alligator hand luggage.”

“How impressive. And they couldn't make it to the hospital?”

“Too tired,” Page explained. “Alexis is getting over a cold. And Brad told them they were right, it would just be too upsetting.”

“Oh my God.”

“You got it. I guess tomorrow will be the big day, unless Alexis needs to get her nails done.”

“And what happened to you? How did you escape? Why aren't you at the hairdresser all day long instead of painting murals and driving car pools?”

“Just stupid, I guess. I never got the message.”

“Maybe your dad was okay,” he said, that would explain it, but she shook her head and looked away.

“Not really.” And then she looked back at Trygve. “I'm just an aberration, I guess. The best news of all would be that I was adopted, my sister used to say I was, but unfortunately, she lied. It would make things easier now anyway.” He was laughing at the way she described them.

“Nick always used to tell Chloe that. That she was adopted. Kids love to torture each other with that stuff.”

“In my case, it would have been a blessing.” She glanced at her watch and saw how late it was, and she knew she had to get home to cook dinner. “I'd better get in to see Allie.”

“The therapist was there when I went by. Everything looked pretty normal.”

“Thanks for checking.” She hesitated then, and as he leaned toward her she didn't move away. Their lips brushed and their eyes held. “I'm glad I saw you,” she whispered as she left.

“So am I,” he shouted after her, and waved.

She found Allyson in the usual state, and everything status quo. She sat with her for an hour, and told her Grandma had come for a visit with Aunt Alexis. She told her all the latest things Andy had said, and reminded her again and again how much they loved her. She told her anything and everything that she could think of except that her marriage was falling apart, and Brad had a girlfriend.

Page kissed her gently on the forehead when she left, and stood back to look at the bandages for a long time. Brad was right, she just didn't see it anymore. But it was very upsetting.

She felt subdued on the drive home, and exhausted when she opened the door. She could hear her mother's voice, and Alexis was on the phone to David in New York, complaining about the service on the airplane. Not a word about Allyson, and only Andy asked her how she was as she started to make dinner.

“Are you sure she's gonna be okay?” he asked worriedly, pressing her today of all days, but he looked anxious.

Page stopped to look at him, and pulled him closer to her so she could hug him. “No …I'm not sure … I hope she will be. But we don't know yet. She might …” She couldn't bring herself to say the words to him, but she knew she had to. “She could still die … but she might not. She might be okay, or she might be like Bjorn when she wakes up. We just don't know yet.”

“Like Bjorn?” He looked startled, he had never fully understood that.

“More or less.” Or she might not be able to walk …she could be blind … or not like Bjorn at all. She could be totally retarded.

“What are you two talking about?” her mother asked, interrupting them as she wandered into the kitchen.

“We were talking about Allyson.”

“I was just telling Andrew she was going to be fine.” She smiled at both of them and Page wanted to kill her. It was not fair to do that to him, and she wouldn't let her.

“We hope she will, Mother,” Page said firmly, “but we don't know that for sure. It all depends on when, and if, she comes out of the coma.”

“That's like sleeping, except you don't wake up, you just stay asleep,” he explained to his grandmother, as Brad joined them. Page saw that he was wearing a suit, and she struggled not to comment on it as she saw him.

“I'll be back later,” he said quietly to Page, as she raised an eyebrow in question.

“Will you? I won't hold my breath.”

“Thanks,” he said, and ruffled Andy's hair as he left. “Good night, Maribelle,” he called over his shoulder.

“Good night, dear.” And then, after he was gone, “He's a good-looking man,” she said to Page, “you're a lucky girl.” She wanted to tell her that she used to think so too, but she no longer did. But she went back to cooking dinner and said nothing.

Predictably, dinner was a painful meal. Alexis chased a tiny piece of meat and some salad around her plate and basically ate nothing. She said as little as she ate, and her mother dominated most of the conversation, talking about her friends, her apartment in New York, and Alexis's fabulous garden in East Hampton. She had three Japanese gardeners, and did none of it herself, and she seemed a lot less excited about it than their mother. She wasn't excited about anything, except Chanel. And none of them had mentioned Allyson even once by the end of the evening.

They both went to bed when Andy did, explaining that they were still on New York time, and it irked Page terribly to hear sounds coming from Allyson's room. She closed her own bedroom door so she couldn't hear it. It seemed a sacrilege, and a terrible intrusion.

She lay on her bed quietly for a long time, thinking about them, and how unhappy her life had been with them. They had made it a living hell for her until she left. Seeing them always brought the memories back again. Tears squeezed slowly out of her eyes as she thought of it. And then she forced her mind back to the present.

It was after midnight when Brad came in. She was still awake, but the lights were off and she was in bed. She turned over in the dark and looked at him, and he looked tired and unhappy. She was surprised to see him.

“Did you have a nice time?” she asked. They both knew where he had been. It was a lot to absorb, and she was struggling with it. But from the look on his face, so was he. He stood looking at her for a long time before he answered. He was trapped between two worlds, and both were causing him pain at the moment.

“Not really. This isn't the peachy keen situation you think it is.”

“I guess not … for either of us.”

“I know how hard it is for you,” he said softly. He sounded like the old Brad for a moment, but he didn't come any closer. “Maybe I should have gone on lying to you … I don't know …maybe it was time you knew. We couldn't go on like this forever.” The trouble was that she could. She had had no idea what he was up to.

“I'm trying to do the right thing for everyone now. And I'm just not sure what that is.” She nodded. There was nothing she could say to him. Their lives hung in the balance.

“Maybe you should just concentrate on Allyson, and forget about it for a while. Maybe right now isn't the right time to be making decisions.”

“I know that.” But Stephanie was feeling miserable, and wanted him to prove something to her. It wasn't fair, but that's how she was handling it, and he didn't want to lose her. She had never met Allyson, or Page, they meant nothing to her. All she wanted was Brad, and she wasn't going to let him dangle her any longer. For almost a year she had been perfectly happy sleeping with him whenever they could, having a good time on occasional business trips, and a rare stolen weekend. But she was twenty-six and she had decided that it was time for her to get married and have kids. And Brad Clarke was the man she wanted.

Page lay quietly for a long time, and eventually he came to bed, but he didn't lay a hand on her. Everything was working perfectly again …with Stephanie at least, but he knew that he and Page could ill afford another fiasco. And he had no desire at all to try it.

It was three in the morning before she fell asleep, and she felt like hell the next morning when she got up at seven to wake Andy and make breakfast. Andy had dragged Lizzie to bed with him. Brad was already up and dressed by then, he skipped breakfast and left early for the city. He said he had a breakfast meeting, and she didn't question him. At least he had been at home all night and she hadn't had to explain to her mother why he wasn't. Who knows, maybe they wouldn't even have noticed.

She dropped Andy off at school, and then came back to the house for Mother and Alexis. She did some paperwork, paid some bills, but by eleven o'clock they still weren't ready. Alexis had to do her exercise routine, and her hair was still in electric rollers. By then she had bathed and put her makeup on, but it would still be another hour before they were out the door, she estimated, when Page asked her.

“Mother,” Page said anxiously, “I want to be with Allie.”

“Of course. But we all have to eat. Maybe you should make something here.” But she was going to get caught in that trap with them, until it was too late to go at all. They had come out to see Allyson, not to go to restaurants, or drive Page crazy. It was exactly the way she had known it would be with them, and she just wasn't willing to do this.

“We can eat at the cafeteria if you get hungry.”

“That's awfully hard on Alexis's stomach, dear. You know how grim hospital food is.”

“I can't help that.” She glanced at her watch unhappily. It was five minutes to twelve by then. She had wasted half the day, and Andy would be coming out of school at three-thirty. “Would you rather go by cab yourself, after lunch, or maybe with Brad tonight if he goes?”

“Of course not, we'll come with you.” The two women from New York consulted at length in Allyson's room, and emerged finally at twelve-thirty.

Alexis looked exquisite in a white silk Chanel. She wore black patent leather shoes and bag, and a wonderful straw hat that looked totally out of place but very pretty. Her mother was wearing a red silk suit. They looked like they were going to have lunch at Le Cirque in New York, not to ICU at Marin General.

“You both look wonderful,” Page said pleasantly as they got into the car. She was wearing the same jeans and loafers she had worn off and on for two weeks. She just took them off long enough to wash the jeans, and she had worn all her old tired sweaters. They were comfortable and warm in the drafty halls of the hospital, and she hadn't cared how she looked in more than two weeks. Seeing her mother and sister all dressed up somehow amused her, but it didn't surprise her.

Her mother commented on the warm weather along the way, and asked her where she and Brad were going for vacation that year. She hoped they could come East. It would be so wonderful if they ever decided to rent a little house on Long Island.

They parked in the hospital parking lot, and Page showed them inside, wishing once again that they hadn't come. Their presence there at all seemed like an intrusion. Allyson was their granddaughter and niece, yet Page felt so possessive of her, as though in the state she was in, Allie belonged to her and Brad and no one else. It wasn't fair, but these people didn't deserve her.

The nurses in ICU all said hello to them, and Page led them quietly to Allie's bed. She saw her mother's face grow pale, and heard her gasp when she first saw her. She offered her mother a chair, but she only shook her head, and for a moment Page felt sorry for her, and put an arm around her shoulders. Alexis hadn't even dared to approach the bed. She had stopped halfway there, and watched from the doorway.

They said not a word for the ten minutes they were there, and then her mother glanced worriedly at Alexis. She was deathly pale beneath her makeup.

“I don't think your sister should stay,” she whispered. Neither should Allie, Page wanted to whisper back, but she nodded. Why was their concern always for each other and no one else, why couldn't they feel anything real or express it? For a moment, her mother had felt their pain, had seen Allie as she really was, and then she turned away and sought refuge in Alexis. It was the way it had always been. She had never been willing to see Page's pain, she had only been interested in saving Alexis. And Alexis had been lost long since. There was no one there. She was just a Barbie doll in expensive clothes and perfect makeup.

They walked back into the hallway again, as Maribelle put an arm around her older daughter. Not around Page, but around Alexis.

“I forget how she looks sometimes,” Page said apologetically. “I see so much of her …I'm not used to it, but I know what tp expect. One of her teachers came the other day and she was terribly upset. I'm sorry.” She looked at both of them, and even though she was disappointed by them again, she meant it.

“Actually, she looks fine,” her mother insisted, still looking pale. “She looks as though she might wake up at any moment.” In truth, she looked as though she were dead, and the respirator made it even more gruesome to watch, which was why Page hadn't let Andy see her, despite his protests.

“She doesn't look fine,” Page said firmly. “She looks frightening. It's all right to say that.” She didn't want to play the game then, but her mother just patted her arm and continued.

“She's going to be just fine. You have to know that. Now,” she smiled at her two daughters as though to forget what they had just seen, “where are we going for lunch?”

“I'm staying here.” Page looked annoyed at them. She was not just passing through, and she was not going to spend the next week playing tea party and bridge game with them. If they had come to see Allyson, they were going to have to face the music. “I can call you a cab if you like, and you can go to lunch. But I'm not going.”

“It would do you good to get away. Brad doesn't sit here all day long, does he?”

“No he doesn't, but I do.” There was a grim set to Page's mouth, but no one noticed.

“What about lunch in the city?” She tried to tempt her, but Page only shook her head. She wasn't going.

“I'll call you a cab,” she said firmly.

“What time will you be home?”

“I have to pick Andy up and take him to baseball. I should be home by five.”

“We'll see you then.” She told them where a key to the house was hidden in case they got back before her, but she knew they wouldn't. After lunch, they'd be going to I. Magnin.

She went back to ICU to sit with Allyson, and Trygve stopped by to see her midafternoon. He looked around, surprised to see her alone. He had expected to meet her mother and sister.

“Where are they?” He looked confused and Page shook her head ruefully.

“The Bride of Frankenstein and her mother have gone to the city for lunch, and a little shopping'

“Did they see Allyson?” He looked amazed.

“For about ten minutes. My mother turned pale, my sister stood in the door and turned green, and then they decided to go for lunch in town to forget about it.” She was still annoyed, but it was so typical of them, though Trygve couldn't know that.

“Don't be so hard on them. This kind of thing isn't easy.”

“It's not easy for me either, but I'm here. They thought I should go to lunch with them.”

“It might do you good,” he said gently, but she shrugged. He didn't know them.

He stayed around for a little while, and then she picked Andy up at school, took him to baseball practice, and went home. And just as she had thought, her mother and Alexis came in at six, laden with shopping bags, a bottle of perfume for her, a little French sweater for Andy, and a lacy pink peignoir for Allyson that there was no way she could wear in her present condition.

“It's beautiful, Mother, thank you.” She didn't explain the impossibility of it to her, and her mother seemed not to care. They had found a fabulous designer sale at I. Magnin.

“It's amazing what you find out here,” she said, totally unaware of Page's expression.

“Isn't it though,” she said coolly. It was almost as though the reason for their trip had been forgotten.

Page made dinner for them again that night, but Brad didn't come home or call. She made an excuse for him, but later she found Andy looking forlorn and sat down on her bed to talk to him. Having her own mother there made her nervous and edgy.

“You and Dad are mad at each other again, huh?”

“Not really,” she lied, she just couldn't cope with telling him about that too. Allyson was enough for the moment. “He's just busy.”

“No he's not. I heard you shouting at him …and he yelled at you …”

“Moms and dads do that sometimes, sweetheart.” She kissed the top of his head and fought back tears as she held him.

“You didn't use to.” And then, “Bjorn said his mom and dad used to fight a lot, and then his mom left. She went to England, and now he hardly ever sees her.”

“That's different,” though she was no longer sure why. In truth, it wasn't very different. “Does he miss her a lot?” She felt sorry for him. It had to be particularly hard on a child like him, with limited understanding.

“No,” Andy said honestly, “he said she was mean to him. He likes his dad a lot better. I like his dad too,” he volunteered, “he's nice.” She nodded, and then he looked up at her with tears in his eyes, and she almost panicked. “Is Daddy going to leave and go to England?”

“Of course not,” she said, relieved that he hadn't asked her how she felt about Trygve. “Why would he go to England?”

“I don't know. That's what Bjorn said his mom did. Do you think he'd leave us though?” She wanted to say more, but knew she couldn't. It was just too much for him, too much for all of them at the moment.

“I don't think so.” It was the first time she had ever lied to him, but she knew she had to.

And when she put him to bed, her mother asked her if she'd mind making her a cup of peppermint tea, and taking some camomile and a bottle of Evian to her sister.

“Not at all,” she said, smiling to herself. They were so predictable …the wicked stepmother and sister …and she, as always, was playing the role of Cinderella.

CHAPTER 12

The rest of the week was much the same. Page continued to spend her days at the hospital while Andy was in school, while her mother and sister did the rounds of the boutiques and department stores in San Francisco. They cruised through Hermes, Chanel, Tiffany, Cartier, Saks, and did a fair amount of damage at I. Magnin. They had their hair done at Mr. Lee, lunch at Trader Vic's, Postrio, and the restaurant at the top of Neiman-Marcus. And about every other day, they began their day with a five-minute visit to Allie.

After the first time, Alexis said she felt her cold coming on again, and didn't want to cause Allyson complications, so she waited in the lobby. But Page's mother bravely went upstairs, and would stand chatting with Page at Allie's bedside, for roughly four or five minutes. Mostly, she talked about what they were going to do that day, and tried to talk Page into going with them. And at the end of the week, she insisted she take Page and Brad out to dinner.

Page tried to broach it to him one of the rare times she saw him that week. It was Friday afternoon by then, and she was beginning to wonder when Alexis and her mother were going to leave, their presence had worn thin right from the beginning. And Brad was using the opportunity of their being there to disappear now on a daily basis. He hadn't been home for dinner once all week, coming home way past midnight and leaving early in the morning before they got up. And one night, he had stayed away all night without calling.

“She wants to take us to dinner somewhere,” Page explained, trying not to lose her temper, or confront him for the nights he had spent out without calling. “To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I could stand it.”

“She seems all right this time,” he said calmly.

“Really?” Page snapped at him. “When did you figure that out? In the four seconds it took you to hang up their bags, or the ten minutes you haven't spent with them since then. How the hell do you know how she is? I haven't even seen you since Sunday.”

“Oh for chrissake …stop it. What do you expect me to do? Baby-sit your mother? She came here to see Allie.” Which was something he was doing less and less too, with the excuse that he was busy.

“She did not come here to see Allie,” Page said unpleasantly. “She came here to see Chanel, Hermes, and Cartier. And they've had a lovely visit.”

“Maybe you should have gone with them,” he snapped back at her, “you might be in a better mood. And God knows, you might look a little more like your sister.” He was sorry the moment he said the words, but there was nothing he could do to unsay them.

She laughed bitterly at him. “There isn't a single real piece or part left on my sister's face or body, and if what you wanted is that piece of plastic nothing, then be my guest.” She raged at him, but she was hurt by his comment. She had spent three weeks at Allie's bedside, and she knew she looked a mess, but she didn't have the time, or the energy, or the heart, to look any different. She didn't care how she looked right now. All she wanted was for Allie to wake up from her coma.

In the end, Brad agreed to go to dinner with them on Saturday, and they went into the city, and had dinner at the Fairmont, at Mason's. Page had pulled her thick blond hair straight back, in a ponytail, and worn a plain black dress, and no makeup. She looked the way she felt, bleak, unhappy, and Alexis, on the other hand, was wearing a white silk Givenchy dress which showed off her rail-thin figure, and the deep décolletage showed off her implants nicely.

“You look terrific,” Brad said pleasantly, and she smiled at him. But there was no seduction there, no interest on her part. She was interested in how she looked, and what she wore, and very little else. And her husband understood that. There was no woman there, just a form and a beautifully made-up face with perfect features.

Alexis and her mother were talking about staying another week, and at the mere mention of it, Page looked frantic. She had already waited on them for seven days, and brought them camomile, mint tea, Evian, cold packs, hot packs, breakfast, lunch, dinner, fresh sheets, more pillows, and she had had to go out and buy an electric blanket for her mother. They did not answer the phone, pour themselves so much as a glass of water, they couldn't figure out how to work the TV's in their rooms, and neither of them was comfortable with Andy. As usual, they were totally useless.

They had seen Allyson a total of three times in a week, all told for probably less than fifteen minutes. It was exactly as Page had predicted it would be to Trygve.

“I think you should go home after the weekend,” Page said firmly, and her mother looked horrified at the suggestion.

“We couldn't possibly leave you alone with Allyson,” she insisted, and for once, Page was speechless.

Brad was pleasant to both of them, and particularly Alexis, who said very little to any of them.

And once they were back at home again, and the sitter had left, Brad told Page quietly that he was going out for the rest of the evening.

“At eleven o'clock?” She looked startled, but she shouldn't have. He hadn't been there all week, and this seemed to be his style now. In the past three weeks, the entire fabric of their marriage had unraveled. She just looked at him and nodded.

“I'm sorry, Page,” he tried to explain. “I'm caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“Yeah,” she nodded again, and unzipped her dress, “I know. So is Allie.”

“That has nothing to do with this.” But they both knew it had everything to do with it. It had blown them apart, and it was more and more obvious that they weren't likely to recover.

She walked into the bathroom then, and when she came out, he was gone. She went to bed, and lay awake for a long time. Lately, she had more and more trouble sleeping. She thought of calling Trygve, but that didn't seem fair. She didn't want to bounce from one to the other.

And in the morning, over breakfast, her mother told her how lucky she was to have Brad. Page said nothing, and drank her coffee. She said he had turned out to be a fine man, and a very good husband.

Page went to see Allyson alone, and left Andy with them, despite their protests that they wouldn't know what to do if he had a problem.

“What if he has to go to the bathroom?” her mother said, panicking. It was hard to believe she'd had two children, and been a physician's wife, and been so completely helpless.

“He's seven years old, Mother. He can take himself. He can even make you lunch, if you want it.” She was amused to think that her seven-year-old son was more capable than they were, but he was, by a long shot.

She talked to Trygve for a long time that afternoon and admitted to him how tired she was, and how discouraged. It was hard for her, having her mother there, it was demoralizing her, and he could sense it.

“What is it about her that upsets you so much?” he asked, she was so funny about them sometimes, and so deeply depressed about them at others.

“Everything. Who they are, who they aren't, what they do, what they don't do. They're rotten people, both of them, and I hate being around them, or even having them around my children.”

“They can't be that bad.” He was surprised at the force with which she talked about them, and it was obvious that something about her family had upset her deeply.

“They're why I came out here. Actually, I came out for Brad. But I would have left New York anyway. I didn't want to be anywhere near them. And this was perfect for me.” It was definitely part of why she had married Brad, and it had seemed fine at the time, although now things had turned out to be different. “He's being pretty outrageous right now too, and I'm getting tired of it. It's hard on me, it's upsetting Andy. It's just not fair.”

“I know,” he said quietly, “Andy said something about it to Bjorn the last time he was over. He said that the two of you fight all the time, ever since the accident, and he thinks his sister might be sicker than you're telling him.”

“My mother's been telling him Allie is going to be fine. And that drives me crazy too.” She looked at him then and he could see how tired she was. She was beyond exhausted. Three weeks of the kind of agony she had lived through was too much for anyone, without taking a serious toll on them, and it was taking a toll on her and he could see it.

“Maybe it's time for them to leave.” Enough was enough, if this was what it did to her, but he was in no position to help her get rid of them. He was an invisible friend, and they knew nothing of his existence.

“I said that to them last night, but my mother says she couldn't possibly leave me alone with Allie.” She laughed at the absurdity of it, and he put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her.

“I'm sorry you have to go through all this. What you're going through with Allie is enough without all this bullshit.”

“I don't know … I guess I needed to be tested or something. I think I'm flunking.” She said it with tears in her eyes and he pulled her closer still and kissed her again in the ICU waiting room where no one would see them.

“I think you're doing fantastically, better than A plus.”

“Shows what you know,” she said, and blew her nose. And then she leaned against him and closed her eyes, wishing things would get just a little better. “I'm so tired of it all …Trygve, will it ever end?” But right now there was no easy end to any of it, and they both knew it.

“A year from now, you'll look back at all this and wonder how you survived it.”

“Will I even live that long?” she asked, grateful to have him to lean on, and he spoke gently and firmly as he held her.

“I'm counting on it, Page … a lot of us are.” She nodded, and they sat for a long time in silence before she went back to Allie.

The phone was ringing when she got home that afternoon. It was a friend from the city whom she hadn't seen in months. Allyson and her daughter had gone to dancing school together two years before, and the girls weren't close friends, but they liked each other. She had heard about the accident and wanted to know if she could do anything to help, but Page told her there was nothing.

“Let me know if there is,” she persisted, and then hesitated for an instant. “What's happening with you and Brad, by the way? Are you …getting divorced?” Page was shocked by the question.

“No. Why?” But her blood ran cold as she said it. The woman knew something. It was obvious from the way she had asked the question.

“Maybe I shouldn't be saying anything …but I see him over here all the time with some young girl … I don't know, she must be in her early twenties. I thought she was a friend of Al-lie's at first when I saw him with her, and then I realized she was older. She lives in the next block, and I got the impression he was living with her. Actually, I saw them jogging together this morning before breakfast.” How nice for him. And how nice for him to embarrass her with everyone. It was a small community and now people were seeing him with the girl …Allie's age? …oh God. She felt two thousand years old as she explained that she was a good friend, and they worked together on projects at all hours, and it was nothing.

She knew she hadn't convinced her friend, but she wasn't about to admit to anyone that Brad was involved with someone else. And she was angry that the woman had called her. It was a mean thing to do, and she had to have known when Page said they weren't getting divorced that there was trouble.

“How was Allyson?” her mother asked as she walked into the kitchen.

“The same,” Page said distractedly. “How did you manage with Andy? Did he find the bathroom?” She smiled and her mother laughed.

“Of course. He's a wonderful boy. He made me and his aunt Alexis lunch and served it in the garden.” God forbid they should do anything for themselves for a single moment.

She found Andy playing in his room, and he looked up when he saw her. He looked worried and sad and it tore at her heart when she saw his eyes. All of their lives had changed brutally in the past three weeks, and none of them understood it. They were all like drowning people. She sat down on the bed, and reached a hand out and touched him.

“How was Grandma?”

“Funny,” he said, smiling up at her, as she longed to hold him. “She can't do anything. And neither can Aunt Alexis, her nails are too long to do anything. She can't even open a bottle of Evian. And Grandma asked me to wind her watch for her. She says she can't see it, and she couldn't find her glasses.” He knew them well, and then he looked up at Page with a worried expression. “Where's Daddy?”

“He's in the city, working.” She lied, as always.

“But it's Sunday.” He was no fool, but she didn't want to tell him the truth, and he sensed it.

“He works hard.” The bastard.

“Will he be home for dinner?”

“I don't know,” she said honestly, and then he climbed up on her lap and she held him. She wanted to tell him that she would always love him, no matter what happened with his father, but she didn't want to say too much, so she just told him how much she loved him.

She went to cook dinner after that, and Brad surprised them and came home, and it actually started out to be a very pleasant dinner. Brad did a barbecue for them, and he was very quiet and polite. He avoided Page's eyes, but he made an effort to be nice to her mother, and he had Andy help him make the hamburgers and steaks and chicken. Alexis explained that she wasn't eating meat today, and she had Andy open a bottle of Evian for her.

And it was only when Page stood alone next to Brad that she turned to him and told him about the call from the woman she knew in the city.

“I hear you went jogging today before breakfast.” He didn't say anything at first, he just looked at her, it had never occurred to him that anyone would tell her.

“Who told you that?” He sounded furious, and guilty.

“What difference does it make?”

“It's none of your fucking business,” he said in total fury.

“This is our life you're throwing in the trash, Brad …mine and Allie's …and Andy's. You think he doesn't know what's going on. Try looking at his face once in a while. He knows. We all do.”

“Great! What did you do? Tell him? You bitch!” He threw the cooking utensils down then, and stormed into the house, and Page struggled with the barbecue for a while until she burned herself, and Andy went running to get Brad. He was crying by then, he had heard them arguing and then he had seen Page burn herself. He didn't want her to get hurt, or his parents to shout, and he had heard them saying something about him. Maybe it was all his fault they were arguing, maybe his Dad was mad that Allie was hurt, and not Andy. He looked devastated as Brad prodded the steaks angrily, and finally finished the dinner. And all three Clarkes were extremely quiet as they sat down to dinner. But as usual, neither Mari-belle nor Alexis appeared to notice.

“What a marvelous cook you are,” Maribelle complimented him. The steaks were good, but the atmosphere was poisonous. “Alexis, you really ought to try one of the steaks, they're too good to be true.” But Alexis shook her head, happy with her lettuce leaves, and Page and Andy were picking at their dinner. Page still had an ice cube held to the two fingers she had burned, and there was already a nasty blister.

“How's your hand, Mom?” Andy asked her worriedly.

“It's fine, sweetheart.” Brad said not a word and never looked at his wife. He was convinced now that she had told Andy about his affair, and he was so mad he wanted to kill her. He started arguing with her again in the kitchen when they cleaned up, and neither of them saw Andy standing on the other side of the counter.

“You told him, didn't you! You had no right to do that!”

“I did no such thing!” she shouted back at him. “I wouldn't do that to him. But you might as well tell him yourself, you're never here. What is he supposed to think? And what if someone tells him the way they told me?”

“It's none of his goddamn business either!” He slammed out of the kitchen again, and Page was crying as she put away the dishes. Brad had gone back outside and was putting out the barbecue, when her mother walked into the kitchen.

“What a lovely dinner, dear. We're having such a good time here.” Page stared at her unbelievingly, not even sure what to say, it was all so surrealistic. But her family always had been.

“I'm glad you liked the dinner. Brad makes a good steak.” Maybe he'd come back to cook steak for them after he remarried.

“You're a wonderful couple,” she said, beaming at Page, who finally put down her dish towel and looked at her mother.

“Actually, Mom, things aren't going too well. I'm sure you noticed.”

“Not at all. Of course you're both worried about Allyson, but that's natural. I'm sure in afew weeks you'll all be back to normal.” It was amazing for her to even acknowledge that much.

“I'm not so sure of that anymore.” And then she decided to tell her the whole truth. Why not? If she didn't like it, she'd just pretend she didn't hear it. “He's involved with someone else, and it's putting an awful lot of strain on us at the moment.”

But her mother only shook her head, refusing to believe it. “I'm sure you're mistaken about that, dear. Brad would never do a thing like that. He'd never do anything to jeopardize your marriage.”

“Yes, he is,” Page went on doggedly, suddenly determined to make her believe it.

“All women think things like that from time to time. You're overwrought with this problem with Allyson.” Problem? You mean like the fact that she's been in a coma for three weeks and might die? Oh that problem.…”You know, your father and I had our little arguments at times too, but they never amounted to anything serious. You just have to be a little more understanding.” Page stood staring at her mother then, unable to believe what she was hearing. She was willing not to discuss what had happened in their family, but she was not willing to pretend it had never happened.

“I can't believe what you're saying,” Page said hoarsely.

“It's true …hard as it is to believe, your father and I had our difficult moments.”

“Mom, this is me …Page … do you remember what we went through?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Her mother turned away and started to leave the kitchen.

“Don't do this to me!” Page said, crying as she looked at her. “Don't you dare do this to me after all these years, with your pious, holier-than-thou lies …! Little problems.' Do you remember who you were married to? …what he did for all those years? How can you say that to me! Look at me dammit!”

Her mother turned slowly and stared at her blankly, as though she were unable to understand what had gotten into her daughter. Brad had just come in from the garden then, and he saw them, and the look on Page's face, and instinctively knew what had happened.

“Maybe you two should discuss this some other time,” he said quietly, and Page turned to him in fury.

“Don't you tell me what to do and what not to do, you sonofabitch. You're out fucking your brains out night and day, and now you want me to take this shit too? I'm not going to let her do this to me anymore.” She turned back to her mother then. “You can't play these games with me …you let him do what he did! You helped him! You let him into my room and locked the door, and told me I had to make Daddy happy … I was thirteen years old! Thirteen! And you made me sleep with my father! And Alexis was only too happy to turn her back on me, because he'd been doing it to her since she was twelve, and she was happy it was me and not her anymore! How dare you try and pretend that didn't happen! You're lucky I let you in my front door and I'm willing to see you.”

Maribelle looked at her, deathly pale, and Brad could see that she was shaking. “Those are terrible accusations, Page, and you know they're not true. Your father would never have done a thing like that.”

“He did and so did you, and you know it.” She turned away from them then, with her back to them, and sobbed, but Brad didn't dare approach her. She turned back to face her mother then with a look of outrage. “I spent years trying to get over it, trying to heal myself of what you'd done …and I could have lived with your telling me how sorry you were, how terrible you felt …but how can you try to pretend it never happened?”

Alexis wandered into the kitchen with absolutely no idea of what was going on. She had been calling David from her bedroom.

“Do you mind making me some camomile?” she asked Page sweetly, who let out a groan of disbelief as she leaned against the counter.

“I don't believe you. The two of you. You've spent so many years hiding from the truth that you can't face anything. You can't even open a fucking bottle of water for yourself. How can you live like that? How can you do this to yourselves?”

Alexis looked suddenly terrified as she looked around at them. “I'm sorry …I …never mind …”

“Here!” Page tossed a bottle of Evian at her and she caught it. “Mom was just telling me how Daddy never fucked either of us when we were kids. Remember that, Alex? Or have you had a memory lapse too? Remember when you shoved me at him so he wouldn't do it to you anymore? Remember that?” She looked at both of them miserably. “He did it until I was sixteen and threatened to call the police on him, which neither of you would ever have had the courage to do. How could you do that for him? How could you help him?” She was sobbing by then. “I could never understand that.” Especially once she had children, and Brad felt sick listening to her. He knew about it, but he had never heard her talk about it so bluntly, or confront them with it.

“How could you say a thing like that?” Alexis looked terrified. “Daddy was a doctor.”

“Yeah,” Page said through her tears. “I used to think that made a difference too, but it didn't, did it? It took me years to even go to a doctor after that. I always thought I'd be molested or raped. I didn't even go to the doctor half the time when I was pregnant, I was so afraid of what would happen. He was a great guy, our Dad, a wonderful man, a terrific doctor.”

“He was a saint,” Maribelle Addison said protectively, “and you know it.” Alexis had moved instinctively closer to her, and the two women were huddled together, and it was clear that they were never going to admit what had happened.

“You know what's sad?” Page said, looking at them. “You disappeared after all that, Alex. You married David at eighteen, and you got a new identity, new face, new boobs, new eyes, new everything, so you didn't have to be Alexis anymore. You could be someone else so you could pretend it never happened.” Alexis made not a sound as she listened. It was too threatening to her, now more than ever.

“Come on,” Brad said quietly to Page, sorry that it had happened. Too much had happened to her lately. “Don't do this to yourself.”

“No?” She turned to look at him. “Why not? Do you think I can pretend it never happened, like they do? Maybe I should do that with you too, pretend you're not out every night screwing around, pretend everything is wonderful and perfect. What a nice life …except that I would kill myself if I tried to do that. I haven't lived this long, and come this far, and suffered this much in order to pretend I believe in a lot of bullshit.”

“Maybe other people can't handle that much honesty. Did you ever think of that?” he said sadly.

“A lot.”

“They need places to hide in.”

“I can't live like that, Brad.”

“I know,” he said softly, “I always loved that about you.” But he had said it in the past tense and she had heard it.

Her mother and sister escaped from the kitchen then, and Page stood there for a moment trying to catch her breath as he watched her. “Are you all right?” He was worried about her, but he also knew that he couldn't give her what she needed. He didn't have it to give her anymore. That was just the way it was. And for once, it was honest.

“I don't know,” she said honestly. “I guess I'm glad I said it. I've always wondered if she has denial and she believes all that shit, or she just lies, to cover up for him, like she did then.”

“Maybe it doesn't matter. She's never going to admit the truth to you, Page, and neither is Alexis. You know that. Don't expect it.” She nodded. It had been a terrible night, but in some ways it had freed her. She went outside to sit alone for a while, and then she decided to go to the hospital to see Allyson. It was late, but all of a sudden she needed to see her. She told Brad before she went out, and she was sitting quietly in ICU a few minutes later. This time, she didn't say anything. She just sat there, thinking of everything Allyson had been before the accident, and missing her. It had been three weeks now.

“Mrs. Clarke, are you all right?” One of the night nurses noticed her at nine o'clock. She looked shaken and pale, and she was sitting so still, just staring at her daughter. Page nodded, and just sat there, until Trygve came by half an hour later.

“I wondered if you were here.” He spoke softly amidst the whirring and puffing of the machines. “I don't know why, I just had a feeling you were. I've been thinking about you.” He smiled, but then he noticed her eyes. She looked terrible, and she looked as though she'd been crying. “Are you okay?”

“More or less.” She shrugged with a tired smile. “I kind of lost it tonight.”

“Did it help?”

“I'm not sure. Not really. It won't change anything, but I got a lot off my chest.”

“Then maybe it was worth it.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” She didn't seem sure as she looked at him, and he saw again that she looked ravaged. Allyson was the same, so he knew she hadn't had bad news about her. It was everything else.

“Want to come have a cup of coffee?” She shrugged again, but she followed him out as the nurse watched them. She felt so sorry for her. It had been a long haul, and so far there wasn't much hope her daughter would get any better. She hated cases like that, they were so hard on everyone, especially when it involved kids. Sometimes, she thought to herself, it was simpler if you lost them. But she never would have said that to the parents.

He handed her a cup of coffee from a machine, and she still hadn't said anything. He was getting more and more worried about her. They sat down in the ICU waiting room and her eyes looked huge in her face, and bluer than he had ever seen them.

“What's happening?” he asked gently as she took a slow sip of the hot coffee.

“I don't know … I guess it's all getting to me …Allie …Brad …my mother….”

“Did something happen?” He was trying to figure it out and she wasn't giving him any clues, but he wanted so much to help her.

“Nothing that hasn't happened before. My mother was playing never-never land, just like she always does, and I went nuts, I guess.” She smiled at him and looked a little embarrassed. “Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't have any choice at the time. I told her that Brad and I were in trouble, which was dumb of me, and she talked about my father.” She wasn't sure how to tell him, and he was afraid to ask her. “My father and I …” she began, and then stopped and took another sip of coffee. “We …uh …had a pretty strange relationship.” She closed her eyes for a long moment then, and started to cry as she explained it to him. She hadn't really wanted to tell him, and yet she wanted to now. She wanted to be honest with him, and she knew it was safe to tell him anything.

“It's all right, Page,” he sensed easily how miserable she was, “you don't have to say anything if you don't want to.”

“No,” she looked up at him, through her tears, “I want to. I'm not afraid to tell you …” She took a breath and went on, “We …uh …he …uh …molested me when I was thirteen …actually he slept with me …he …uh …had intercourse with me, when I was thirteen … it went on for a long time …until I was sixteen …and my mother knew it. Actually,” she seemed to choke on the words, “she forced me to …he'd been sleeping with Alexis for four years before that …my mother was afraid of him. He was a very sick man, and he used to beat her, and she let him. She said we had to 'keep him happy' so he wouldn't hurt us …she used to bring him in to me, and then lock the door behind him.” Page was sobbing as he took her in his arms.

“My God, Page …how awful …how sick …” He would have killed anyone who had done that to his daughter.

“I know. It's taken me years to get over it. I left when I was seventeen. I worked as a waitress to pay for an apartment. My mother said that was a terrible thing to do, that I had betrayed them …I had broken his heart, she said …when he died, for a while, I actually thought I'd killed him.

“Eventually, I met Brad in New York, and we got married and came out here. I found a good therapist, and I made my peace with it. But she's still trying to pretend it never happened. That's what got me so upset. I don't understand how she can do that. I've never understood any of it …how she could know he was doing that, and still pretend that he was decent …she called him a saint tonight, and it made me sick.”

“No wonder you lost it,” he said soberly as he listened. He was stroking her hair, and holding her as she talked, just as she did to Allie. “I'm amazed you even see her.”

“I try not to most of the time, but with Allie's accident it was hard not to let her come out. I knew I shouldn't, but I always think I can play the game with her. The trouble is I just can't. Every time I see her it reminds me of when I was thirteen …she hasn't changed …and neither has Alexis.”

“How did she get out of it?”

“He left her alone once he started with me,” she sighed, and leaned closer to Trygve, knowing she was safe there. “And she got married at eighteen. I was only fifteen then. She ran away with a forty-year-old man. She's still married to him. I don't think he expects much. I think he's gay, and has had a lover for years. He's kind of like a father to her. And I think her answer was to become someone new, new face, new body, new name. David operates on her constantly and she loves it. And she's willing to play the same games as my mother, they both pretend it never happened.”

“Did she ever get therapy?” He was intrigued. It was amazing that Page had survived it.

“I don't think so. She would certainly never mention it to me. But I think if she had, she'd say something. That would make us both survivors of our own little holocaust. But she's still playing the games with them. Actually, I don't think there's much of her left anyway. She's anorexic, bulimic, she's never had kids. She hardly even talks. She's just a showpiece for him, and she looks great in clothes. He spends a lot of money on her, and that keeps her happy.” Page grinned at him then. “We're very different.”

“Sounds like it. You look pretty good in clothes though.”

“Not like that. All she cares about is her face and her body. She's constantly purging herself, starving herself, she's obsessed with being clean, and being the perfect beauty.”

“Sounds like she still has a problem.”

“How could she not?” Page said sadly. But she felt better now that she'd told him.

“I had a feeling the other day that there was a reason why you disliked them so much, if you really did. I was never entirely sure if you were just kidding.”

“I wasn't. It's always a tough call for me. Do I see them and still preserve my sanity by not playing the game with them, or do I stay away from them? It's easier not to see them, but sometimes I have to.”

He nodded, feeling drained just from listening to her, when one of the nurses came and told her there was a call for her. It was probably her mother, she assumed, wanting something. She was certainly not going to refer to their encounter in the kitchen. That much Page knew for sure. But it wasn't her mother, it was Brad, and he sounded frantic.

“Page …” He sounded breathless. “It's Andy.”

“Is he hurt?” Terror ran through her again. Everything seemed so dangerous these days, so lethal. It was as though she was constantly waiting for more bad news, or some disaster to befall someone she loved. “What is it?”

“He's gone.”

“What do you mean? Did you look in his room?” That was ridiculous. How could he be gone? He was probably asleep in his bed with Lizzie, and Brad hadn't seen him.

“Of course I looked in his room,” Brad shouted at her. “He's gone. He left a note.”

“What does it say?” Page glanced nervously at Trygve and held a hand out to him. He took it in his own and held it tightly.

“I don't know …it's hard to read …something about how he knows it's all his fault that we're fighting, and we're angry at him, and he wants us to be happy.” Brad sounded like he was crying. “I just called the police. You'd better come home. They said they'd be here in a few minutes. He must have heard us fighting. Oh God, Page, where do you think he is?”

“I have no idea,” she said, feeling helpless and panicky. “Did you look outside? Maybe he's hiding in the garden.”

“I looked everywhere before I called the police. He's nowhere around the house.”

“Does my mother know?” Not that she would be any help, and Brad sounded irritated when he answered.

“Yes. She said he probably went to a friend's house. At ten o'clock at night, at his age, that's not likely.”

“That sounds about right. Let me guess. And she and Alexis went to bed, and my mother told you it would probably all be fine in the morning.”

He laughed in spite of himself. “At least there are never any surprises.”

“Some things never change.”

“Could you please come home?”

“I'll be right there.” She hung up and looked at Trygve. “It's Andy. He ran away … he left a note about not wanting us to fight anymore, he thinks it's all his fault.” Her eyes filled with tears as she said the words, and he held her. “What if something really awful happens? Kids his age get kidnapped every day.” That was all she needed now. She couldn't have stood one more disaster.

“I'm sure the police will find him. Do you want me to come too?” But she shook her head.

“I don't think you should. There's nothing you can do, and it'll only complicate things.” He nodded in agreement and walked her quickly to her car. He kissed her before she left and squeezed her arm gently.

“It's going to be all right, Page. They'll find him.”

“God, I hope so.”

“Me too.” He waved and she drove away. It had been quite an evening.

The police were there when she got home, and they took all the information down, about who his friends were, when he went to school, what he was wearing. They went outside and looked everywhere with flashlights. Page gave them two pictures of him. And not surprisingly, her mother and Alexis never came out of their bedrooms. The secret of their game was never to face, or admit to, anything unpleasant. And they played it well. Despite the commotion in the house, and lights flashing outside, there was no sound whatsoever from their bedrooms.

The police drove around the neighborhood, they left and came back again to see if he'd turned up, and just as they drove away again, the phone rang. It was Trygve.

“He's here,” he said quietly to Page. “Bjorn was hiding him in his bedroom. I explained to him that that wasn't a good thing to do, and he said that Andy said he never wanted to go home again, he was too sad there.” Page's eyes filled with tears as she listened, and she signaled to Brad.

“He's at Trygve's.”

“Why there?” He looked surprised. The girls were friends, but there were no children Andy's age.

“He and Bjorn are friends. He went there because he was too sad here.” Andy's parents exchanged a long sad glance, and Page went back to talking to Trygve. “I'll come and get him now.” She was grateful that they had found him.

Trygve sighed at the end of the phone, he was relieved as well, and slightly embarrassed at what he had to tell her. “He says he doesn't want to come home.”

She looked startled by what he'd said. “Why not?”

“He says his father wishes that he was the one who was gone away and not Allie. He said he heard you two fighting about him tonight and his Dad was really angry.”

“He was angry at me, not Andy. He thought I had told him about Brad's girlfriend, but I hadn't.”

“He doesn't understand that. And he told Bjorn that he thinks Allie's dead, and you're all lying to him. He says he's sure of it. I'm sorry, Page. I thought you ought to know that.”

“I guess I should have let him see her.”

“That's a tough call. I'd have done the same thing you did. I didn't have any choice with Bjorn, and Chloe was in better shape. Besides, Bjorn is older, and his case is a little different.”

“We'll come and get him.”

“Why don't you let Bjorn and me bring him home? He's having some hot chocolate. I'll bring him home when he's finished.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully, and went to tell Brad what had happened.

“I guess we have to say something to him,” Brad said unhappily.

“I think we have to face it ourselves. We can't go on like this for much longer.” She sighed deeply then. “And I guess I'm going to have to take him to see Allie.” She went to call the police then, to tell them that Andy had turned up at a friend's, and they told her they were glad to hear it.

And half an hour later, he came home with Bjorn and Trygve. He walked into the house looking very sad and very pale, and Page burst into tears when she saw him. She pulled him into her arms and told him how worried they had been, and how much they loved him.

“Please don't ever do that again. Something terrible could have happened.”

“I thought you were mad at me,” he said, crying, glancing up at Brad too, who was fighting back tears of his own, as Trygve and Bjorn stood with them in the kitchen.

“I wasn't mad at you,” Page explained, “and neither was Daddy. And Allie isn't dead. She's very, very sick, just the way I told you.”

“Then why can't I see her?” he asked suspiciously, but this time Page surprised him.

“You will. I'm going to take you tomorrow.”

“You will? For real?” He beamed from ear to ear, he still didn't really understand what he would see there, that she would not talk to him, would not even look like the sister he loved and remembered. But maybe he needed this, maybe he needed reality too, just as she did.

“He thought Allie was dead,” Bjorn explained for him.

“I know,” Page said, thanking him for taking care of Andy.

“He's my buddy,” Bjorn said proudly.

She took them both into Andy's room, and Bjorn helped her put him to bed. She kissed Andy then, and Bjorn went back to the kitchen to find his father.

“Is Daddy going away?” Andy asked her worriedly, once she had put the lights out.

“I don't know.” She didn't know what to say. “When I know anything, I'll tell you. But whatever happens, it has nothing to do with you. No one's mad at you. It just has to do with me and Daddy.”

“Is it Allie's fault?” He was looking for someone to blame, but sadly enough, there was no one.

“It's no one's fault,” Page continued to explain. “It just happened.”

“Like the accident?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Yeah. Like that. Sometimes things just happen.”

“You kept saying you were tired, that's why you and Daddy were yelling.”

“We are tired, but there's other stuff too. It has nothing to do with you. Just grown-up stuff. Honest.” He nodded, none of it was good news, but it was easier to cope with the truth than his fears. He had been so sure that it was his fault. “I love you very, very much …and so does Daddy.”

He nodded, and put his arms around her neck and kissed her. “I love you too. Will you really let me see Allie?”

“I promise.” She kissed him again and started to leave the room and he asked her to send Brad in. And when he went in, she said good night to Bjorn and Trygve. She thanked them again for finding him, and Trygve smiled at her as they left.

“Good night, Page,” he said quietly, and she felt as though their bond to each other had deepened. She had no secrets from him, and their families seemed to be becoming slowly intertwined. Brad felt something too. He glanced at her as he came back into the kitchen.

“Something going on between you two?” he asked bluntly, and she shook her head.

“No. But that's not the issue.”

“I know. I just wondered. I like him. I figured maybe you did too. He's a decent guy.”

“We've spent a lot of time together at the hospital in the last few weeks. He's a good father, and a good friend.”

Brad looked at her quietly across the kitchen. “I guess I haven't been there much for you …” His eyes filled with tears and he looked away. “I can't stand seeing her like that … so broken … so changed …she doesn't even look like Allie.”

“I know. I try not to think about it, just about what has to be done for her.” He nodded, admiring her, he just couldn't face it.

“What are we going to do about us?” he asked, and then opened the door to the garden. “Why don't we talk out here so no one hears us.”

She followed him and they sat on two chairs.

“It doesn't work this way, does it? I thought we could get away with it for a while, until I figured out what's happening. But I'm never here, you're always mad, and I feel pulled in a thousand directions. And every time I get home, I see Andy looking at me, or the hurt or anger in your eyes, or I realize I can barely make myself go see Allie …” And Stephanie was pushing him to move in with her, and he wasn't sure he was ready to do that either. “Maybe I should stay somewhere for a while. In a way, I'd rather be here. But it doesn't work for anyone.” She thought long and hard about what he was saying. At first, she had wanted him to stay at home too, but not the way things were now. It was nightmarish this way, and they both knew it. They had to face it. It was over.

She caught her breath before she said the words, and once they were out, she couldn't believe she'd said them. If anyone had told her a month before, she wouldn't have believed them. “I think you should move out,” she said in barely more than a whisper.

“You do?” He looked surprised as he stared at her. But in a way, it was a relief to hear her say it.

“I do.” She nodded slowly. “It's time. We've been kidding ourselves for the past few weeks. I think it was over long before I knew it. You would never have told me what you were doing, about …your other life …unless you were ready to let go of this one. I just didn't understand that when you told me.”

“Maybe you're right,” he said unhappily. “Maybe I should never have said anything.” But he couldn't take it back now, he couldn't undo what he'd done, and in truth, he didn't want to. “I wish I knew the answers, Page.”

“So do I.” She looked at him, wondering how they had come to this. Was it all because of the accident, or was that just the catalyst? Things had to have been ready to fall apart before, or this would never have happened. “I always thought we had such a perfect life,” she said, thinking back on it. “Even now, I can't see where we went wrong …what we did … or should have done …”

“You couldn't have done anything,” he said honestly, “I was fucking up for a long time. You just didn't know it.”

“I guess not,” she said, suddenly grateful that she hadn't known sooner. They had had sixteen years that she cherished now. She still couldn't believe they were over. “What'll we tell Andy?” She looked worried again. It was amazing, sitting here, discussing this, like a party they were going to give, or a trip, or a funeral. She hated every minute of it, but it had to be done, it was better to face it. “We have to say something to him soon.”

“I know. We tell him the truth, I guess …that I'm an asshole.”

She smiled at him in the dark. He was an asshole at times, but she still loved him. In some ways, she would have liked to turn the clock back, in others she knew it wasn't possible. Even after only three weeks of destruction, it had gone too far now. The whole foundation of their marriage had been undermined long since, and the entire structure had finally caved in. In truth, it had been a long time coming. And the fact that she hadn't known it was happening didn't lessen the power of the collapse. Everything around them was falling.

“What do you think you'll do?” she asked quietly. “Move in with her?” It sounded like he already had, part time at least, from what her friend said.

“I don't know yet. That's what she'd like. But I need some time to catch my breath.” It wasn't going to be easy for them. Their relationship had been built on lies, and lust, and cheating. It was harder to build on something like that, and he was beginning to understand that. “When do you want me to go?”

For an instant, she wished he could still be everything she had always thought he was. But he wasn't. “Before we destroy Andy and each other,” she said, sounding calmer than she felt. “It's been getting worse pretty quickly.”

“You've been pretty angry, and you've been right,” he admitted. This was the most civilized conversation they'd had since the accident. It was sad that they had only come to their senses in time to end it. “I'll try not to aggravate things while I get organized. I'm going to New York tomorrow. I'll be back Thursday. Maybe I can figure something out by next weekend. How much longer do you think your mother will be here?” It was a little difficult ending their marriage and moving out with his mother-in-law in the guest room. But he was surprised by Page's answer.

“I'm going to ask them to leave tomorrow morning. I'm not going to have her here anymore. It's not good for me … or for Andy.” She was cleaning all of it out, him, her mother, Alexis. In their own ways, they were using her, and hurting her, and she had understood that night, as she sat talking to Trygve, and when Andy had run away after that, that it was time to stop it.

“I respect you a lot, you know,” he said softly in the night air. “I always have. I don't know where things went wrong. Maybe I wasn't ready for all you had to give.” He was twenty-eight when they got married, but he had never really given up the idea that he could do whatever he wanted, and now there was a hell of a price to pay for it.

“You'll feel better when I'm gone,” he said sadly. “You can get on with your life then.”

“I'll be lonely too. This isn't going to be easy for anyone,” she told him honestly, and then she looked at him in the dark night. “What are we going to do about Allie?”

“There's nothing we can do. That's what gets to me so badly. I don't know how you sit there night and day. I'd go crazy.”

“I'm getting there. But what if she never comes back?” she whispered.

“I don't know. I try not to think about it. What if she does, and she's not the same. You know …like that kid …Bjorn … I don't think I could stand it, knowing what she used to be. I guess we just have to accept whatever comes, don't we? At first, I thought we had more choices. But now I realize we don't. … Or maybe we did then, we could have chosen not to operate, but then we'd have killed her. We did all the right stuff, and nothing's happening. But I'll tell you one thing, if she stays in the coma indefinitely, you can't sit there for years … or it'll destroy you. You're going to have to work that out eventually.” But it was still too soon. The accident had happened a little over three weeks before. And there was still a strong possibility she could come out of the coma.

“Don't let your life turn into that, Page …” he said, pleading with her “…you deserve so much more than that …more than I had to give you.”

She nodded, and turned away, trying not to think of what it would be like when he left. She looked up at the sky then, and saw stars, as she wondered how their life had gone so wrong …how they could have come so far …how this could have happened to them …and to Al-lie….

CHAPTER 13

Page waited quietly the next morning for her mother to get up, and when she did, she made breakfast for her and Alexis, and served it to them at the kitchen table. And then she told them quietly that they had to leave, that a week had been long enough, and this was not a good time for her to have them out there. She made no reference to the night before, and no apology, and they must have known she meant business, because neither of them argued with her. Her mother said that David was missing Alexis terribly, and she had to get home herself to see about repainting her apartment.

They were the perfect excuses, and Page didn't give a damn what stories they told each other about leaving. She wanted them out of her house by that night, and she had already booked them on a four P.M. flight in first class, much to her mother's amazement. She had also arranged for a limousine that would pick them up and take them to the airport. The limousine would be there at two o'clock, in plenty of time for their flight. And they could have lunch before they left the house, and even visit Allyson one last time, if they wanted to do that.

“Actually …” her mother stalled “…it takes me so long to pack. And Alexis said she thought she was getting one of her headaches. Of course, if you want us to visit Allyson, maybe we should take a flight tomorrow.” There was not a chance of that, as long as Page was alive. She was not letting them stay another moment. She was taking charge of her life again. As painful as it was, she had told Brad he had to move out, and now she was sending them back to New York.

“I don't think Allyson will mind,” Page said facetiously, but they took it seriously and said to be sure she told her that they both sent their love.

She stayed with them until they left, and then changed their beds, did two loads of wash, and vacuumed her whole house. She felt as though she was taking care of things, and doing what she could to get her life back in order. Their departure had been remarkably unemotional, considering the fireworks the night before. Nothing more needed to be said now.

Alexis had put on a new hat, her mother wore one of the new suits they'd bought, they kissed the air somewhere around Page's face, and they disappeared into the limousine while Page watched them. And she felt a wave of relief wash over her as she cleaned her house and realized they were gone. It felt particularly good when she cleaned Allyson's room, and the only thing that startled her was the unbelievable quantity of laxatives that Alexis had forgotten. She was a very sick woman, Page knew, but no one else seemed to be aware of that, or maybe they were and they didn't care. She was trying to make herself disappear, as well as everything that had happened to her, and it was a terrible way to do it. In her own way, she wanted to be a little girl again, the little girl she had been before her father raped her.

Page picked Andy up at school at four o'clock, feeling freer than she had in weeks, certainly since the accident, and he asked if they could stop off to buy a bunch of roses. Page suggested that he might like to give them to Chloe at the hospital because Allyson couldn't have them in ICU, and he agreed. He was excited about seeing her, and he talked about her all the way there, and Page reminded him again of what Allie would look like.

“I know, I know,” he said importantly, “like she's asleep.”

“No,” Page explained again, “different. She has a big bandage on her head, and her arms and legs are very thin, and there's a tube in her throat that helps her breathe, attached to a big machine that breathes for her. Sometimes it all looks pretty scary, particularly if you've never seen it before. Okay? You can talk to her, but she won't answer you.”

“I know. She's sleeping.”

He felt very important to be going to visit her, and he had talked about it at school all day. When they got to the hospital, he could hardly wait to get out of the car, and he held Page's hand as they hurried into the lobby.

They had bought pink roses finally for Chloe, and he bought one beautiful gardenia to give his sister. “She's gonna love it,” he said proudly, carrying it himself. But in spite of all her preparations, Page could see he was stunned when he saw her. And for some reason, she looked particularly bad that day. She was pale, and they had changed the bandage and it looked bigger and whiter. It was obvious too that her hair was all gone, and there suddenly seemed to be more machines than ever. There weren't, of course, but it seemed that way to Page, as she watched Andy stare at her. And then he moved slowly forward, and put the gardenia next to his sister on the pillow.

“Hi, Allie,” he whispered, his eyes huge, and then he touched her hand, and Page couldn't keep from crying. “It's okay … I know you're asleep …Mom told me.” He stood looking at her for a long time, and stroking her hand, and then he leaned over and kissed her. Everything around her smelled medicinal, except for the gardenia he had brought her.

“Dad's going to New York today,” he explained, “and Mom said I could see you again sometime soon. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here.” Nothing stirred except the machines, and Page cried silently as the nurses watched them. “I love you, Allie …it's no fun at home without you.” He wanted to tell her Mom and Dad fought all the time, but he didn't want to hurt his mother's feelings. And he wanted to beg her to come home. He really missed his older sister. “Oh …and I have a new friend …Bjorn …you know, Chloe's brother. He's eighteen, but he isn't really.” He turned around and smiled at his mom, and he was surprised to see her crying. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“I'm fine,” she said, smiling at him through her tears. She was so proud of him, and she loved him so much. And she was glad she had brought him. She hadn't realized till then how much he needed to see his sister. And even if Allie died now, he would feel he had reached out to her, and said good-bye. She hadn't disappeared in the middle of the night into a vacuum.

He talked to Allie for a little while, and then he turned to Page and said he was ready to visit Chloe. He looked at his sister for a long moment then, and stood on tiptoe to kiss her.

“I'll see you soon …okay? … try to wake up soon, Al. We really miss you … I love you, Allie,” he said, and taking his mother's hand, he left ICU with his bunch of pink roses for Chloe.

It took Page a minute to regain her composure, and then she kissed him and told him how proud she was of him. “You're a terrific guy, you know that?”

“Do you think she heard me, Mom?” he asked, looking worried.

“I'm sure of it, sweetheart.”

“I hope so,” he said sadly. He was still subdued when they got to Chloe's room, but Page was amazed at how well he had done. He hadn't cried, or been visibly frightened. And he was even better with Chloe. Bjorn was there, visiting her too, and eventually the two boys started playing and laughing and running in the halls, and playing tag around the nurses.

“We'd better get them out of here before the nurses throw us out,” Trygve said, laughing, and then he glanced more seriously at Page. “How did he do in ICU? Was he okay?”

“He was fantastic. He was so brave, and so sweet. He left a gardenia next to her on the pillow.”

“He's a sweet kid. He seems happier today, how is he?”

“Okay. Brad and I had a long talk last night. He's going to move out. We're going to have to say something to Andy.”

“Nothing's ever easy, is it?” He squeezed her hand, and they went to round up the boys, and then Trygve invited them out for pizza. “Or do you have to go home and cook dinner for your mother and sister?”

“Nope,” she grinned. “All gone. I sent them home on a four o'clock flight,” she said, looking ecstatic.

“Aunt Alexis is weird,” Andy added, listening to them, “she spends all her time in the bathroom.”

They had a nice time together that night, in sharp contrast to the night before. The boys played and talked and teased and devoured the enormous pizza, and Page and Trygve had a chance to talk and share a few normal hours, away from the hospital. It even gave her a chance to talk about her artwork. She'd been thinking about getting a studio, after Allie got out of ICU, or if they settled into some kind of permanent routine. But she wanted to pursue her painting more seriously, and maybe even get paid for her murals.

“Good for you,” Trygve congratulated her. “You should have done that years ago. They're sensational.” And so was she. He liked her better every time he saw her. He took them home eventually and he was sorry when he had to leave, but he had to take Bjorn home. And Chloe would be coming home in another week or two, that was going to keep him pretty busy. But he had every intention of making time for Page too, and going to the hospital if she needed him to. He also wanted to spend a little time with Andy. It was going to be hard for her now if Brad moved out, and hard for the boy. Trygve wanted to be there to help her pick up the pieces. He just hoped that nothing dramatic happened to Allyson now. They had all been through enough, and with everything else going on in her life, he wasn't sure that Page could take it.

CHAPTER 14

Brad came home from New York on Thursday afternoon, but Page didn't see him. He never came home to Ross that night, and the next day when he stopped by to see Allyson at lunchtime, she missed him. The nurses told her he'd come by at noon, but when she went home after picking Andy up from Jane's that night, she found Brad packing. The door to the bedroom was closed. But she saw his car in the garage, and Andy exploded into their bedroom to see him. And then he looked around him, startled. There were two suitcases on the floor, another on the bed, and there were clothes everywhere. And as Page saw them, she felt her heart ache.

“What are you doing, Dad?” Andy looked confused, and this wasn't the way Page had wanted him to find out. Brad looked around the room, then at her, and they both knew they had no choice. “Are you going away again?” He looked deeply worried.

“Sort of, champ.” He sat down on the bed and pulled Andy onto his lap, as Page watched them, feeling a lump rise in her throat. Her life seemed to be full of good-byes these days, and painful moments. “I'm going to move to the city.”

“Me too?” Andy looked stunned. No one had told him they were moving.

“No, you're going to stay here with Mom.” He had wanted to say “…and Allie …” but he stopped himself in time. Who knew if she'd ever come home again?

“Are we getting divorced?” Andy asked as tears sprang to his eyes and his father hugged him.

“Maybe. We don't know yet. But it seemed like a good idea for me to move out. Your Mom and I have been doing an awful lot of fighting.”

“Is it because I ran away that night, Dad? Is that why you're leaving?”

“No, it's because it's something I've wanted to do for a while. And things have gotten pretty difficult lately. Sometimes that's the way things happen.”

“Is it because of the accident?” Andy needed a reason. But maybe there was none.

“Could be. I don't know. Sometimes things just get rough …but that doesn't mean I don't love you. I love you a whole bunch, and so does Mom. We're both going to be here for you, and you'll come and visit me sometimes, and on weekends.” Listening to him, Page suddenly realized that there were going to have to be visitation schedules, and lawyers. It was all so complicated, and so official. She hated it to get that way, but this was what would happen now. They would have to divide up everything they had, the furniture, what was left of the wedding gifts after sixteen years …the linens …the silverware …the towels …What a miserable thing their life had become, and all in a matter of moments.

“Where will you be, Dad? Do you have a house?”

“I'm going to stay in an apartment. I'm going to get my own phone number, and you can call me. And you can call me at the office.” Andy listened to him and then started to cry as Brad held him.

“I don't want you to go,” he said miserably as Page cried while she watched them. It was awful.

“I don't want to go either, Son, but I have to.”

“Why?” He didn't understand it, and watching them, neither did Page. How had it come to this? How could they have been so stupid?

“It's hard to explain. Things just worked out that way.”

“Why can't you fix them?” It was a reasonable suggestion and Brad smiled at Page through his own tears.

“I wish I could.” But the truth was he didn't wish he could. He was happy to move on. He wanted his own life, his own apartment, and Stephanie. He was actually excited about moving. And she was thrilled. She wanted to move in with him right away, but Brad thought they should wait a month or two.

It was only when he came back here, when he saw how painful it was for all of them, that he didn't want to leave them. But he was smart enough by now to know that if he didn't move out, he'd be slipping away whenever he could in a matter of moments. He was ready to go, no matter how sorry he was, or how much he loved Andy.

“Don't do it, Daddy,” Andy begged, and Page felt nauseous.

“Son, don't. It's the right thing for all of us. I know it.”

“What'll Allie say when she comes back?” He was clutching at straws and they all knew it.

“We'll have to explain it to her.” Andy ran to his mother then and sobbed as she held him.

It was a terrible night for all of them. Brad decided to spend the night there and he worked through the night going through his papers. And by morning, they all looked as though they were in mourning.

Page made pancakes and sausages for all of them, normally their favorite, but no one could eat them. Andy had had a baseball game scheduled that day, but with his broken arm, he couldn't play. And he wanted Brad to stay and play with him, but by late morning, Brad said he needed to get to the city. He knew that Stephanie was waiting.

“When will I see you, Dad?” Andy asked, panicky, as Brad loaded his bags and boxes into the car, and prepared to leave them.

“Next Saturday, I promise. Just pretend I'm on a trip. You can call me every day at the office.” But Andy was beyond words and promises by then, he just stood there and cried and so did Page, as he backed out of the driveway and left them. Other than Allie's accident, four weeks before, it was the worst day she could remember. All that hope, all those years, those two shining people, the family they had built, gone forever.

Andy stood outside crying in her arms for a long time, and then finally they went inside, and sat together. It felt as though someone had died. They had lost two people they loved. And Page could hardly believe it when her mother called at lunchtime and thanked her for the lovely visit.

“Alexis and I had such a good time. And it was so good to see Allyson. I'm sure by now she's much better.” The glib words left her speechless, and she was in no mood to talk to her. Page told her mother she'd call her back sometime, hung up, and went back to Andy. He was lying on her bed, crying into the pillow. He felt terrible, and she had to admit, she didn't feel much better. Somehow, seeing Brad leave made it all so real, and so painful.

“I know you feel rotten, sweetheart. But we have to make the best of it,” she said through her own tears. And then Andy rolled over to see her.

“Did you want him to leave?” Was it her fault? His? Andy's? Allie's? …whose? …Andy didn't understand it.

“No. I didn't want him to leave, sweetheart. But I know he had to. Things had gotten pretty bad.”

“Why? Why were you fighting?”

“I don't know. We just were.” It was so hard to explain to him. She didn't completely understand it herself, how could she explain it to a child of seven?

Trygve called them late that afternoon, and she told him what had happened. He invited them over for one of his stews, but at first Andy didn't even want to see Bjorn, and then finally he relented. He got in the car halfheartedly, and took the teddy bear he slept with.

“Bjorn has one too,” he explained to Page. “He calls him Charlie.”

And when they got there, Bjorn could see that his friend was in bad shape. They sat outside and talked for a long time, while Andy told him what had happened.

“How is he?” Trygve asked, worried about them both.

“Upset. It was worse than I thought when the actual moment came. It was awful.”

“I remember only too well.” It still hurt to think about the day Dana had left. Everyone had cried for hours, even Dana. “God, you've all been through the wringer.”

“Who hasn't?” She looked over at him, exhausted again. It was a permanent state these days. “How's Chloe?”

“Raising hell at the hospital. She's supposed to come home next week, if we can rig up ramps for her, and she'll have to sleep downstairs in Nick's bedroom.” But listening to him, Page thought about how lucky he was that she was coming home at all. In four weeks, there had been no change in Allie's condition. It was not beyond hope yet, but soon it would be.

They had a nice dinner together that night, and talked about the menu for his Memorial Day barbecue. He gave her his latest article to read, it was part of a series for The New York Times he'd been working on for a while. They had a good time, but he didn't press her about anything. He knew she was hurting over Brad, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her.

“I didn't expect to feel so awful when he left,” she explained after dinner, as they sat outside in deck chairs, fighting the mosquitoes.

“Why not? After sixteen years, you'd have to be numb not to. I was pretty numb actually by the time Dana left, but it still knocked the hell out of me. I grieved for a long time. You may too.”

“I don't know what's happening to me anymore. My life is such a mess.”

“No it's not. It just feels that way right now. You have a lot on your plate. What's happening with Allie? What does Hammerman say?”

“That a lot is still possible, but if she doesn't come out of the coma in a month or two, eventually it won't be. I'm beginning to worry that she's going to stay this way, Trygve.” He didn't say anything for a moment as she thought about it, and looked at the stars in silence.

“I hope not.” And then he remembered something he'd forgotten to tell her. “I heard something interesting last week, but I knew you had your hands full and I didn't want to upset you.”

“What was that?”

“Someone saw Laura Hutchinson drunk at a party. I mean really drunk. She had to be taken away, and it was all done very quietly. Very hush-hush. Things like that make me wonder how often that's happened before and what really happened that night. If the rest of us get drunk, we fall on our faces and make asses of ourselves, and it doesn't matter if we don't do it very often. Someone with a problem … in a delicate situation … it would be handled very differently, wouldn't it? It would all be whisked away like a bad smell so no one would know it.

“I've always wondered if she was drunk that night. She was so apologetic to everyone, so distraught, so attentive to the Chapmans, from what I heard.” She had made an enormous donation to Redwood High School in Phillip's name, and everyone knew it. “I always thought it sounded like she felt guilty.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she just felt terrible about Phillip's death, whether she was responsible for it or not. She wrote to me, and told me how sorry she was about Allie,” Page said without suspicion. She had wanted to blame Laura Hutchinson at first, but she had gotten over that.

“We heard from her too, but I never answered. What can you say? Oh, no problem …it's fine, you almost killed my daughter, and may have turned her into a wheelchair case, but we really appreciate the letter.” He looked angry, as he said it, and then he looked at Page pensively.

“You know … I had this crazy idea. I don't even know what I'm searching for, but I have an old friend who's an investigative reporter. He works for one of those disgusting tabloids, but he might have some interesting sources.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked with interest.

“I'm not sure. Something. Maybe I'm like you …maybe we're both looking for a needle in the haystack. But looking back at it, I think there was more than we knew that night. Maybe he can find out something. Maybe Laura Hutchinson still has a drinking problem, and if so we have a right to know it.”

“Why don't you ask him,” she said softly, as Trygve nodded, and then he looked at her and smiled. “The Chapmans would be interested in the information too.” They had just filed suit against both of the local papers.

“We're a couple of troublemakers, you and I,” Trygve said quietly.

“Maybe she deserves it,” Page whispered sadly.

Without saying more, he nodded.

CHAPTER 15

The next two weeks whizzed by, painfully at times, but pleasantly too. The first week that Brad was gone was incredibly painful. Andy cried every night, twice he had to be picked up from school, too upset to stay, once she was afraid he'd run away again, but she found him sitting alone with his teddy bear in the garden. And it was hard on her too. He wanted something she didn't have to give him anymore, a Daddy.

Brad was true to his word, and took him out the following Saturday, but it was terrible when he brought him home again. They had gone to Marine World. And Andy didn't want him to leave, but Brad said he had to. He would have taken him home with him, but he thought it was too soon to introduce him to Stephanie. She was at his apartment most of the time now, and Brad didn't want Andy to associate her with the pain of the separation.

The second week went a little more smoothly. Andy went to see Allie again, they had dinner with the Thorensens a couple of times. Andy saw Brad again, on Saturday. And Chloe came home from the hospital on Sunday, six weeks after the accident that had almost killed her.

Trygve drove her home, and Bjorn was waiting for them with big signs everywhere, and bouquets of flowers he had picked from their garden. He had baked a cake for her with Trygve the night before, and he made her lunch himself that day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, his favorite, and the S'Mores he had learned to make at camp. It was a wonderful homecoming for Chloe. Even Nick had come home from college for the long weekend. And he had given up his room to his sister.

Page and Andy had come by to see her too, after she'd settled in. She was lying on the couch in the living room by then, not looking very comfortable, but extremely happy. She still had quite a lot of pain, but she was trying not to overdo the pain medicine. She didn't want to get hooked on any of it, and she tried to cope with it by distraction.

Jamie Applegate had come to see her that afternoon too, and he looked suddenly awkward when he arrived. He had visited her a lot in the hospital, and he'd gotten used to seeing her there, but seeing her at home for the first time suddenly reminded him of how dishonest they had been when they had snuck away for the date that had injured her and Allyson, and killed Phillip. It seemed to bring back all of it, for both of them, and they talked quietly for a long time, in the living room, while Bjorn and Trygve and Page and Andy sat in the kitchen.

It was a happy, easy day. For the moment, the worst was over. She might have to be operated on again, the doctor thought it was likely that she would. But she would never be in danger again, or in as much pain, or as severely incapacitated as she still was now. Now it was a matter of repairing the damaged limbs, but not of surviving. She looked pretty and young as she lay on the couch in the living room, covered by a pink blanket Page had given her. It was cashmere, and soft, and she fingered it unconsciously as she and Jamie talked about Allie and Phillip.

“It seems weird, doesn't it?” Chloe said sadly as she looked at him. “I can't call her …you can't call him … it makes me feel so lonely sometimes,” she said sadly, her big eyes looking up at him as he nodded. Chloe had helped him a lot, she talked about the things that he wouldn't have dared to say, about the accident and what she was feeling. Because she was a girl, it seemed okay to her, and it somehow gave him permission to vent the guilt and the anguish he felt for surviving the accident unscathed by the cruel hand of fate that had touched the other three. He was still having trouble with it, and seeing a therapist from time to time to help him get over the inevitable guilt he felt. He had even gone to a group of people who had survived plane crashes, and fires, and accidents, but lost members of their families and friends. It had been a great relief to talk to them, and he had told Chloe all about it.

“So what are we going to do today?” Jamie asked eventually. They had become close friends in the past six weeks, and he thought he knew everything about her. The kind of music she liked, her favorite actors and actresses and movies, the friends she really loved, and the people she hated, the kind of house she wanted to live in when she grew up, how many children she thought she'd like to have, where she wanted to go to college. They talked about everything, from the trivial to the important.

“I don't know,” she said, teasing him, “I thought maybe we'd go dancing.” She hadn't lost her sense of humor through it all, and he took her hand gently and looked at her, after she said it.

“We will one day. I promise you that, we'll go in a great big limousine, like to a prom, and we'll go somewhere and dance all night,” he promised with a look of determination. He was serious, and she was touched by the intensity of his feelings. She liked him a lot too, he had come to mean a lot to her in the past weeks. In an odd way, he had almost come to take the place of Allie. If anyone had asked, she would have said they were best friends now. In a way, they were more than that, and they both knew that too, but they didn't say it in words. They had just come to count on each other. In a funny way, not unlike Page and Trygve.

“What are you two up to in here?” Trygve asked as he wandered through the room to check on Chloe a little while later, and see if she wanted anything to eat or drink, or if she was getting too tired and needed to be put to bed for a while. But she seemed happy on the couch, talking to Jamie.

“We're just talking,” Jamie said easily. It meant a lot to him that Trygve had let him spend time with Chloe since the accident, and had given him a chance to get to know her better. At first, he'd been worried that that was only in the hospital, and they wouldn't want him in their home. But that was obviously not the case, and he was immensely relieved to be there that afternoon, and share the homecoming with Chloe. “Can I do anything to help?” Jamie asked nervously, and Trygve just told him to keep an eye on Chloe, and make sure she didn't try to hop off the couch. And if she needed to go to the bathroom, to call him.

When Jamie did call him eventually for that, it was Trygve and Page who got her there, and she was pretty independent after that. But it was obvious she was going to need a lot of help getting around the house, and managing even the smallest task. Coming home from the hospital was not going to be the end of the challenging part, but only the beginning.

Page said as much to him when they went back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

“I know.” Trygve nodded solemnly. He had figured all that out, and knew how difficult it would be, and how limiting for Chloe. Now that she was back from the hospital, she would expect to have her freedom again, and to be able to move around, but her homecoming wasn't magical. It was going to be a long, slow haul back to the free and easy life she remembered. “I've got someone coming in to help a few hours a day, just so I can get out, or get some work done. And Bjorn is a big help to me, but it's going to be difficult for a while. I don't think she had realized that herself before she left the hospital, but I did.” He smiled, and Page thought again of how much she admired him, and what a nice man he was. They were all depending on him, even she was.

Eventually, she and Andy left before dinnertime and went home and had a quiet evening together. They rented videos, ate popcorn, slept in the same bed, and she had cooked him his favorite dinner.

The next day was Memorial Day and Trygve organized a barbecue, and invited four or five of Chloe's friends, Jamie Applegate naturally, and of course Page and Andy.

“They're nice kids,” Trygve said, as he sat down next to her with a glass of wine, still wearing his apron. He looked tired. He'd been up a lot in the night with Chloe.

“They are, and they're so happy to have her back.” Page smiled at them, wishing Allie were there too. Being with Chloe was always bittersweet for her, but Trygve knew that.

“What an experience this has been. For all of us,” he sighed. “Sometimes it feels like none of us will ever be the same again. No one it touched was left the same.” Least of all Phillip and Allie. “What about you?” He looked at her with a gentle smile. “How are you doing?” He had seen less of her during the two weeks since her separation. And he had missed her terribly. But he knew how traumatic it had been for her when Brad left, and he wanted to give her time to adjust. She had noticed it and she was grateful for it, although she'd missed him too, and the warmth of their friendship and flirtation. He was always sensitive to her needs, without her having to say anything about it.

“I'm okay,” she said quietly. It had been even harder than she'd expected.

“I've missed you,” he said, watching her.

“Me too,” she said softly. “I didn't think it would be like this. It's lonely, it's sad. In some ways, it's a relief. It got so bad at the end it was like a constant pain. This is better, but it's sad anyway. I feel pretty brave and new sometimes, and at other times, I feel so …” She looked for the right word. “…unprotected.” She had been married for so long that it felt odd to be alone now.

“You're not unprotected though. You're as safe as you were before. You're the one who was taking care of everyone. Brad wasn't.” It was true, and she had only just begun to understand that. He had scarcely even been to see Allie in the past two weeks. Only once or twice a week. But at least he was seeing Andy.

“I guess I'm starting to figure that out. It's odd though. After sixteen years of marriage, you're back where you started, minus some towels, and some silver, and the better toaster.” She smiled. It was worse than that, of course, but somehow the things Brad had taken had irked her.

“That hurts, doesn't it?” He laughed. “Dana took exactly half of everything we owned. One out of every pair of lamps we owned, half the kitchen chairs, half the pots and pans, half the silverware. Now nothing I own matches, and every time I go to cook an omelet or have guests to dinner I swear, because whatever it is I'm looking for is in England.”

“I know.” She grinned painfully. “In the beginning he said he didn't want anything. Now it turns out Stephanie must not be as well equipped as he first thought. Every few days I come home and find something gone, and a note explaining that he's taken this or that 'against his share.' I don't know when he comes to the house, but I'm never there. And yesterday he took half the silver flatware my mother gave me.”

“You'd better watch out. Those things get nasty.”

“I guess so …pot holders …cooking pots …skis …it's weird the stuff that it boils down to in the end, isn't it? It's all so petty. Kind of like a garage sale for the emotions.”

He smiled at the comparison, but it was true. And then he asked her something he hadn't dared to. “What are you and Andy doing this summer?”

“Summer? Oh God …that's right, it's June this week … I don't know. I don't suppose we can leave Allie.”

“What if there's no change? Don't you suppose you could get away, as long as it's not too far?” He was looking hopeful, and she smiled at him. He had brought up an interesting question. What if there was no change? Could she go away for a few days? Did she dare? Would she have to begin to lead a life that assumed Allie might stay in a coma?

“What did you have in mind?” she asked cautiously, still thinking of her daughter.

“A couple of weeks at Lake Tahoe. We go there every year, and Bjorn would love to have Andy with him,” he looked away and then back at her again “…and I'd love to have you there with me …”

“I'd like that,” she said softly. “We'll see. Let's see how Allie is by the time you go. When do you go?”

“August.”

“That's two months away. A lot could change by then.” Either she would have made some progress, or she'd be locked in her coma forever.

“Just keep it in mind,” he said, looking at her with eyes full of meaning.

“I will.” She smiled as their hands met and touched for a moment. All the electricity they'd shared briefly was there. But during the trauma of the separation, he'd backed off so as not to pressure her or confuse her. But he had missed her.

They left late, and Andy fell asleep in the car on the way home. It had been a nice weekend.

Trygve called her after she had put Andy to bed, and she was lying in her own bed, feeling lonely.

“I miss you,” he said, and she smiled. Now that Chloe was home from the hospital, they would see less of each other unless he came to the hospital specifically to see her. He knew her routine now. “I always miss you,” he said, sounding husky and sexy. Most of the time she tried not to let herself think about him right now. She had wanted some time to mourn Brad and their marriage, but she missed Trygve's company too. He was a good friend, an attractive man, and fun to be with. “When am I going to see you again?” he asked. “I'm not sure we can carry on in the ICU waiting room for the rest of our lives.” They both remembered the endless hours and the recent kisses they had shared there.

“I hope we won't have to meet there forever,” she said sadly.

“So do I. But in the meantime, how about a real date one of these days, without kids, without nurses, with real food, and no pepperoni pizza.” She laughed at the thought, it was an appealing idea. No one had asked her out in years. The thought of it made her feel young and attractive.

“It sounds incredible.” She had only been out once, with her mother, since the accident six weeks before, but maybe now she was ready. “You mean I don't have to cook?”

“No,” he said emphatically, “and no Norwegian stew, and no Swedish meatballs. No peanut butter sandwiches. No S'Mores. Real food. Grown-up stuff. How about the Silver Dove on Thursday?” It was a romantic spot in Marin, and if anything happened, they would be close by if they were needed.

“It sounds wonderful,” she said, feeling happier than she had in weeks. He always managed to make her feel special, even in her gardening sweater and worst shoes, he made her feel like a beauty.

“Pll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“Perfect.” She could either leave Andy with Jane, or get a sitter. And then suddenly she laughed, thinking of something.

“What's up?”

“I was just thinking it was my first real date in seventeen years. I'm not sure I remember how you do that.”

“Don't worry about a thing. I'll show you.” They both laughed, feeling young again, and they chatted for a while, about other things than their children for a change, his latest article, her plans for the mural at school, and his house at Tahoe. He told her also that he'd spoken to his investigative reporter friend, who was doing a little initial digging about Laura Hutchinson, and her drinking. It might not turn up anything, and it still would never prove anything about the accident. But somehow Trygve was haunted by his suspicions.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” he said finally, sounding husky again, and she wondered what he meant when she hung up, but the next day he turned up at ICU with a picnic basket and a bunch of flowers.

She had been working with Allie and the therapist, trying to stretch her muscles. Her legs were pointed out straight now, her feet rigid in their position, her elbows flexed, her arms locked, her hands tightly clenched. It took endless exercising to even help her move or bend or stretch. And her body, like her mind, seemed not to be responding. It was depressing, working with the therapist, and Page was happy to see him.

“Come on, let's go outside.” He could see how tired and down she was. “It's a gorgeous day.”

And it was, the sun was hot, the sky was blue. It was everything one expects of June in California. And the moment she got outside, she felt better.

They sat on the lawn outside for a long time, with the nurses and the medical students and residents. Everyone looked as though they were in love and lazy.

“It's spring,” Trygve announced, lying on the grass next to her, as she sniffed happily at the flowers he'd brought her. Without thinking, she touched his cheek gently with her fingers, and he looked up at her with a look she hadn't seen on a man's face in years, if ever. It made her realize suddenly what she had been missing. “You're beautiful …very, very beautiful … in fact,” he beamed, “you even look Norwegian.”

“I'm not,” she smiled, feeling young and foolish with him, “Addison is English.”

“Well, you look Scandinavian to me.” He looked at her seriously. “I was just thinking what gorgeous children we could have. Do you want more?” he asked curiously. He wanted to know everything about her. Not just how she felt about Allyson, or how strong she was, or how good a mother. He wanted to know the rest of it, the things they hadn't had time to explore as they sat in anguished vigil for their daughters.

“I used to want more children,” she answered him, “but I'm thirty-nine. It's sort of late by now, and I've got my hands full with Andy, and now Allie.”

“It won't always be that way, and you're getting into a routine with her.” She had to, for her own survival. “I'm forty-two, and I don't feel too old. I'd love to have a couple more, and at thirty-nine, you could have half a dozen.”

“What a thought!” she laughed, and then thought about it again. “Andy would like that. We were talking about it that day coming home from the baseball game, and then that night, Allie had the accident … it sure changed everything, didn't it?” He nodded. Six and a half weeks later she was no longer living with her husband, and Chloe was no longer a ballerina …not to mention Phillip, who was dead, or Allie, whose life had been changed forever. “Anyway …yeah … I'd like more kids. One anyway. I'd have to see after that. And I really want to pursue my artwork. Actually, I was thinking about what you said the other day, about doing a mural in ICU. I talked to Frances,” their favorite head nurse, “and she was going to ask someone about it.”

“Actually, I'd love to do something like that at my place. Would you take me on as a client?—A paying client that is!”

“I'd love it.”

“Good. How about a consultation tomorrow night, after dinner? You can bring Andy.”

“You won't get tired of me if you're seeing me on Thursday too?” She looked worried and he laughed.

“I don't think that I'd get tired of you, Page, if I saw you day and night forever. In fact, eventually I'd like to prove that.” She blushed as he said it, and he pulled her down next to him and kissed her. “Fin in love with you, Page,” he whispered, “very, very, very much in love with you. And I'm never going to get tired of you. Do you hear me? We're going to have ten children and live happily ever after.” He was laughing and kissing her, and she lay on the grass happily in his arms, feeling like a kid again. It was too good to be true, and she only hoped it would last and he meant it.

They sat up again finally, and she thought about going back to the ICU. It exhausted her to think about it. The exercises, the movements, the therapy, the respirator, the silence, the total apathy, the depth of Allie's coma. Sometimes it was hard to make herself go back there, but she always did. She never failed. The nurses could set their clocks by her, she came back at night and sat with her for hours, stroking her hand or her cheek, and speaking softly.

“I'll come up with you,” he said with an arm around her shoulders. She was carrying the picnic basket with the flowers he'd given her, and she looked relaxed and happy as they went upstairs arm in arm, talking quietly, and laughing.

“Have a nice lunch?” a new nurse asked as Page strolled by on her way back to Allie's bed. The smells of the ICU were familiar now, the sounds, the lights, and noises.

“Lovely, thanks.” She smiled up at Trygve as she said it, and then went to stand next to her daughter again as he watched her. She was tireless, the most devoted mother he had ever seen, talking to her and moving her limbs, unclenching her fingers, always speaking to her gently, talking about things, telling her little stories. She was telling her about their lunch, and how pretty it was outside, when suddenly Allyson let out a soft moan, and moved her head slowly toward her mother. Page stopped speaking and stared, her eyes riveted by the motion. And then, Allie lay as still as she had before, as the machines purred beside her. But Page looked up and stared at Trygve in amazement.

“She moved … oh my God …Trygve, she moved …” The nurses had seen something from their station, and two of them came running. “She moved her face toward me,” Page said with tears streaming down her face, as she bent to kiss her. “You moved your face, sweetheart …I saw it …and I heard you … oh baby, I heard you.” She stayed next to her, kissing her, as Trygve cried as he watched them. One of the nurses went to call Dr. Hammerman, he was in the building, and he appeared five minutes later. She described what she had seen, and Trygve confirmed it. The nurses added what they had seen, and showed him the tape from Allie's machines. The motion and the sound had showed up in her brain waves.

“It's hard to say what this means,” he said cautiously. “It could be a good sign, or it may not mean anything. It certainly gives us room to hope that she may be moving closer to consciousness, but Mrs. Clarke, you have to understand that a gesture and a moan don't necessarily mean her brain function is normal. But not to discourage you …this could be a beginning. Let's hope it is,” he said conservatively, but nothing could take away Page's joy as she watched her daughter. She did not move again that day, but she did the same thing again when Page was with her the next morning. She called Brad at his office to let him know too, and they told her he was in St. Louis and finally she tracked him down in his hotel that night, and he was pleased, but not as excited as she had hoped. Like Hammerman, he reminded her it might mean nothing.

“She hears me, Trygve, I know it,” she told him that night, still excited. She and Andy had had dinner with them, and the following night he was taking her to the Silver Dove. “It's like calling down a deep dark hole. At first you don't know if anybody's there, and all you can hear is the echo. I've been calling down there for almost seven weeks, and I haven't heard a sound except my own voice …and all of a sudden someone is calling up to me, I know it.” He hoped she was right, but like the others, he was afraid to get her hopes up.

And for the rest of the week, every day Allie stirred a little bit, but she never opened her eyes, or spoke, or made a sign that she understood what was being said. She just moaned and moved her head occasionally. It might mean a lot eventually, or it could mean nothing.

But Page was still excited the next day when he picked her up to take her to dinner. Andy was at Jane's and she had said she would pick him up when she got home, if it wasn't too late. And if it was, Jane had said she didn't mind keeping him until morning. He was in bed in one of her children's rooms, in his pajamas, and Page would just scoop him up in his sleep whenever she got there. And Trygve had left a sitter at home to help Chloe.

“You look incredible.” Trygve stared at her in open admiration. She was wearing a strapless white silk dress and pearls, with a pale blue shawl around her shoulders. It was exactly the color of her eyes, and her hair hung loosely down her back, not unlike Allie's. “Wow!” he said, and she laughed as she got into his car, and they headed for Corte Madera.

He had reserved a quiet table for two, and she was surprised to realize there was dancing. It was the most romantic spot she'd seen in years, and she felt special and spoiled as they took their seats and he ordered wine, and they looked at the menus. He ordered duck, and she ordered sole Florentine, they both had soup to start, and he ordered chocolate soufflé for dessert. It was a wonderful dinner, a lovely place, a perfect evening. They danced afterward, and she felt his body close to hers. It surprised her to realize how strong he was, and how supple. He was a terrific dancer.

They left the restaurant at eleven o'clock, and Page smiled happily at him. They had hardly drunk any wine, but she felt drunk on the excitement of the evening. “I feel like Cinderella,” she said blissfully, “when am I going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“Never, I hope.” He smiled and drove her home. He played music in the car, and walked her slowly to the door, feeling like a boy again himself. And it was different suddenly when he kissed her at the door. Suddenly they both felt shy, and yet as he held her, he felt swept along by the tides of mounting passion.

“Do you want to come in for a minute?” she asked breathlessly, and he smiled as he answered.

“Are you timing me? Is that my limit?”

She laughed and unlocked the door, and they both stepped inside but got no further. She never even turned on the light. They just stood there, kissing in the dark, as he touched her body hungrily, overwhelmed by her beauty and his passion.

“I love you, Page,” he whispered in the dark. “I love you so much …” He had waited two months for this, through the storm that had battered them and their families, but in truth he had waited years for this, maybe an entire lifetime.

They stood together swaying in unison as they whispered to each other and kissed, until he couldn't stand it anymore, and neither could she. Without saying anything, he led her to where he knew her bedroom was, and then stood there in the dark, and undressed her, and she didn't stop him.

“You're incredible,” he said as the dress fell away from her. “Oh Page …” He devoured her with his lips, his hands, and slowly she undressed him, until at last they stood naked together in the moonlight. He lifted her gently onto the bed, and caressed her with his lips until she moaned in pleasure, arched toward him, and then led him toward her. Their union was a powerful one, throbbing, arching for what they had both longed for, until at last they both exploded in unison, and lay spent in each other's arms, stunned by the force of what they felt for each other. It was a long time before either of them spoke as Trygve gently stroked her hair and she kissed him.

“If I'd known that two months ago,” he whispered finally, “I'd have taken you home with me the night of the accident,” he said, and she laughed with pleasure.

“You're silly …but oh how I love you.” The amazing thing was that she did. He was right for her in ways that Brad never had been and she'd refused to see it, not just sexually, but they were both so compatible, so artistic, so at ease, so in tune with each other and their children. They were both nurturers, and they nurtured each other now with the gratitude of people who know they have been lost for a long time, and are found at last. Trygve felt like a starving man who had been fed at last as he held her.

“Where were you twenty years ago when I needed you, Goldilocks?” he teased and she thought about it for a minute.

“Let's see, by then I was working off off-Broadway and going to art school when I could afford it.”

“I would have loved you.”

“I would have loved you too.” But she had still been very shaken by her experience with her father. “It's amazing, isn't it?” she mused. “We could have lived in the same community for years and never really known each other. And now, here we are, and our lives have changed completely.”

“Fate, my dear.” It blessed, and it destroyed, and it had done both to them. But at last, this was the blessing.

They lay talking for hours, and then finally, reluctantly, he got up. He had to go home to Bjorn and Chloe and send the sitter home. But it was too late for her to retrieve Andy at Jane's. It was three o'clock in the morning.

“You mean you'll be here all alone all night?” he asked, horrified, as she nodded. “What a waste! I can't stand it.” In the end, they made love again, and it was four in the morning as she kissed him in her bathrobe in the doorway.

“What time do you take Andy to school?” he asked between kisses. He looked sated and happy, and so did Page. They looked like passionate young lovers, barely able to tear themselves from each other.

“Eight o'clock.”

“What time do you get back here?” he asked, sounding desperate.

“About eight-fifteen.”

“I'll meet you here at eight-thirty.”

“My God, you're a sex fiend.” She laughed.

He pulled away from her for an instant, “Did I forget to warn you? That's why Dana left, you know, the poor thing was worn out.” They both laughed and he kissed her again. The truth was, of course, that he and Dana hadn't even slept with each other for the last two years, and he had begun to wonder if he had lost it. But whatever he had lost, he had just found again, and then some.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked more seriously.

“Going to the hospital.”

“I'll come have breakfast with you, and take you there.” She nodded, and he kissed her one more time, and then tore himself from her arms and forced himself to walk to his car. But he ran back for one more kiss as they both laughed, and then finally he went home. And true to his word, he was back at eight-thirty in the morning. She hadn't really thought he'd meant it. She had picked up Andy and taken him to school. She was doing laundry and singing to herself when Trygve arrived. And instantly, she found herself smiling.

“Good morning, my love,” he said, coming through the door with an armload of flowers. He was the most romantic man she'd ever known, and the kindest. “Ready for breakfast?” But they never made it to the kitchen. He started kissing her again, and five minutes later they were in her bed, still unmade from the night before, and just as inviting.

“Do you think we'll ever get anything done from now on?” he asked, lying on his side, admiring her for the thousandth time that morning.

“I doubt it. I'll have to give up doing murals.”

“I'll forget writing.” But their schedules were so flexible, their lives so free, their hunger for each other so enormous, it was fun to realize how much time they had to indulge it. “Do they have day care at Andy's school?” he continued to tease, and then kissed her again. But this time she chased him out of bed. It was eleven o'clock and she had to go see Allie. Now that she had started to show some improvement, however small, Page didn't want to miss a moment with her.

He stayed with her at the hospital for the first hour, and then went home to work, and to check on Chloe.

“What about tonight?” he asked hopefully, and she grinned at him in the ICU, and shook her head.

“Andy will be home.”

“Tomorrow?” he persisted.

“He'll be out with Brad for the day,” she giggled mischievously, and the nurse smiled. It was nice to see something pleasant happen for a change.

“Perfect,” he said in answer to her announcement that Andy was spending Saturday afternoon with Brad. “Lunch? Caviar? An omelet?”

She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear so no one would hear them. “How about a peanut butter sandwich and a roll in the hay?” She laughed and he smiled wickedly at her.

“Excellent, my dear, I'll arrange it at once. Chunky or plain?”

“You're crazy!” she said.

“I love you,” he answered, as he kissed her and left the ICU. It was utterly mad but she loved him too, and as Page turned her attention to Allie's lifeless form, she couldn't stop smiling.

CHAPTER 16

Brad told Andy about Stephanie on a Saturday in June. He had introduced them to each other over lunch, at Prego's on Union Street in the city. Andy looked her over suspiciously, and she chatted uneasily with him. She was wearing tight white jeans and a red T-shirt. And even he would have had to admit that she was pretty, with long dark hair and big green eyes, but it was obvious that Andy didn't like her from the moment he met her. He spoke to her in a surly tone, and he was rude to her several times over lunch, saying unflattering things to her, immediately followed by high praise of his mother's looks and virtues.

“Andy,” his father frowned at him over dessert, “I want you to apologize to Stephanie.” He glowered at him, and Andy stuck out his chin and pretended not to listen.

“I'm not going to,” he said in dark tones to his ice cream.

“You've been very rude to her. You just told her that her nose is too big.” Brad would have smiled at the offense, except that he could see that Stephanie was clearly insulted. She had no children of her own, and she was not amused by him. She didn't think he was cute, she thought he was a rude little boy, and thought that Brad should probably give him a good spanking. He was a brat, and had been horrible to her during the entire lunch. He had also told her that her pants were too tight, and her chest was too small. He had announced in no uncertain terms that his mother had a much better figure, was smarter, nicer, a good cook, and Stephanie probably couldn't cook anyway, and she'd painted a mural for his school that everybody admired. He'd gone on and on, singing his mother's praises, and pointing out all of Stephanie's flaws, both real and imagined. What he had done too, without knowing it, was point out that Stephanie knew nothing about kids, and had a very limited sense of humor.

“I hate her,” Andy growled just barely audibly, staring at the table.

“In that case,” Stephanie answered him this time before Brad could. “We won't take you out to lunch again. We may not even take you out on Saturdays if you hate us,” she said spitefully, and Brad looked uncomfortable. He wanted to support her, but he needed to support Andy too, as long as he behaved himself within reason.

“Of course we'll take you out on Saturdays,” Brad said calmly, looking at each of them, and trying to reach out for Andy's hand to reassure him. He knew how frightened and upset he was, but he also wanted him to get to like Stephanie. It meant a lot to him, and if they started a war with each other, things weren't going to be easy. “I'll always see you on Saturdays, and weekends, and whenever else I can. But it would be more fun if the three of us could be together.”

“No, it wouldn't,” Andy said, looking at him, and acting as though Stephanie had already vanished. “Why do we have to take her?”

Stephanie fumed, but Brad answered. “Because I like her. She's my friend. You like to take your friends places too. It's more fun that way.”

“Why can't I bring Mom?” Mainly because that wouldn't be fun at the moment. But Brad didn't say that.

“You know how difficult that is right now. You didn't like it when we fought. And Stephanie and I don't fight. We're good friends, and we have lots of fun. We could go to movies, and baseball games, and the beach, and do all kinds of things.”

Andy looked her over contemptuously. “I'll bet she doesn't know anything about baseball.”

“Then we'll teach her,” Brad said calmly, looking at both of them. They looked equally miserable, angry, and unhappy. He was forcing things, and it was not going well, and he knew it. Maybe it would be easier to just leave it for a while, and go out with him alone again. But sooner or later he would have to get used to her. They had been talking about marriage again, and Stephanie was determined that he either make a commitment to her, or end the relationship. After more than ten months, and seeing him through the end of his marriage to Page, she felt as though she'd been patient enough. And now she wanted to know if Brad was going to come up with the goods. If not, she wanted to stop seeing him, and explore other avenues, none of which pleased Brad, after all he'd been through, he didn't want to lose her. She was almost a security blanket for him now, she was his buffer against the loneliness he felt without Page, or Allyson, or Andy. And he loved her too, but their affair had not been the easiest of late, with all the trauma he'd been through, and now Andy wasn't making things easier for them. Life was definitely not simple.

“I want you two to give this a chance.” He looked at both of them. “For my sake. I love you both. And I want you to be friends. Deal? Will you try?” he asked them both, as though they were the same age, and from the petulant look on Stephanie's face, he could almost believe she was the same age as Andy.

“Okay,” said Andy grudgingly, glancing over at her with a look of hatred.

“You'd better behave yourself,” she snapped at him, and Brad almost groaned as he paid the check and gave Andy the candies that had come with it.

“Stop it, you two!”

It was a hellish afternoon. They went down to the Marina green, and walked along the beach in almost total silence. Stephanie said she was cold and wanted to go home. Andy said absolutely nothing, and only answered when his father spoke to him. He said nothing to Stephanie at all, until he was forced to say good-bye to her, when they dropped her off at her apartment. They stopped at Brad's briefly on the way home, and when he went to the bathroom, Andy noticed some of her things on the sink, and a pink terrycloth bathrobe on the back of the bathroom door, which only depressed him further.

“You really weren't nice to her,” Brad said gently on the way home. “That's not fair. She means a lot to me, and she really wants to like you.”

“No, she doesn't. She was mean to me right from the beginning. She hates me. I know it.”

“She does not hate you. She's not used to kids, and you probably scare her a little bit. Give her a chance.” Brad was almost begging. It had been a hideous afternoon, and he knew he was going to get an earful from Stephanie as soon as he got back to the city.

“Allie's going to hate her too,” Andy said confidently, and the words tore at Brad's heart. He was no longer sure that Allie would ever love or hate anyone again. In spite of her recent movements, there had been no real improvement.

“I don't think Allie would hate her,” Brad said more to make conversation with him.

“And so would Mom. Besides, she's too skinny and she's stupid.”

“She is not stupid.” Brad found himself defending her. “She went to Stanford, she has a good job, and she's a very bright girl. You really don't know her.”

“So what, she's dumb, and I hate her.” They had come full circle, and Brad tried to distract him by talking about other things on the way home, but Andy seemed not to want to talk. He just sat quietly and stared out the window.

Brad dropped him off at the house, and waved at Page as he drove off. He was tempted to stop and talk, but decided that would just be too difficult. He wasn't in the mood, and he was anxious to get back to Stephanie and reassure her. He knew how upset she would be about how rude Andy had been, she was childish about things like that sometimes, and he knew he'd have to make it up to her. He just hoped that eventually they'd get used to each other. If not, things were going to be very rough for him in the meantime.

Andy was very quiet with Page when he came home, and she noticed it immediately.

“Something wrong?” she asked as she tucked him into bed that night. He had scarcely said a word to her all through dinner. Usually he raved about whatever it was he had done with his father. “You feel okay?” She felt his neck and his back but he wasn't hot. He was very cool, but his eyes looked worried, as his head rested on his pillow.

“Yeah.” He looked as though he was on the verge of tears and she didn't want to leave him. “Dad said … I can't tell you.” He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

“Did you two get in some kind of argument today?” Maybe Andy had done something really dangerous and Brad had swatted him on the behind, but it wasn't like him. But Andy only shook his head and continued to look unhappy.

But after a few minutes, he couldn't contain himself anymore, and he started to cry as he lay there.

“Oh sweetheart,” she said, and held him close to her as she lay next to him on the bed. “You know Daddy loves you, whatever he said to you today.”

“Yeah …but …” he choked on the words as he clung to her “…he has a girlfriend. Her name is Stephanie,” he said miserably. It was out now. He had told her, and she smiled through her own tears as she held him.

“I know. It's okay. I know all about her.”

“Have you seen her?” he asked, looking amazed as he pulled away from her, but his mother shook her head, thinking how sweet he looked as he lay there.

“No, I haven't. Have you?”

“At lunch. She was terrible. She's skinny and dumb and ugly, and she hates me.”

“I'm sure she doesn't. She's probably scared of you, and wants to make a good impression.”

“Well, I hated her. And Dad says I have to try to like her.” It was serious then, Page thought to herself. If he was pressing Andy on her, maybe they were planning to get married. She felt a tug at her heart at the thought, but knew that, like Andy, she'd have to get used to the idea that Stephanie was part of Brad's life now, perhaps forever. “Why don't you just try?” Page said gently. “She may be nicer than you think when you get to know her. She must have something good about her, if Dad likes her.”

“No, she doesn't,” he said, and wiped his eyes. “I hate her.” And then, with worried eyes, he asked her a question.

“Do you think Daddy will ever come back to us?” he asked anxiously. That was what it was all about. Stephanie was a threat to Brad's safe return to Andy's mother.

“I don't know,” Page said honestly. “I don't think so.”

“But if he marries her, he can't come back to you.” He looked at Page miserably. “I hate her.”

“No you don't. You don't really know her. And Dad's not marrying her yet. I think you're worrying too much.” But she also knew he wasn't wrong. They probably would get married.

“They're going to Europe this summer. That means he won't take us on vacation.” He didn't understand that Brad wouldn't have taken them on vacation now anyway. But it irked her to hear that Brad was taking Stephanie to Europe. He had never taken her, and she had wanted to go for years. She hadn't been since before she married Brad, with her parents.

“We shouldn't leave Allie anyway,” Page said quietly. “Does Daddy want to take you with him?” He hadn't said anything to her, but maybe he would eventually. But Andy just shook his head.

“They're going alone. For a month.” Page nodded as she listened. He had his own life now, and they had theirs. And she had Trygve.

“Let's not worry about it now, okay? Daddy loves you very much, and so do I. And I'll bet his friend is really very nice, and you'll get to like her.”

He growled a little bit about it again as she tucked him in, and the next day he was still grouchy over breakfast. To him, the threat of Stephanie meant only one thing: Brad was not coming back to him, or his mother. And then he looked up from breakfast suddenly and asked Page a question that tore at her heart. She had to turn away so he wouldn't see her crying.

“What are we going to tell Allie about Dad? When she wakes up I mean? How will we tell her?” Page looked out the window and blew her nose as she struggled for an answer. If only one day they'd have a chance to talk to Allie.

“We'll figure something out by then.”

“Maybe Stephanie will die' he said angrily, and Page almost laughed when she turned around to face him. He was so emphatic, he was almost comical. She chased him out to the garden then, and her mother called a few minutes later.

She had nothing new to say except that Alexis had developed a frightful ulcer. It didn't surprise Page at all. It was something that happened to anorexics. From starving themselves their stomach acids began eating through their stomach. But of course her mother said it was because Alexis was naturally nervous.

Her mother seemed surprised when Page explained again that Brad was no longer there. It was as though Page had never told her. As usual, she refused to accept what Page was saying to her, and they hung up a few minutes later.

She said something to Trygve about it that afternoon, about how dysfunctional her family had been, and it was hard for him to understand it. His parents were normal to the point of being boring.

“You're lucky,” she said comfortably.

They sat together talking and touching hands, and wishing they could kiss as they sat on his front lawn, within clear view of their children.

Bjorn and Andy were playing ball, and Andy was throwing left-handed. His cast was going to come off soon. And Chloe was sitting in a wheelchair, next to Jamie Applegate, poring over some homework.

“Brad introduced him to Stephanie yesterday,” she told Trygve as they watched them.

“How did he take it?”

“Not very well. But I wouldn't expect him to. She's a big threat to him. It means it's really over. He said he hated her.” She grinned mischievously. “It must have been a great lunch.”

“I think kids always have dreams of their parents getting back together.” He smiled at her. “I know even mine still secretly think that Dana will come back home and we'll get back together again.”

“Would you want her to?” she asked with a look of interest, and he leaned close to her and smiled.

“God, no. I'd leave town …with you in my suitcase.”

“Good.” She smiled back at him and their hands touched briefly.

The two families spent a happy afternoon, and Page and Trygve cooked dinner for them. Chloe set the table from her wheelchair and did what ever she could, and Bjorn and Andy cleaned up afterward. They were a good team and they had a great time together. Chloe seemed to fill Andy's longing for his older sister. Nick was coming home in a few days again too. He had a summer job in Tiburon, at the tennis club, and they were excited about him coming home from college. The only one missing would be Allie.

After dinner, they were sitting in the dining room, talking about her, when Chloe said how much she missed her, and how much she still hoped she'd wake up from her coma. They all wished for that, and it still wasn't too late. But two months was a long time. In another month, the outlook would dim further. Dr. Hammerman still seemed to feel that if she didn't come out of it within three months of the accident, perhaps she never would. It was something Page tried not to think about, but late at night, as she lay in bed, she was haunted by the fear that Allyson might spend the rest of her life in a coma.

“I saw Mrs. Chapman yesterday,” Page said quietly. “At Safeway. The poor woman looked awful. She just looked kind of gray, as though all the life had gone out of her.” Trygve nodded, thinking of what it would be like. He couldn't even imagine it, and didn't want to. Phillip would have graduated a few days before. And at graduation, there had been a moment of silence for him.

Chloe's eyes filled with tears, and she turned away, thinking of that night, as she often did. Bits of it had come back to her. She had even gone to the therapy group with Jamie because she had a lot of guilt about talking Allie into going with her. That night had changed so much for so many.

Trygve suggested a game of Monopoly then, and the young people played ardently, wheeling and dealing and cheating when they could, squealing with amusement and amassing paper fortunes, while Page and Trygve quietly went upstairs to sit in his study. He put his arms around her there, and kissed her as he'd been longing to all afternoon. He was aching to spend more time with her, to have her spend the night with him, to go away with him. There were a thousand things he wanted to do with her. But he knew it was too soon. He knew Page couldn't leave Allyson right now, and he had his own hands full with his children.

“Do you suppose we'll ever get any time away from them?” he asked with a rueful grin as he held her. “Maybe even for a weekend?”

“It would be nice, wouldn't it?” she dreamed. She liked the idea of Lake Tahoe with him too, but she just didn't feel right leaving Allie. Spending her days at the ICU was her whole life now. She felt badly for Andy too, there was so much she wanted to do with him, that he needed now that Brad was gone, but Allie came first. That was just the way it was for the moment. They all had to wait their turn, including Page herself, and they knew it.

She hated to leave Trygve that night. She loved spending time with him, and the days when they meshed their families were particularly happy. Andy looked a lot happier than he had the night before when she had put him to bed, and he stared at her with a silent question.

“What's up? Did you have a good time today?” she asked on the way home.

“A great time. Chloe beat us at Monopoly, but she cheated. Bjorn says she always does.” Andy grinned. “So does Allie.” Page smiled at the mention of her. It would have been so nice to see her playing Monopoly. So nice if she could have.

“Bjorn says his dad likes you,” Andy said, looking noncommittal.

“What makes him say that?” She didn't comment one way or the other, but her heart was pounding faster as she watched Andy's face. She wanted him to like him. Just as Brad wanted him to like Stephanie, but he didn't.

“He just does. He says he's watched you guys a lot, he thinks you're really nice, and he says his dad says you're really pretty and fun to be with. He says you kissed him once, on the lips. Did you?” It was not an accusation, it was more a question. After the shock of Stephanie the day before, this was a whole new world for him, and he was examining the landscape. But it was a whole new world for her too, and she wasn't sure how much to tell him. Just exactly how much of the truth did she owe him?

“Maybe when I said good-bye to him, something like that. But yes, I like him.”

“Like …, like Dad?”

“No. I don't like him as well. But like a friend, like a very good friend. He's been wonderful to me while Allie's been sick.” Andy nodded. He didn't disagree. He just hadn't thought about him that way.

“I like him too …and I like Bjorn …but I like Daddy better.”

“Your daddy will always be your daddy. Nothing's ever going to change that.”

“Are you and Dad going to get divorced?” he asked worriedly. That really would mean it was all over. A lot of his friends' parents had gotten divorced, and some of them had remarried. He knew what that meant.

“I don't know.” In the month that he'd been gone, neither of them had called a lawyer. Brad had asked her to, and Stephanie was pushing him, but Page just couldn't bring herself to do it. Trygve had offered her the name of his, but she kept saying she was too busy to call. But she knew that one of these days, she'd have to.

Brad reminded her of it too the next time she saw him at the hospital. He came by one afternoon, he hadn't seen Allie in a week, and when she looked up, Page was suddenly startled to see him.

“Hi, how are you?” she said uncomfortably, trying to pretend she didn't feel awkward.

“Fine.” He smiled down at her, looking better than ever. He was an awesome looking man, sometimes she let herself forget that. “How's Al-lie?”

“Not much change. But she's still moving and making little sounds. It's hard to know what it means.” But the scans showed movement when Page said her name, she wanted to believe that that meant something too. But who knew? She was still sleeping, and the respirator still kept her breathing.

He stayed for as long as he could. Five minutes was his limit, and then he asked her to come out in the hall of the ICU and talk to him for a minute.

“You're looking good,” he said, watching her closely. She looked less tortured than she had, and happier, but there was still something sad in her eyes when he saw her. He wasn't sure if it was because of Allyson, or him, and a part of him still wanted to take her in his arms, and hold her, but he knew he couldn't. Besides, Stephanie would have killed him if she knew. She was ferocious with him, she said she wouldn't put up with any cheating on his part, not even once. She wasn't Page, in a lot of ways, and sometimes Brad really missed her. “Are you okay?”

“Hanging in there.” She was happy with Trygve, and hopeful with Allyson, but life wasn't what it had once been, with Allyson still so sick, and a divorce to be gotten through, and it made her sad when she saw him. Her life was reduced to such a small scale now. Hospital and home, and an occasional dinner with Trygve. There were no horizons to look toward anymore, except the constant hope that Allie would come out of her coma.

“I wanted to talk to you, and I haven't had time to phone. I think it's time to call our lawyers.” He said it apologetically and he felt like a total bastard when he saw the look in her eyes. She looked like Andy.

“You're right,” she agreed. But she hated to do it. It was the final death knoll to their marriage.

“There's no point hanging on. It's just painful for us, and I think it creates false hope for Andy. I think he'll adjust better if he knows this is it. And maybe we will too, who knows? You have a right to more than this too, you know,” he reminded her, and she nodded, not disagreeing with him. She had a right to a family, and Allie whole again, and a husband. She had a right to a lot of things. But whether or not she got them was another story.

“You're sure,” she asked quietly. “About the divorce I mean.” He nodded, and she inclined her head. She understood. She accepted it. It was over.

He wanted to marry Stephanie, to start a new life with her, and maybe this time, do it better.

“It's time,” he said sadly. “Do you have someone to call?”

“I have a name, but I haven't bothered to call him. I didn't realize you were this anxious.” There was an edge to her voice as she said it. And she was suddenly angry that he had come to tell her this here. Everything terrible had happened to her in this hospital …but good things had too …there was Trygve …

“We'll be divorced by the end of the year,” Brad said soberly, as Page mulled it over in silence. “Probably before Christmas.” Stephanie wanted to get married on Christmas Eve, if the divorce came through in time, and it might just, if they hurried.

“I can think of other things I'd rather put on my Christmas list,” she said ruefully. And then she looked up at him and took a deep breath. “I'll call the attorney in the morning.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” He hesitated for a moment then, as though he wanted to say more, but wasn't sure how to do it. “I'm sorry, Page …”

“Yeah, so am I.” She touched his hand, and she went back to the ICU again. But Allie didn't stir all day, not even one little moan or rustle. It was as though she knew her mother was depressed, and she was leaving her alone. Page just sat there all day and watched her. And that night, when she put Andy to bed, she didn't even call Trygve. She needed one last moment to mourn for Brad before she moved ahead into the future.

She felt better the next day, and she was anxious to talk to him. Trygve had sensed that something was bothering her, and she told him about her conversation with Brad. As usual, he was sympathetic. He knew how hard it was, and he didn't think it was a reflection on them, it was just very painful terminating a marriage. He gave her the name of the attorney again, and then she called and made an appointment.

And when she saw the lawyer, he told her what Brad had said, that she'd be divorced by Christmas. Trygve picked her up afterward, and they went out to dinner and talked that night. By then, she felt a little better. And as they sat at their favorite table at the Silver Dove, they looked like two beautiful blond Scandinavians. People commented frequently on how much they looked alike, and asked if they were brother and sister. There was something interesting about that, Page had always had a theory that married people looked alike, but she and Brad certainly didn't.

They talked for hours that night, about their lives, and their marriages, and their children …and their hopes for the future.

“You're the first person I've known who made me want to get married again.” And from the look in his eyes, she knew he meant it. It still seemed too soon to both of them, but the accident had changed everything and made time move so much more quickly. Everything was propelled at a great speed as they fought for their survival.

“I think you know when it's right. I think you feel it,” he said with quiet assurance. “I knew almost right away in the hospital. I just didn't understand how I could feel something like that. You were married …and then everything changed. Page, when I look at you, I know I could be happy with you for the rest of my life. And I think you know it too.” She didn't deny it. She felt that too, but it was very scary.

“How could I be so wrong before, and so right now? Why would I be smarter now?” she said, looking worried.

“I don't think it has to do with smart. I think it has to do with something you know in your stomach …your heart …your gut …whatever you want to call it. I always knew with Dana it was wrong. I knew it right from the beginning, and so did she. She tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn't let her.”

“It's funny,” she thought back, “I tried to do that with Brad too. I didn't feel ready. I was still reverberating from everything that had happened with my family, but he wanted to get married and come to California. I was scared, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe I was just very stupid.”

“No, it was right at the time. It wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if it weren't.” Her marriage to Brad had never been as rocky as his to Dana. “I don't know how to explain it to you, I just know this is right. And I don't want to waste any more time. I feel like I've wasted half my life with the wrong woman.” And then he took a breath and forced himself to slow down. “But I don't want to rush you. However long it takes for you. I'll be here.”

“My mother's right for once,” she said, smiling at him.

“How's that?”

“She always tells me I'm a very lucky woman.”

“I'm the lucky one this time.” He smiled. “Now I'll have to learn to be patient.” He took a sip of wine, and then grinned at her. “Doesn't Christmas sound good to you? I just think …Santa Claus …mistletoe …sleigh bells …” He knew her divorce would be final by Christmas.

“You're a lunatic. For all you know, I'm a monster to live with. You don't suppose Brad would have gotten so bored with me if I were fun to live with?”

“He's a fool, thank God. And I'll tell you one thing, I'd sure like a chance to find out for myself …without having to run home at four o'clock in the morning … or tiptoe around the house so Andy doesn't hear us.” Clearly, that had its limitations. He wanted to wake up lying next to her, and go to bed with her every night. He still wanted to go away for a weekend with her, but she still didn't feel right leaving Allie. “Just keep Christmas in the back of your head … see what you think of it, maybe after Tahoe.”

“Put it on your Christmas list,” she said mischievously, and he laughed.

“HI do that.”

CHAPTER 17

In late June, Page started the mural for the ICU at the hospital. She had offered it to them and they had been thrilled by the suggestion. She was doing two, both in Allie's name. One in the long, depressing hall that led up to the ICU, and the other in the dismal waiting room. She had spent long nights researching it, and she had chosen a countryside in Tuscany, and a port scene in San Remo. The one was peaceful and soothing, the other one amusing with lots of little details and vignettes. It would give people lots to look at and discover while they waited.

She showed Trygve the early sketches and he was very impressed. She thought they would each take her over a month, and then she was going to finish the last one at Ross Grammar School. And after that, in the fall, she was only going to do paid commissions.

“I can't afford not to,” she said bluntly. She would only be getting child support from Brad, and a small amount of alimony for two years. His contention was that, with her talent, there was no reason for her not to be earning a living. She was hoping to work things out with her murals and her work for friends, because she didn't want to leave Andy all day long, and she had no idea yet what Allie's needs were, how much time she'd be spending with her, what state she'd be in, or how much she'd need her.

It was becoming obvious now, though, that there was a good chance Allyson would never come out of the coma. She hadn't admitted that to Trygve yet, but he sensed that she was wrestling with the idea, and trying to accept it. She talked about Allie a lot these days, about the happier things she'd done, her accomplishments, her strengths, it was as though she was trying to remind everyone of what she had been, and who, and keep her from being forgotten.

“I don't want her life to have been in vain,” she said sadly to him one night. “I want people to remember her for who she was …not for the accident, or the tragedy, or what she is now. This isn't really Allie.”

“I know.” They talked about it for hours sometimes, and as always, he was there to help her.

He was happy to see her start the murals at the hospital, and she loved doing them. It kept her nearby, and sometimes she would just pop into the ICU to look at Allie, or kiss her. The bandages were off now, and her hair was growing again. It was short, but it looked sweet. It made her look even more childlike as she lay stiffly on her bed, with her head on the pillow.

“I love you,” Page would whisper and then go back to work again, her hair tied up in a knot, with her brushes sticking into it, and an old work-shirt.

But she also started another very special project at the same time. Suddenly she was moving ahead at full steam, and Trygve was relieved to see it. She was returning to the living. She started an art project at Bjorn's new school, and everyone was in love with her, especially the students. She did papiermache with them, and sculpture in clay, pottery, watercolors and drawings. They were so proud of their work, and she was so proud of them. It was the most rewarding thing she'd ever done, she told Trygve one night, as they cooked the kids dinner.

Bjorn was explaining to them what Page was doing at school, and Page beamed at him when he said how much he liked it. She had a warm relationship with him, and now when he went to bed, and she was there, he clung to her and kissed her good night, and asked her to read him a story, just as she did to Andy. She was surprised by his strength sometimes when he squeezed her, or lifted her up, but he was always gentle, and affectionate, and loving.

“He's such a good boy,” she said to Trygve after she put him to bed one night, and Trygve was so touched by what she said and did for him, and for Chloe. She worked tirelessly with Chloe, in her therapy when she had time.

“I wish you'd been their mother all along,” he said honestly, and she smiled.

“That's what Bjorn said. I'm honored.” But it meant a lot to her to be with him now, and share a relationship with him at school. She had the feeling finally that she was doing something important with her art, and even if she wasn't getting paid for it yet, she knew she would be. They had already asked her if she would be open to heading their art program at a later date, and it was something that appealed to her a great deal, and the hours would have worked out perfectly for Andy.

She and Andy spent the Fourth of July weekend with them. She stayed in the guest room, and Andy slept with Bjorn, and Trygve snuck into her room at night, and they giggled like two kids, locking the door so the children didn't catch them.

“We can't do this forever, you know. Sooner or later they'll have to accept what's happening,” he said, but neither of them was brave enough to force the issue yet, it was still too soon for Page to sleep in his bedroom openly, and they both knew that. Chloe was particularly possessive of him, and Page didn't want to upset her.

“If Chloe ever catches us, it'll be all over,” Page laughed, “she'll shake Allie awake just to tell her what's going on.” She smiled at the image, and he kissed her, and they both forgot their children.

They had a family barbecue on the Fourth of July, and they each invited a few friends. Jane Gil-son and her husband were there, the Applegates, and four other couples. It was the first any of them had known of the relationship, or the fact that Brad was gone, the first anyone had seen of Page since the accident. It was not quite three months, but it felt more like three years, and a lot had changed in a short time. But people were happy for them, everyone had always liked Trygve.

He was in charge of the barbecue, and she and the children did the rest, and Trygve let Bjorn shoot off a few firecrackers while he watched, and he kept a watchful eye on Andy.

“They're too dangerous,” Page complained, but the boys loved it, and nothing untoward happened. Everyone had a good time, and the last guests left at ten-thirty.

Page and Trygve cleaned up, and they were still putting food away, when Chloe came into the kitchen as fast as she could on her crutches.

“You have to come right away.” She looked shaken and pale, and Page didn't understand what could have happened. She thought one of the boys had been hurt, and she was instantly terrified as she hurried after her, and Trygve followed in anxious silence. But neither of them was prepared for what they saw when Chloe stopped in front of the television, and they saw a scene of carnage that had apparently happened that afternoon in La Jolla.

“…wife of Senator John Hutchinson …” the voice droned on “…in La Jolla earlier today, in a head-on collision …killed a family of four, one of her own children seriously injured in the accident, although the child, a girl of twelve, is listed in stable condition …Mrs. Hutchinson was arrested at the scene for felony vehicular manslaughter. Tests showed that she was driving while intoxicated. The Senator was not reached for comment …Early this evening, a spokesman for the family said that although the early evidence indicates that Mrs. Hutchinson was in fact at fault, it is more than likely that she wasn't …However,” he looked straight into the camera as though he could see Page's heart beating out of her chest as she listened, “Mrs. Hutchinson was involved in a similar accident earlier this year, in San Francisco, in April. A seventeen-year-old boy was killed, and two fifteen-year-old girls were severely injured, in a head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge. No blame was assigned in that accident, which occurred only eleven weeks ago. Investigations into this current accident are under way in La Jolla.” He went on to a riot in Los Angeles then, as the threesome continued to stand and stare at the television set. Laura Hutchinson had killed a family of four, and been arrested for drunk driving.

“Oh my God,” Page said as she fell into a chair and started crying, “she was drunk then …she was drunk …she must have been, and she almost killed all of you …” She couldn't stop crying, and Chloe was too, as Trygve turned off the TV, and sat down with them. The Applegates called them only moments later, and Page wished she had the courage to call the Chapmans. But she knew they'd hear about it very quickly. Trygve had been right in his suspicions.

He turned the TV on again, and flipped the dial, and they saw a similar report on another channel. The news was worse this time. She had killed a twenty-eight-year-old woman, and her thirty-two-year-old husband, their two-year-old little girl, and five-year-old boy, and the woman was eight months pregnant. Five people, not four. And her own daughter had broken an arm, had fifteen stitches in her left cheek, and had a mild concussion. There was film of ambulances, fire trucks, other cars that had been forced off the road. Six or seven other cars had been involved in lesser ways, but no one else had been seriously injured. It made Page feel sick as she listened.

“My God.” She didn't know what else to say, but it vindicated Phillip Chapman. She wondered how his parents would feel when they heard it. “Will she go to jail?” She looked at Trygve.

“Probably. I don't think the Senator is going to be able to get her out of this one.” He was well known, but controversial, kind of a movie star senator in a way, and having a wife with a serious drinking problem wouldn't have helped him. They had apparently kept it very quiet. But they hadn't kept her out from behind the wheel. And they should have. “She's just killed five people, that's a lot to overlook. I don't think they will. She'll have to stand trial for this.” The charge was four counts of felony vehicular manslaughter, since they couldn't bring charges for the murder of the fetus. Efforts had been made to save it with an emergency cesarean, but the baby had died anyway from the impact, and its mother's sudden death. It had been too late to save it.

“She's killed six people,” Page said quietly, counting Phillip. Seven if Allie died, and she still could. But Page couldn't bear to think it. “How could she come to Phillip's funeral? How could she do that?”

“It was a smart thing to do. It made her look sympathetic,” Trygve explained wisely.

“What a terrible thing to do,” Page said, looking shaken. And she lay in bed and cried in his arms that night, it was as though they finally knew who had killed, or almost killed, their children. It didn't change anything, but it made it all so much more real. You knew who was to blame, and what she had done. There was no question in their minds that Laura Hutchinson had been drunk that night on the Golden Gate Bridge when she and Phillip Chapman had collided.

Trygve carefully checked the newspapers the next day, and he turned the news on over breakfast. Page watched somberly with him as the Senator made a statement to the press about how terrible he felt, and how devastated his wife was. They were paying for the funerals, of course, and a full investigation, and full disclosure would be made. He had some serious questions about his wife's car. He believed that the steering column and the brakes had been defective. Page wanted to scream as she listened. They showed him then with his injured child. She looked glazed and nervous as she clutched his hand and tried to smile. Laura Hutchinson herself was nowhere to be seen. They said she was in shock and under sedation. Page said she probably had the DT's and was drying out somewhere.

And when they opened the door to go to the hospital, they ran straight into the arms of a cameraman and four reporters. They wanted a photograph of Chloe in her wheelchair, or on her crutches, and they wanted to know how Trygve felt about Laura Hutchinson's accident in La Jolla.

“Terrible, of course. It's a shocking thing,” he said somberly, trying to avoid them. He had refused to let them photograph Chloe. But as he and Page slid into his car, she suddenly realized there would probably be reporters at the hospital too. And she ran to the ICU as soon as she got there. She didn't want anyone photographing Allie the way she was, or turning her into a ghoulish spectacle, or an object of pity. This was not the Allyson Clarke that anyone had ever known, and they had no right to use her to arouse public outrage. No matter how guilty Laura Hutchinson was, Page was not going to let them use Allie as an object to torment her.

Half a dozen reporters and photographers were clustered in the hall outside the ICU and they tried to stop her when they realized who she was, and ask her endless questions.

“How do you feel now that you know Laura Hutchinson was probably responsible for your daughter's accident, Mrs. Clarke? …how is she now? …Will she ever come out of the coma?” They had tried to talk to the doctor too, but of course he wouldn't talk to them, nor would the nurses in the ICU, despite all their pleas and cajoling. They had even tried to bribe one of them to let them in for a quick photograph, but unfortunately for them, the person they had chosen to bribe was Frances. She had threatened to have them thrown out of the hospital, and get a court order against them. And she came out to rescue Page now, while Trygve tried to get them to leave her alone. Page insisted that she had no comment.

“But aren't you angry, Mrs. Clarke? Doesn't it make you furious that she did this to your daughter?” They tried to provoke her.

“It makes me very sad,” Page said in a dignified voice as she walked past them, “for all of us, all those who have lost loved ones, or suffered the agony of this accident. And my heart goes out to the relatives of the family in La Jolla.” She said not another word, and walked into the ICU with Trygve, feeling as though they just climbed through a tornado. The nurses closed the doors to the ICU that day, and drew the shades, so no one could get photographs of Page or Allie.

Trygve called his investigative reporter friend later that day, and was amazed by what he told him. Laura Hutchinson had had four stays recently in a well known dry-out clinic in L.A., all in the past three years, and apparently none of her stays had been successful. She had gone there under another name, but a source at the clinic itself confirmed that she had been there. In addition the DMV records showed that she had been involved in at least half a dozen small accidents, and one larger one in Martha's Vineyard, where she spent the summers. There had been no fatalities in any of them, except the one on the Golden Gate Bridge, but there had been minor injuries, and in one of them Mrs. Hutchinson herself sustained a concussion. They had all been carefully hushed up, of course, and wherever possible, the records had been sealed. But somehow, Trygve's friend had gotten around that. He said there might have been bribes to close the records on her, and some political favors called. But her husband's lawyers and PR people had done a brilliant job at hiding Laura Hutchinson's record.

It was horrifying to realize that in this year alone, she had injured her own child, and she had killed six people, nearly crippled one, and left another in a coma. It was quite a record.

And by the end of the day, the public outcry over it was enormous. Mothers Against Drunk Driving had given interviews, and made public statements, and the Chapmans had given an interview talking about the young life that Laura Hutchinson had taken, and the reputation she had sullied. Meanwhile, spokesmen for the Senator were continuing to say that her brakes had failed and the steering column had gone out, but they were going to have a tough time selling that one. And through it all, Laura Hutchinson herself was “unavailable for comment.”

By the following week, Oprah and Donahue had interviewed families who had lost children and husbands and wives in similar accidents, and the news showed Laura Hutchinson running into the courthouse in dark glasses, to be arraigned for felony vehicular manslaughter. The maximum possible jail sentence she faced was forty years, which Page felt didn't even begin to touch what she owed them.

Every time Page saw Allie that week all she could think of was Laura Hutchinson and the young woman who had died with her unborn baby in her belly.

By midweek, the press had started to go wild with the story. They continued to interview the Chapmans about how they felt about their son, and to hound the Applegates, Page, Brad, and Trygve. The news camera continued to show up at the ICU, and the producer of the show tried to get her to agree to having Allyson shown on TV in her coma.

“Don't you want other mothers to see what happened to you? They have a right to get people like Laura Hutchinson off the road,” a very aggressive young woman explained, “and you have an obligation to help them.”

“Seeing Allyson won't change anything.” All she wanted was to protect her.

“Will you talk to us at least?” She thought about it at length, and then finally agreed to a brief interview in the hallway, if only to support the case against Laura Hutchinson in La Jolla. She explained what had happened to Allyson three months before, the physical results of the accident, and her current condition. It was fairly straightforward, and for a fraction of a moment, she was glad she'd done it.

Then the same aggressive young woman asked her if her life had been affected in any other way by the accident. Had there been any other complications? And as she asked her that, Page realized that someone must have told her that she and her husband were separated. But she wasn't about to become an object of pity on TV, and she evaded the question.

“Do you have any other children, Mrs. Clarke?”

“I do,” she said quietly, “a son, Andrew.”

“And how has this affected him?”

“It's been hard on all of us,” she said candidly, as the reporter nodded.

“Isn't it true he ran away several weeks after the accident? Would you say that was a direct result of all this trauma?” They had checked the police records and Page was angry at the invasion of their lives. These people were using them to make a point. Trygve had been right not to talk to them in the first place.

“I'd say it's been difficult for all of us, but we're coping.” She smiled pleasantly, and then thought about why she had agreed to do the interview. “I'd just like to say that I think that anyone responsible for this kind of tragedy must answer for it, to the fullest extent of the law …not that that changes anything for us now,” she said as they ended the interview. But if they had been honest in dealing with Laura Hutchinson's drinking problem years before, maybe she wouldn't have been on the road, behind the wheel that fateful night in April.

Page was unhappy when she saw the interview on TV, they edited it so it made her look as though she had said things she hadn't. And they made her seem pathetic. But maybe if people knew what Laura Hutchinson had done to all of them, maybe she'd be fairly punished in La Jolla. This accident would not be admissible evidence because she hadn't been tested for alcohol at the time. But it established a pattern of what she'd done. It was the only reason Page had talked to them, but she was sorry she'd done it.

None of it changed anything for Allyson, but Page felt better knowing that the woman who had done it would be brought to justice. The trial was set for the first week in September.

CHAPTER 18

Trygve and the children left for Lake Tahoe on August first, and Page had promised to join them there with Andy in mid-August. Brad was in Europe with Stephanie by then, and for lack of anything else to do with him, she had put Andy in day camp. Trygve had offered to take Andy to Tahoe with them, and Andy was tempted to go, but he still wanted to stay close to his mother. He was not as secure as he had been before the accident, he didn't like to spend the night at friends' anymore, and sometimes he still had nightmares about Allie.

The accident had been almost four months earlier. The feared three-month mark had passed, without a whimper from Allie. Page had almost come to accept that. She had wanted so desperately for her to wake up, for her to be herself again, even if it took a long time to get her back on her feet or rehabilitate her. She would have done anything to bring her back. But she was slowly beginning to understand that it wasn't going to happen.

Trygve called her from Tahoe every day. And she was settling into a routine by then. She took Andy to day camp, went to the hospital, visited with Allyson, worked with the therapist to keep Allie's body moving and from atrophying completely. Then she'd work on the mural, sit with Allyson again. And pick Andy up at day camp, go home, and cook dinner.

She missed Trygve terribly, more than even she expected. Once he said he was so lonely for her that he drove down one night just to spend the night with her and go back up in the morning. He was wonderful to her, and they were very happy together.

She had finished the first mural by then, and had started on the port scene in the waiting room by the end of the first week in August. There were a lot of intricate details she had done in her early sketches, and she was sitting next to Allyson thinking about them, and checking her drawings. It was a peaceful afternoon and the sun was streaming into the room, as Page felt a little movement of Allie's hand on the bed. She did that sometimes. It didn't mean anything, she knew now. It was just the body responding to some electricity in the brain. But instinctively she looked up and glanced at her, and went back to her drawings again as she munched absentmindedly on her pencil. There was a detail she wanted to do that wasn't clear to her, and she sat and stared out the window for a minute trying to figure out how to do it. And then she glanced at Allie again, and saw her hands move. They seemed to be clutching the sheets this time, and reaching out to her. It was something she had never done before, and Page stared at her, wondering if this was just more of the same, or something different.

And then, almost imperceptibly, she saw Allie's head move. She seemed to be turning it slowly toward her, as though she sensed that Page was there. Page watched her, feeling her breath catch. It was as though she knew that someone was there, as though she herself were back in the room again, and Page could feel it.

“Allie? Are you there? …can you hear me?” It wasn't like the time she had almost died, it was much stronger, and much more real, although that had seemed real at the time too, but this was very different. “Allie …” She put down her pencil and pad and took Allyson's hand in her own, intent on reaching her if there was any chance at all. “Allie …open your eyes, sweetheart …I'm right here …open your eyes, baby …it's okay …don't be scared …it's Mommy …” She spoke very softly to her and stroked her hand, and then weakly, Allyson squeezed her hand, and Page started to cry. She had heard her. She knew it. She had heard her. “Allie … I felt you squeeze my hand … I know you can hear me, baby …come on …open your eyes now …” And then ever so slowly, as the tears streamed down Page's cheeks, she could see Allyson's eyelids flutter, and then they stopped. As though it were all too much for her, and she was exhausted. Page sat looking at her for a long time, wondering if she had slipped deeper into her coma again. There seemed to be no sign of life now, and then suddenly she felt her squeeze her hand again, but this time it was stronger.

Page wanted to jump up and shake her awake, to scream to someone, to tell them that Allie was still there, that deep inside her child was still alive and breathing, but she just sat there, mesmerized, staring at her, willing her to wake up, as the eyelids fluttered weakly again, and Page cried silently as she watched her. What if it was all a cruel joke, if they told her it was just spasms again … if she never woke up again …”Baby, please, please open your eyes … I love you so much …Allie, please …” She was sobbing softly and kissing her fingers, as the eyelids fluttered again, and ever so slowly Allyson opened her eyes for the first time in almost four months, and saw her mother.

She looked very groggy at first, as though she wasn't sure what she was seeing, and then she looked Page straight in the eye and said, “Mama.” Page couldn't stop crying as she looked at her, she bent down and kissed her cheeks, and her hair and the tears ran down her cheeks into Allie's face, and then Allie said it again, louder this time, as she looked at her. It was a croak, but it was a word, the sweetest sound Page had ever heard …Mama …

Page sat there for ages, crying and looking at her, and then Frances came, and couldn't believe it.

“My God …she's awake …” She ran to call Dr. Hammerman, and by the time he came, she was dozing. But she had not fallen back into her coma.

Page explained to him what had happened, and he examined Allie quietly. After a while, Allyson opened her eyes and looked at him. She didn't understand who he was, and she cried as she looked at her mother.

“It's okay, sweetheart …Dr. Hammerman is our friend …he's going to make you all better …” She didn't care what anyone did anymore, Allie was awake, she had opened her eyes and spoken to them. Whatever came after that would be icing.

The doctor asked Allyson to squeeze his hand, and to look at him, which she did. And then he asked her to speak to him, but she wouldn't. Her eyes darted back to her mother's then, and she shook her head. And afterward he explained to Page, in the hall, that she had probably lost most of her language. She had lost most of her large motor skills, and how much brain damage there was remained to be seen now.

“She can learn many of those things again, walking, sitting, moving, feeding herself. She can learn to talk again. We just have to see how much is left, and how far we can take her,” he said matter-of-factly. But Page was willing to do anything for her, to work as hard as she had to, to bring her back as far as they could. She was ready to do anything she had to, to help her.

She called Trygve when Hammerman left, and told him what had happened.

“Wait a minute …wait a minute …slow down …” He was on a portable phone at the lake, and he could hardly hear her. He knew the doctor had said something to her about Allyson's motor skills, but he hadn't heard the rest. “Tell me again.” She was crying and laughing and he could hardly understand her.

“She talked to me …she talkedl” She almost screamed and he almost dropped the phone when he heard her. “She's awake …she opened her eyes and looked at me, and said 'Mama.' “ It was the most beautiful moment of Page's life since the day Allie had been born …and the day they had known they wouldn't lose Andy. “Oh Trygve …”All she could do was cry incoherently and he was crying too, as his children watched him. They crowded around him anxiously, wanting to know what had happened. They weren't sure if it was something terrible, or good, maybe Allie had died. Chloe was terrified of that as she watched him.

“We'll come down tonight,” he said hurriedly. “I'll call you back. I want to tell the kids,” he said almost hysterically, and severed the connection when Page did. She hurried back to the ICU to see Allyson, and he told his children that Allie was awake.

“Is she okay?” Chloe asked in amazement.

“It's too soon to tell, sweetheart,” he said, hugging her. It could so easily have been her in a coma and not Allie.

The whole family drove down from Tahoe that night, but Allyson was asleep again by then. Not in a coma this time, but just sleeping, like a normal person. She was being weaned off the respirator, but she was still in the ICU and would stay there for some time so they could watch her.

“What did she say?” Chloe wanted to know everything as they sat around the Thorensens' kitchen table.

“She said 'Mama.' “ Page cried again as she told them everything, and Trygve did too as he listened. And then Chloe cried, and Bjorn, because when people cried it upset him. He and Andy held hands as they listened.

It was the happiest day of their lives, and the next morning, Page took Chloe to the hospital with her. Allyson opened her eyes and stared at her for a long time and then she frowned and looked at her mother. “Girl,” she said. “Girl.” And then she lifted her hand and pointed.

“Chloe,” her mother said carefully. “Chloe is your friend, Allie.” Ally son looked at her again then and nodded. It was as though in some part of her she knew, but she had lost the words for everything. It was like being on another planet.

“I think she knew me,” Chloe said when they left, but she admitted to her father that she was disappointed that Allie hadn't shown more recognition.

“Give her time. She's come from a long way. It's going to take a long time to get her back where she was, or even close to it.” If she could even do that.

“How long, Dad?”

“I don't know. Dr. Hammerman told Page it could take years. Maybe two or three years before she's as rehabilitated as she can be.” She'd be eighteen years old by then, and in the meantime she had to learn how to sit up, how to walk, how to eat with a fork …how to speak English … it was awesome.

Page told them more about her progress that night. The therapists were busy with her night and day now. She had a physical therapist, a specialist for large motor skills, a speech therapist, who worked with people with aphasia, or language difficulties common after strokes. She was going to be a busy girl for the next few months. And so was Page.

“What about Tahoe?” Trygve asked her that night. They were all going back up in the morning. And he wanted to take Andy with him, after he visited his sister.

“I don't know,” she said, looking worried. “I hate leaving her now.” What if she slipped back into the coma again? What if she stopped moving and talking? But Dr. Hammerman said that wouldn't happen now, and in fact, it was safe to leave her.

“Why don't you wait another week, or two. You weren't going to come until later anyway and then you can commute every few days. I can drive you down if you want, we could stay overnight and go up in the morning. It's tiring but it's not nearly so bad as what you've been doing for the past four months. What do you think?” He was always willing to do anything to make her life easier and better.

“I'd like that.” She smiled as she kissed him.

“Why don't I take Andy up with me now? I think he'd love it.” And they both knew he'd be disappointed if Allie didn't recognize him at first. It was better for him to be away and distracted.

“I think it would be great for him,” she agreed. She wanted all the time she could have to work with Allyson. They had a lot to do now.

“I'll come down and pick you up next week, and if it's too soon, I'll spend a couple of days with you, and you can come up the week after.”

“Why are you so good to me?” she whispered as he pulled her closer to him.

“Because I'm trying to seduce you” was the answer.

She had called Brad in Europe the moment Allie had woken up, and he was ecstatic to hear it. He said he couldn't wait to see her when he got back. But when he did, like Chloe, and Andy when he'd seen her before Tahoe, he was disappointed. He had expected her to scream “Daddy!” the moment he walked into the room, and throw her arms around his neck when she saw him. Instead, she looked at him suspiciously, and then nodded and looked at Page. “Man” was all she said for a long time. “Man.” She looked at him as though struggling to remember his face, and then suddenly as he was leaving the room she whispered, “Dada.”

“She said it!” Page said, beckoning him back to them. “She said 'Dada.' “ He had held her and cried, but he was relieved when he left the ICU. He couldn't bear seeing how limited she was. She was sitting up, but she still couldn't walk, and she struggled with every word and movement.

But when Trygve came back a week later, he was impressed by her progress. “Chloe,” she said, when she saw him, “Chloe.” She knew who he was, and that he belonged to Chloe.

“Trygve,” he explained. “I'm Chloe's dad.”

She nodded at him, and then a moment later, she smiled. It was a new action for her. She could smile, but never at exactly the moment she wanted, there seemed to be a delay. Similarly, when she cried, it always seemed to come late. But Dr. Hammerman said that all of those things would eventually fall into place, with a lot of work, and tremendous effort.

“She looks great,” Trygve said to Page, and meant it. It was a hell of an improvement from where she had been a month before, or before that.

“I think so too,” she beamed, “she understands a lot more than you think. She just doesn't know how to say it anymore. But I can see it in her face, and she tries so hard. Yesterday, I held her teddy bear out to her, and she called it 'Sandwich.' His name is Sam. But that was close. And then she laughed, and scared herself and burst into tears over it. It's kind of a roller coaster ride, but it's terrific.”

“What does Hammerman think?”

“It's kind of early, but he says that from the tests now, and what he's seeing of her progress, he thinks ninety-five percent recovery is realistic.” It sounded incredible to him. A month before they were resigning themselves to her never coming out of the coma.

“It means she'll never balance her checkbook perfectly, her reflexes may not be fast enough to drive a car, or they may, she may not be the greatest dancer in the world, and simultaneous translation may be beyond her. But she can have a normal life, go to college, hold a job, have a family, laugh at jokes, enjoy a good book, tell a story. She'll be like the rest of the world, and like herself, just maybe a hair off what she might have been if all this hadn't happened.” It was a lot to be grateful for considering the fact that she had almost died and spent four months in a coma.

“Sounds terrific to me.” It was not unlike Chloe. Her dreams of being a ballerina had gone down the tubes, but she could walk, dance, move, live. She had lost something, but not everything. Not like Phillip, or the other people Laura Hutchinson had killed in La Jolla.

Page explained to Allyson about going to Lake Tahoe the next day. She cried when her mother said she was leaving her, but then she smiled again when she explained that it was only for two days. Page hated to leave her, but she would drive down every two or three days to see her. It was a grueling schedule, but Page wanted to do it, and Trygve understood that. She wanted to spend what little time she could with Andy, Trygve, and his family, but not abandon Allie completely.

Page felt like a new person as they drove through the mountains. She felt freer than she had in years, stronger and more alive. She turned to look at Trygve, and she felt like her heart was about to fly out of her chest, she was so happy.

“What are you grinning about? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.” It made him feel good just to see her. He had missed her during the past two weeks, and he hoped the day would come soon when they could be together.

“I'm just happy,” she said, smiling.

“I can't imagine why,” he teased.

“I can. I've got everything in the world to be thankful for. Two miracle children …and a miracle man …and three more children I'm crazy about.”

“Sounds good to me. There's still room for more though.”

“Maybe we shouldn't push our luck. Maybe five great kids is more than anyone deserves.”

“Baloney.” He was determined to have more children, but after all they'd been through she didn't dare ask for anything more in their lives. Allie's recovery was more miracle than she had ever hoped for.

The time in Tahoe was just what she needed. They finally slept in the same bedroom this time, and in spite of Bjorn and Andy's giggles the first night, everyone seemed to survive it.

It was a peaceful, relaxing time. They rode and fished and went hiking together. They talked about a lot of things, and got to know each other even better than they had. They had campfires and barbecues, and one night they all slept out under the stars. It was the perfect vacation. And Page's trips back to Ross every few days were grueling but worth it. And Allie's progress was amazing.

By the end of the second week, she could stand up and take a few steps with a little assistance. And when Page walked in, she grinned at her on cue and said, “Hi Mom, how are you?” She remembered Trygve's name, and she never forgot to ask for Chloe. She said she wanted to see Andy again too. Page had brought him to visit her before he left for Tahoe. She told her that he was at Lake Tahoe going fishing.

“Fish …gooey …yuk!” she said, making a horrible face, and they all laughed at her.

“Yeah, pretty bad,” Trygve confessed, as excited about her progress as Page was. “They smell bad too.”

“Garbage.” Allie was struggling for words, and they laughed at her.

“I wouldn't go that far. Next time you'll have to come with us, and you can come fishing for garbage too.” Allie laughed at his joke, and he hugged her. She was still beautiful, it was amazing how little visible damage there was from the accident. For her, all the real damage had been inside.

Trygve and Page went back to spend Labor Day weekend at the lake. The air had cooled a little bit, and you could already feel the end of summer. They were sad to see it end, but even as chopped up as the time had been, it had restored them. They all had a lot to do when they went home, especially Page, who had her murals and her art program to work on, and a lot of hard work to do with Allie.

And it sobered them again when they picked up a newspaper and saw that Laura Hutchinson was going on trial Tuesday in La Jolla.

“I hope they put her away for a hundred years,” Chloe said vehemently, more for Allie than herself. And of course for Phillip. She had been only too happy to let Phillip take the blame and imply that it had been his fault. For the rest of time, he would have borne the blame of the accident, when she had been the one. Someone had come forward recently and said that they thought she'd had a lot to drink when she left the party. Why hadn't the police noticed that? Why hadn't they done anything about it? It was too late now. But at least, this time, she was going to have to pay for what she'd done in La Jolla.

“It's amazing how life changes, isn't it?” Page said wistfully as they sat at the edge of the lake at sunset. They were going home the next day, and the kids were all up at the house getting ready for dinner. They were going out that night, to a new restaurant in Truckee. “Five months ago my life was in a whole different place …and now look what we've been through, where we've gone. You never know in life what's going to happen.” They were richer for it in the end, but at what price. They had paid dearly for everything that had happened.

“I never want to relive that day,” Trygve said thoughtfully. “I still remember when they called me …and then I saw you at the hospital …I thought they were with you.”

“And I thought you'd been killed when they said the driver had been killed on the bridge …God, what an awful moment.” She looked up at him with wide eyes, filled with respect for the power of destiny, its cruelty and its kindness. “I guess we've been pretty lucky.” She smiled at him, and took his hand in her own.

“You've been so good to me these past months.”

“You deserve even better. Just give it time.” She laughed then, as though he'd said something funny, and he had, but he didn't know it. “Have you been doing any thinking about our plans?” He didn't want to push her, but he brought it up from time to time, just to remind her. He still wanted her to marry him when her divorce became final at Christmas.

“Yes, I have.” She said it quietly, looking out across the lake as he watched her, and then she turned to him with an odd expression. “Are you really sure that's what you want, Trygve? It's a lot to take on. I've got two kids …and Allie's recovery won't be easy.”

“Neither will Chloe's. And Bjorn will always be who he is. What about you? For all my pushing, how do you feel about my burdens?”

“I happen to love them very much. I never knew I could love someone else's kids as much.”She had even grown fond of Nick in the short time she had come to know him better over the summer.

“I'd say it's a fair match.” He smiled, and she nodded, and then he looked serious again. “I used to feel that I really shouldn't get married again because of Bjorn, that it wasn't fair to him. I couldn't imagine anyone loving him as much as I did, and I didn't want anyone to hurt him. And then you came along,” his eyes grew damp as he pulled her closer to him, “and you were so wonderful to him … he really deserves to be around people who love him. He's such a good little soul, in spite of his limitations.”

“So are you,” she said, nestling close to him, and she hadn't found his limitations yet.

“How does Christmas sound to you?” He smiled, looking mischievous, and this time she laughed.

“Actually, I was going to discuss that with you,” she said, and then lay on their towel and looked up at him.

“Are you serious?” He looked thrilled. She had been reluctant to move too soon before, but now everything looked different since Allie had come out of her coma.

“Maybe. I have to discuss something with you first though.” Her face grew serious and he lay down on his side next to her and waited. “There's something I think I should tell you.” Something about Allyson perhaps … or Brad …maybe she was going to tell him that she still loved him and thought he should know that. He had considered that himself, but she seemed to have adjusted remarkably well, better than he had after Dana. “Remember what you said about wanting to have a baby right away?”