Accident - A Novel Part 5

"I love you," she said sadly. "I'm glad you're coming home."

"Me too," he said, and hung up. And much to her amazement, he walked in at six o'clock, an hour after they spoke, moments after they had told her that so far so good, Allyson had survived the operation. But the true test would be in the next forty-eight hours, or even the next several days after that. Her condition was so severe that she would not be out of danger for quite some time, and there was no way of predicting how complete her recovery would be. All they knew was that she was alive, at that precise moment, and on the scale they were forced to be satisfied with for the present, that was something.

At least she had good news for Brad, but she couldn't understand how he had arrived at the hospital an hour after he had spoken to her from Cleveland.

He spoke to the surgeons, and questioned everyone, but they would not allow him to see Allyson. She was going to be in the recovery room until the next morning.

"How did you do that?" Page asked him quietly, as they drank coffee in the waiting room. She hadn't eaten all day, she just couldn't bring herself to. All she had managed was coffee, and some crackers that Trygve had forced on her that morning. "How did you get here so quickly?" He shrugged and sipped another mouthful of the bad coffee. His eyes never met hers, and so far he had spoken only of Allyson. But suddenly, Page had a very odd feeling. "Where were you?" It would have been physically impossible for him to get from Cleveland to San Francisco, hotel to hospital, in an hour. And they both knew it.

"It's not important," he said quietly. "Allie is all that matters."

"Not really," Page said, searching his eyes, but not seeing anything in them. "We're important too. Where were you?" There was a sudden stridency in her voice, born of fresh terror. She had had enough fear for one night, and now suddenly here was another. "I asked you a question, Brad."

There was a look in his eyes she had never seen before when he answered her. "And I chose not to answer it. Isn't that enough? I got here as fast as I could, Page ... as soon as I knew ...that was the best I could do."

She felt an icy hand clutch her heart and squeeze. It wasn't fair. She couldn't lose both of them in one day, or could she? "You weren't in Cleveland, were you?" she said in a whisper, and he looked away from her, and didn't answer.

CHAPTER 5.

Brad went home before Page, having determined that there was nothing more he could do at the hospital for Allie. They wouldn't allow him to see her in the recovery room, and he had already spoken to the chief neurosurgeon. He told Page he would see her at home, and quietly left to go home to Andy.

Page saw Trygve again briefly before she left. He had brought both of the boys with him, and she explained that Brad had come home from Cleveland. She didn't mention the rest of the conversation to him, and she seemed distracted as she said h.e.l.lo to the boys, and thanked him for all his help. She told him she was going home for a few hours, as long as Allyson was in the recovery room, and she was planning to come back again sometime before morning.

"Why don't you try and get some rest? You look as though you really need it."

"I'll see." She smiled at him, but agony was written all over her face, and there was greater sadness in in her eyes than he had seen in an entire lifetime. her eyes than he had seen in an entire lifetime.

"Take care of yourself," he said kindly before she left, and then she drove home to find Brad explaining to Andy what had happened to his sister. He explained that she had a severe head injury, but that she'd be okay once the doctors fixed her all up and she recovered from her operation. Jane Gilson was gone by then, Brad was alone with him, and Page didn't like what he was saying.

She told him as much once Andy went out to play. He looked worried, but not overly so as she watched him from the picture window. He was playing with Lizzie on their front lawn, and she knew the neighborhood was safe, they knew all their neighbors.

"You shouldn't have told him that, Brad," she said, without turning around. She still had a lot of questions for him, but she was saving them till after Andy's bedtime.

"Told him what?" Brad said tensely. There was plenty on his mind too. Aside from the disaster with Allyson, he knew as well as Page did that the accident had sparked off a serious crisis in their marriage.

"That she'd be all right." She turned to face him. "We don't know that."

"Yes, we do. Hammerman said she has a good chance of surviving."

"In what state? In a coma? As a vegetable, 'severely impaired,' as he calls it, blind? Just exactly what do you think he's talking about, Brad? You have no right to raise Andy's hopes and rea.s.sure him."

"What do you want me to do, show him the X rays of her skull? For chrissake, he's only a kid, Page. Give him a break. You know how much he loves her."

"I love her too. I love both of them ...and you ...but it's not fair to give false rea.s.surance. What if she dies tonight? What if she doesn't even survive the operation? Then what?" There were tears in her eyes as she asked, and tears in his as he answered.

"Then we face it when it happens."

"And us?" she asked, surprising him by s.h.i.+fting gears, but Andy seemed happy outside with Lizzie. "When do we face that? What exactly is going on here?"

"It was just bad luck the way things worked out," he said quietly. "If Allie hadn't had the accident, you'd never have known. And you never should have asked Dan to call Cleveland."

"Why not?" She looked outraged, their daughter had almost died in an accident, and she shouldn't have tried to find him?

"Because now he's figured it out, and it's none of his business."

"And me? What am I supposed to figure out, Brad? Just how stupid have I been? How often have you done this?" She didn't know where he'd been, but it was obvious he hadn't been in Cleveland.

"That's not the issue." He looked annoyed again. He hated having to admit any of this to her, but in a way, he had no choice now.

"Yes, it is! It's very much the issue. You got caught with your pants down this weekend, and I have a right to know where you were, and with whom. This is my life you're playing with too. You're not just out there on your own, having fun, and pa.s.sing through here between golf games. This is for real, and so am I. What about you, Brad? Just exactly what's going on here?" She was shaking with rage, and he looked angry more than guilty.

"You've got the idea. Do I have to spell it out for you?" It broke her heart to hear him say it. She almost wondered how much more pain her heart could take in one weekend. She had wanted him to deny everything, wanted none of it to be true. But it was, and now it couldn't be avoided.

"Is this something new?" she pressed on, but Brad didn't want to tell her.

"I'm not going to discuss it with you, Page."

"You'd better, Brad. I'm not going to play these games with you. Is this someone important to you?"

"Oh for chrissake, Page, why do we have to talk about this now?"

"Because it can't wait. You started this, now I want to know what you've been doing. Is this serious? Has it been going on for long? Has it happened before ...and why?" She looked at him miserably, her voice a sad whisper. "What happened to us, and why didn't I know what you were up to?" How blind could she have been? Had there been signs? Looking back, even now, she couldn't see them.

Brad sat down unhappily and stared at her, hating every minute of their conversation. He hated confrontations with her, he always had. But he knew now that this one couldn't be postponed or avoided. Maybe it was just as well. She had to know sooner or later.

"I guess I should have said something a while ago, but I thought ... I thought it would end, and I wouldn't have to."

"Is it serious?" He didn't answer for a long time, and his eyes, when he looked at her, almost made her heart stop. This was no fling, this was a serious relations.h.i.+p, and she wondered with a gulp of terror if, without a warning sound, their marriage was already over. "Well?" Her voice was a croak as she listened to it, and tried to force him to answer. "Is it? Serious, I mean."

"It could be," he answered, sounding confused. "Page, I just don't know. That's why I haven't told you." He looked desperately unhappy.

"How long has it been?" How long had she been stupid and blind, and incredibly foolish? Page fought back tears as she waited for his answer.

"It's been about eight months. It started on a business trip. She works in the creative department, and we went to New York to make a presentation to a client together."

"What's she like?" Page started to feel sick as she asked, but she wanted to know everything now ...eight months ...eight months} How could she have been so stupid? How could she have been so stupid?

"Stephanie's very different ...from you, I mean ... I don't know ...she's very independent, very free, very much her own person. She's from L.A., she came up here to go to Stanford, and stayed. She's twenty-six. She's just ...I don't know ... we talk a lot, we like the same things. I kept telling myself I had to stop ...but I just couldn't." He looked at her helplessly, and she would have felt sorry for him if he hadn't been killing her with what he was saying. She wanted to ask him if she was beautiful, if she was great in bed, if he really loved her. But how much more could she ask? And how much more could she bear hearing?

"What were you planning to do about her, Brad? Leave me eventually?"

"I just don't know. I knew it couldn't go on like this. But I've just been so confused." He ran a hand through his hair as he looked at her. "It's been driving me crazy."

"And where was I during all this? Why didn't I see what was going on?" She stared at him, unbelieving. It was all too incredible, and too awful. Her worst nightmares had come true. Allyson was nearly dead, and Brad was in love with another woman. "What's happened to us, Brad? Why have we gotten so involved with our own lives? Why are you always out of town, or playing golf, and I'm always driving car pools? Is that what happened? We just drifted away from each other while I wasn't looking?" She wanted to understand what had happened to them, but for now, she just couldn't. Too much had happened.

"It's not your fault," he said gallantly, and then shook his head again, visibly confused. "Maybe it is your fault ...maybe it's both our faults. Maybe we just let something happen that never should have. Maybe we got caught up in all the unimportant bulls.h.i.+t. I wish I knew. I just don't have the answers." He hadn't in eight months, which was why he hadn't left her, or told her.

"Would you stop seeing her?" she asked him openly, and he hesitated for a long time, and then slowly he shook his head, as she felt the air go out of her body. "And what am I supposed to do? Just look the other way while you go on f.u.c.king Little Miss Creative?" She was suddenly overwhelmed with anger as she looked at him, and out of nowhere came an almost uncontrollable desire to hit him, with words if not her fists, and Brad looked as though he understood it. He had reproached himself a lot of the time, for the past eight months, particularly when Page was good to him, or did something nice for him, or wanted to make love. He had spent the last months feeling unbearably guilty whenever he was with her. And yet he couldn't stop seeing Stephanie. He wasn't ready to give up either of them. He told himself that he was in love with both of them, but the truth was, he wasn't. He still loved Page, but he wasn't in love with her anymore. He hadn't been for a while, he didn't know why, but he knew he wasn't. He loved her, and respected her, she was a terrific mother to their kids, and a great wife to him. She was a great friend, and a great person. She was everything any man would want ...and yet, she didn't set his heart and his mind on fire the way Stephanie did, and nothing he could do or say would change that.

"What am I supposed to do now? Just disappear? Make life easy for both of you?" She suddenly panicked, wondering if he expected her to move out, or if he was planning to now that she knew about the affair. And what about Andy? She started to cry, just thinking about it, what lay ahead, and now all of it compounded by their anguish over Allie. "What do you expect of me?" she said, looking and sounding as distraught as she felt. He wished he could rea.s.sure her, but he couldn't.

"I don't expect anything. Let's just get Allyson through this, and concentrate on surviving. Why don't we deal with this afterward? We just can't do both things at once." It was a rational suggestion, but Page was too unnerved to be reasonable at this point, and he understood that.

"And then what? You move out when Allie wakes up ... or after the funeral?" she asked, bitter and frightened again. She was bordering on hysterical, but he made no move to console her. He just couldn't. He was too upset himself, and he knew that anything he tried to do would just make it worse now. Now that she knew about Stephanie, he felt he needed to keep a certain distance.

"I don't know what we do, Page. I've been trying to figure it out myself for months, and I haven't gotten anywhere. Maybe you can come up with an answer." He wasn't ready to divorce her yet, and he wasn't sure what to do about Stephanie, and Stephanie was willing to wait till he sorted his life out. She wasn't pus.h.i.+ng him to do anything. But his pa.s.sion for her was propelling him toward a solution. And he didn't want to live a lie forever, or be consumed by the guilt he felt toward Page, particularly now that it was out in the open.

All Brad knew was that he loved them both, although very differently, and he had allowed himself to fall into an impossible situation. It would be even more impossible now that Page knew, and he could already see how crazed it was going to make her. At least for the past eight months she hadn't suspected anything when he said he was going away on business trips, and sometimes he did, of course, but more often than not, he didn't. He had allowed himself to get involved in a terribly difficult situation. And everyone had the potential for getting badly hurt, Page, Brad, Stephanie, and his own children.

"I just don't think we can deal with this right now, Page. I think we have to keep it together till Allyson gets well, or at least until she's out of danger."

"And then?" She kept pressing him for answers he didn't have, and making both of them unhappy, but given the circ.u.mstances, he really couldn't blame her.

"I don't know, Page ... I just don't know yet."

"Let me know when you figure it all out." She stood up and looked at him. He was suddenly a stranger. The man she had loved for so long, and slept with so trustingly, had been cheating on her for almost a year now. In a part of her soul, she hated him. In another, she was terrified she would lose him.

"It sounds pathetic to say I'm sorry, I guess ..." he said very quietly. He knew he owed her a lot more than that, but suddenly he just didn't have it to give her.

"I think 'inadequate' would be more the word I'd choose. I think you owe me a lot more than 'sorry,' Brad. Don't you?" Tears glistened in her eyes as they looked at each other from across the room. There was hatred in her face, and anger, and more pain than he'd ever seen there.

"I always thought you'd be okay. You're so strong, and you're always so busy. I thought maybe you wouldn't even miss me." Had she pushed him away? Was it her fault, or his? Had she stopped paying attention? She accused herself, and him, of everything, as she listened to his explanation.

"I guess we're both pretty stupid," she said caustically. "Or at least I was."

"You deserve better than this," he said honestly, and he did too. He deserved to be where he wanted to be, and not here crawling around, apologizing to Page. And yet he knew he owed it to her. But it was a hideous moment in both their lives ...that ...and Allyson's accident made it a time, he realized, that might easily destroy them.

"We all deserve better than this," Page said softly, and then left the room to check on Andy.

As she moved around the kitchen, she felt like a robot. She put a pizza in the microwave for Andy and called him inside five minutes later. She was still shaking and felt sick, and every time the phone rang, she was terrified it was the hospital calling to tell her about Allie. Her mind seemed to ricochet between the horror of Allyson's accident and the shock of what Brad had told her.

"How's it going, champ?" she said sadly to Andy as she put his dinner on the kitchen counter for him. Brad was still in the other room, and Page felt as if her whole life had been ended.

"I'm okay," he a.s.sured her. "You look tired, Mom." He was always so concerned, so kind-hearted and thoughtful. She used to think Brad was that way too, but in the past hour she had seen a duplicitous side of him she had never known was there, and wished she had never seen. She wondered what they would do now.

"I am tired, sweetheart. Allie's pretty sick."

"I know. But Dad says she's going to be okay." The gospel according to Saint Dad. And if she died? Like all the other miseries in their life, they would have to face them later.

"I hope so." Andy looked at her strangely as she said it.

"Don't you think so too? ...that she'll be okay, I mean ..."

"I hope so" was all she could say to him, and after he finished his pizza, she put him on her lap and held him. He was still small enough to sit there easily, and it was a comfort to both of them. She needed him right now, more than anything, more than ever.

"I love you, Mom." Everything about him was so open.

"I love you too, sweetheart." Her eyes filled with tears as she said it absentmindedly, not thinking about him, but about Allie, and Brad, and everything that had happened.

She put him to bed after a bath, and read him a story. And then she lay down quietly for ten minutes in their bedroom. She closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep, but there was too much whirling around in her head, too many terrible things, too much pain, too many questions ...about Allyson ...about Brad ...about their marriage ...and life and death, and the meaning of everything. She heard a sound and opened her eyes, and saw Brad standing in the doorway.

"Can I get you anything?" He didn't know what else to say to her. Too much had happened, too much had been said and revealed for them ever to be the same people they had once been to each other. It was devastating to think about it, and impossible to pretend it hadn't happened. "Have you eaten?"

"No, thanks." She had absolutely no appet.i.te, and for good reason.

"Do you want anything from the kitchen?" She shook her head and tried not to think of what he'd said, but all she could think about now was the woman at the agency, and the eight months he had spent with her. And before that? Who had there been? How long had he been cheating on her? Had there been others? And was it that she was unattractive to him, or did she just bore him?

She realized then that she was still wearing her gardening sweater from the night before, and her oldest jeans, her hair was a tangled ma.s.s after her hours in the hospital. She was no compet.i.tion for a twenty-six-year-old Stanford grad with no responsibilities and no obligations. She wondered what they had done over the weekend.

"Where did you go with her?" She pushed him for more information before he left the room.

"What difference does it make?" He looked annoyed that she was pressing him, and seeing his irritation made Page angry.

"I just wondered where you were when I didn't know where to find you." What kind of places did he go with her? Page felt totally shut out of his life, and as though he were a total stranger.

"We went to John Gardiner," he surprised her by answering. It was a tennis ranch in the Carmel Valley. She nodded. But he had been back in Stephanie's apartment in the city by the time he called her. Which was why he had come to the hospital so quickly. He had waited as long as he could, so Page wouldn't suspect where he'd been. But after half an hour he hadn't been able to stand it any longer.

"You should eat something," he said then, as though to move on to another subject. He was anxious not to discuss his life with Stephanie with her. But Page seemed to want to know all the details, as though in hearing them, she would understand what had happened.

"I'm going to take a bath and go back to the hospital," she said quietly. There was nothing for her to do at home. Andy was in bed. And she wanted to be with Allie.

"They said you couldn't see her," Brad said calmly.

"I don't care. I want to be there."

He nodded, and then remembered something. "What about Andy? Will you be back before morning?"

She shook her head. "You can get him ready for school tomorrow. You don't need me for that." Or did he? Was that the only use he had for her now? To take care of his children?

"No," he agreed, his voice sounding sad finally, "but I need you for other things ..."

"Oh?" She sounded detached as she looked at him. "Like what? I can't think of a thing now."

"Page ... I love you ..." It just sounded like words suddenly.

"Do you, Brad?" she asked from the depths of her sadness. "As far as I can see, I've been kidding myself for a long time ...and maybe you have too ...maybe it's just as well we found out now." Although she didn't feel relieved at what she'd discovered, only wounded, hurt to her very soul.

"I'm sorry ..." he said softly, and made no move to approach her, which said it all. There was a world between them.

"So am I," she said, and stood up, looking at him, and then without a word, she walked into her bathroom. She turned on the tub, and closed the door, and once she lay in the bath, the tears ran down her face, as she thought of Brad and Allie. Now she had two people to cry about, she reminded herself. It had sure been a great weekend.