“I've always wondered about that,” Page said, looking and sounding exhausted. “In situations like this, people are always telling you to be grateful. This time yesterday, Allie was a perfectly normal, healthy fifteen-year-old girl, nagging me about borrowing my pink sweater. Today, she's in brain surgery, fighting for her life, and I'm supposed to be grateful she's not dead. I am …but compared to yesterday, this is the shits. You know what I mean?” He laughed, it was perverse, but he understood it. People used to tell him that about Bjorn, too, that he should be grateful he wasn't more retarded. Why did he have to be retarded at all? What was there to be grateful for? A lot maybe. Things could have been worse, it turned out, with very little effort.

He finally went home at three that afternoon, just to shower and change, and see his boys. He was going to bring them by to see Chloe in the late afternoon. Nick had said that Bjorn was very worried about her, and very agitated, and Trygve thought it might be better for him if he could see her. He worried a lot about people dying, which was typical of young children, and in his case, the fact that he was eighteen didn't change that.

Trygve told Page to call him if she needed anything, and she continued her vigil alone, and thought about calling her mother. But she just couldn't face it. And she still hadn't told Brad. It didn't seem fair to tell her first. She sat there for an hour, willing Brad to call her.

She hadn't heard anything about Allyson since four o'clock, when they had come to tell her that she was weathering the surgery well, and her condition was as stable as could be expected. She was going to need several more transfusions, too, and Page was relieved to know that she was the same blood type. She went ahead and let them take a pint of blood from her, and it was right after that that Brad finally called. He called the number at the desk at the E.R., and they let Page take it in a separate office.

“My God, Page, where are you?” Jane had only told him to call her at the number she gave him. “It sounded like they said Marin General.”

“They did.” She fought back her fatigue, looking for the right words to tell him, and not finding them for a moment. “Brad …baby …” She started to cry and could go no further.

“Are you all right? Did something happen to you?” For a crazy instant he wondered if she had been pregnant and hadn't told him, or had fallen off a ladder again. What else could it be? He couldn't even begin to imagine.

“Sweetheart …Allie had an accident.” She paused for breath and he immediately questioned her.

“Is she all right?”

Page shook her head as the tears coursed down her cheeks. “No …she isn't …she was in a car accident last night. I'm so sorry to tell you this. I tried everything I could to reach you, but you'd canceled your golf game.”

“I …oh …yeah. He was busy or something. Who'd you call?”

“Dan Ballantine. He called the guy in Cleveland, and left a message for you. You didn't leave me the name of your hotel, or the number.”

“I forgot.” He sounded annoyed and curt, which surprised her, as though he was irritated with her for having Dan call Cleveland. “So how is she? And what do you mean, a car accident? Who was driving her? Trygve Thorensen?”

“No, he wasn't. That's what she told us, but she was out with a bunch of kids. They got in a head-on collision, and …” It made her sick to tell him, but she knew she had to. “She has a head injury, Brad, a very serious one. She's critical, and she's in surgery now.”

“You let them operate? Without asking me? For chrissake, how could you do that?”

“Brad, I had to. The surgeon told me she'd be dead by six o'clock this morning if I didn't.”

“Bullshit. You had a right to a second opinion. You owed that to me, and to Allie.” He wasn't sounding rational, but Page knew it was his way of coping. The shock of the news was just too great to withstand in a single moment.

“There was no time, Brad. No time for anything.” Except prayers. And miracles. It was all in God's hands now, and the surgeons'.

“How is she now?”

“She's still in surgery. It's been over twelve hours.”

“Oh my God.” There was a long silence at his end, and Page suspected he was crying. “How did it happen? Who was driving?” What did it matter?

“A boy named Phillip Chapman.”

“The little sonofabitch. Was he drunk? I'll sue the shit out of them for this …” His voice was shaking as he said it, and Page shook her head.

“He's dead, Brad …there were four of them in the car. One had a minor concussion. Chloe is very badly injured too, but she's going to be all right …and Allie …she may not make it, Brad … or if she does …you have to come home, sweetheart … we need you.”

“I'll be there in an hour.” That was impossible, they both knew, but he could be there in six, if he got a plane immediately. She was sure he'd be able to pull strings and get a seat on the first plane out, for special circumstances, and she was glad he had finally called. She needed him desperately. Trygve had been a godsend, but Brad was her husband.

“I'll be there as soon as I can,” Brad said worriedly.

“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.