“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.