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.