Accident (30 page)

“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.