“She's pretty stoned,” Trygve explained with a smile. “But she looks okay, if you don't look at all the stuff hanging off her. She's got all sorts of tubes and rods hanging out of her hip, more rods and pins in her legs. She'll get casts eventually but not yet. She's a mess, but I guess we've got to be grateful.”
“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.