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.
“It's beautiful, Mother, thank you.” She didn't explain the impossibility of it to her, and her mother seemed not to care. They had found a fabulous designer sale at I. Magnin.
“It's amazing what you find out here,” she said, totally unaware of Page's expression.
“Isn't it though,” she said coolly. It was almost as though the reason for their trip had been forgotten.
Page made dinner for them again that night, but Brad didn't come home or call. She made an excuse for him, but later she found Andy looking forlorn and sat down on her bed to talk to him. Having her own mother there made her nervous and edgy.
“You and Dad are mad at each other again, huh?”
“Not really,” she lied, she just couldn't cope with telling him about that too. Allyson was enough for the moment. “He's just busy.”