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.