Accident (10 page)

“That's always the way.” Trygve looked rueful. “Dana went skiing with friends once and forgot to leave me the number too, and of course that was the weekend that Bjorn got lost, Nick broke his arm, and Chloe came down with pneumonia. I had a great time.”

Page smiled thinking of it. He was such a good guy, and he'd been so decent to her tonight. It was still difficult to assimilate what had happened. “I don't know what I'm going to say to Brad. He and Allie are so close …it'll kill him.”

“It's a nightmare for everyone …and the poor kid who was driving …imagine what his parents must be feeling.”

They had an opportunity to see it firsthand, when the Chapmans arrived at Marin General at six o'clock in the morning. They were a nice-looking couple in their late fifties. She had well-groomed white hair, and Mr. Chapman looked like a banker. Page saw them arrive at the front desk, looking exhausted and worn. They had driven all the way from Carmel the moment they had been called, unable to believe what had happened. Phillip was their only child, they had had him late, and had never been able to have any others. He was the light of their life, which was why they hadn't wanted him to go East to college. They couldn't bear the idea of his being so far away, and now he couldn't be farther. He was gone from their life forever.

Mrs. Chapman stood with her head bowed, crying softly as they listened to the doctor, her husband had an arm around her and cried openly as he told them that Phillip had been killed instantly from a head injury and a broken neck that had severed both his spinal cord and his brain stem. There had been no hope of his surviving from the moment of impact.

The doctor told them too that there had been a small amount of alcohol in his blood, not enough to make him legally drunk, but maybe enough for a boy his age to be slightly affected. He did not say that the accident was due to him, it still remained unclear who had hit whom, or why. But the implication was there, and the Chapmans looked horrified when they heard it. The doctor in the examining room told them that the other driver had been Senator Hutchinson's wife, and that she was devastated over it, not that that changed anything for the Chapmans. Phillip was dead, no matter who the other driver had been. Mrs. Chapman's grief turned suddenly to anger as she listened to him and the implication that Phillip might have been drinking. She asked if the other driver had been checked too, and was told that she hadn't. The patrolmen at the scene had been certain she was sober. There had been no suspicion about her at all. And as he listened, Tom Chapman grew visibly angry. He looked outraged by what they'd just told them. He was a well-known attorney, and the idea that Phillip had been tested, and even subtly slurred, while the Senator's wife was assumed without reproach seemed like an appalling injustice, and one that he wasn't going to stand for.

“What are you telling me? That because my son was seventeen, half a glass of wine, or roughly its equivalent, makes him presumed guilty of this accident? But a grown woman who may well have drunk a great deal more than he, and possibly been severely affected by it, is above the law because she's married to a politician?” Tom Chapman was shaking with grief and rage as he spoke to the young doctor who had just told him that Laura Hutchinson had not been checked for alcohol, only because the patrolmen on the scene “assumed” she was sober.

“Don't you dare imply that my son was drunk!” Tom Chapman roared at him, as his wife began to cry again beside him. Their anger was a buffer against the inconsolable grief they were feeling. “That's slander. The blood test showed that he was nowhere near legally drunk, not even close to it. I know my boy. He doesn't drink, or if he does, rarely, and very little, and certainly not if he's driving.” But he wouldn't be doing anything anymore, and suddenly Tom Chapman's anger began to fade as he began to realize what had happened. He wanted to blame someone, to hurt someone as much as he was hurting. He wanted it to be the other driver's fault, not his son's …but much more than that, he wanted it never to have happened. Why had they gone to Carmel? Why had they left him alone, and trusted him? He was only a boy after all … a child …and now look what had happened. His eyes welled up with tears again, and he turned to his wife with a look of desperation. For a moment, the brief burst of rage had helped assuage the pain, but now it hit him again full force, and when he took his wife in his arms in the emergency room, they were both crying, and the issue of blame no longer seemed important.

A photographer took their picture as they sat in a corner of the emergency room. They looked confused at the flash of light. So much had already happened to them, it was just one more incomprehensible moment. And when they realized that the press had photographed them, they were understandably outraged by the intrusion. In the midst of their grief, they were being subjected to indignity as well, and Tom Chapman looked as though he were going to physically assault the man who had taken their picture, but of course he didn't. He was in great distress, but he was a reasonable person. But it was then that they understood that their agony was going to become a news event because of who the other driver had been. It was news, something hot, something to tantalize people with. Was it the Senator's wife's fault, or was she a very lucky innocent victim? Was it the Chapman boy's fault? Was he drunk? Irresponsible? Merely young? Or was there some malfeasance on the part of Laura Hutchinson? Were any or all of them into drugs? The fact that a seventeen-year-old boy had died, his parents' lives had been shattered, another child had been crippled, and a third nearly killed was merely more fodder for the press, or better yet for the tabloids.

The Chapmans looked devastated as they left the hospital, but the most devastating of all had been seeing Phillip. Mary Chapman knew she would never forget the horror of that moment, of seeing him broken and pale, so deathly still as they stared at him and cried, and bent to kiss him. Tom sobbed openly, and Mary bent over him and gently touched his face with her hands, and then kissed him. All she could think of was the first moment she had seen him, seventeen years before, when she had held him in her arms, and been overwhelmed by the sheer joy of being his mother. She knew she would always be, time could never take that from her, but death had taken Phillip from her. She would never see him laugh again, or run across the lawn, slam the front door, or tell her a joke. He would never surprise her again, with one of his harmless pranks, or his sweet surprises. He would never bring her flowers. She would never see him grow old. She would see him forever as he was now, heartbreakingly still, his soul gone on to another place. For all their love for him, and his for them, in one swift unexpected moment, Phillip had left them.

It made the next photographer's attack on them as they left even more repulsive. But seeing what was happening, Tom Chapman vowed to see that Phillip wasn't blamed for this disaster. If need be, he would clear his son's name. He didn't want Phillip's memory sullied by innuendo, or used to protect the Senator's wife, or the Senator's seat in the next election. Tom Chapman felt certain that his son was not to blame, and he was not going to allow anyone to say anything different. He said as much to his wife, as they drove away, but she seemed not to hear him. All she could think of was Phillip's face when she had kissed him.

The night seemed interminable to all of them, as Page sat with Trygve. Both girls were still in surgery then, and Trygve and Page were beginning to feel as though they had been there forever.

“I keep thinking about the options,” Page said quietly as the sun came up over Marin, and she tried to view it as a hopeful sign. It was another gorgeous spring day, but she no longer felt excited by the warm weather. In her heart, winter had come, with ice and snow, and all its desolation.

“I keep thinking about what Dr. Hammerman said …she might end up brain damaged, or severely affected in some way, physically or mentally. How would we ever begin to deal with that? How do you live with something like that?” she said absentmindedly, talking almost as much to herself as to him, and suddenly she remembered Bjorn, and felt awful. “I'm sorry, Trygve … I wasn't thinking.”

“It's all right. I understand what you must be going through. Or at least I can guess at it … I feel a little bit that way about Chloe's legs, and I remember what it was like when they told us Bjorn had Down syndrome.” He was being honest with her, they were both trying to understand what adjustments might lie ahead.

She looked over at him. His hair was as rumpled as hers, and he had worn jeans and an old plaid shirt, bare feet and an ancient pair of sneakers. She looked down at her gardening sweater then, and remembered that she hadn't bothered to comb her hair. She didn't really care, and it made her smile to realize what they looked like. “We're a sight, the two of us.” She grinned. “Actually, you look better than I do. I ran out of the house so fast, I'm surprised I remembered to get dressed at all.”

Trygve grinned at her for the first time all night, looking very boyish and very Nordic with his big blue eyes and blond lashes. “These are Nick's jeans, and Bjorn's shirt. God only knows whose shoes. I don't think they're mine. I found them in the garage. I was about to drive here barefoot.”

She nodded, knowing only too well what he had felt when he heard the news. She couldn't bear to think of it, and she still had to tell Brad, yet another nightmare to survive. If only she could tell him that Allyson was still alive, and there was some hope. But it was unlikely they would know by the time she reached him.

“I was just thinking about Bjorn,” Trygve said softly, as he leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful look. “It was awful when they first told us. Dana hated everyone and everything, mostly me, because she didn't know who else to hate. And Bjorn, too, at first. She just couldn't accept that we hadn't had a perfect baby. She talked about him being a vegetable, and painted a grisly picture of what the future would be like. She wanted to put him in an institution.”

“Why didn't you?” She was intrigued, and felt she could ask him anything. She knew Brad would have balked at accepting a child who wasn't normal.

“I don't believe in that. Maybe it's the Norwegian upbringing, or just me. I don't think you walk away from things because they're difficult. I never have anyway,” he smiled ruefully again, thinking of his twenty years in a bad marriage, “though I probably should have in some cases. But that's part of life to me, old people, kids, people with infirmities, people with limitations. This is not a perfect world, and it's not fair to expect that. I don't know, I just thought we ought to make the best of it. Dana said she wanted no part of it, so it became my mission to help Bjorn. And actually, we were very lucky. He isn't as severe as some. He's limited, but he has a lot of capabilities too. He's very gifted with carpentry, he's artistic in a childlike way, he loves people, he's incredibly affectionate, he's very loyal, he's a great cook, he's got a good sense of humor, he's responsible, to a point, and he's even learning to drive a car now. But he'll never be like Nick, or you, or me. He'll never go to college, or run a bank, or be a doctor. He's Bjorn, and he's good at what he can do … he loves sports, and kids, and people. And maybe he'll have a good life in spite of his limitations. I certainly hope so.”

“You've given him a lot,” Page said softly. “He's a lucky man.” He wanted to tell her he thought Brad was too. From what he'd seen that night, he thought she was a remarkable woman. She had taken a blow that would have shattered most people on the spot, and she was weathering it, and helping him, and still managing to think about everyone else, her husband, her son, even the Chapmans.

“He deserves it, Page. Bjorn is a great guy. I can't even bear to think of what his life might have been like in an institution. Maybe he'd never have grown to this point, or maybe he would have. I don't know. He buys our groceries, you know, and he's very proud of it. Sometimes, I can rely on him more than I can on Chloe.” They both smiled at that, teenage girls definitely had their own sets of limitations.

“Doesn't it make you angry sometimes, wishing he would have been more?”

“He never could have, Page. This was the very best he could be. Maybe it's easier that way. All I am is proud.” They both knew it would be different if Allyson were seriously brain damaged, after all she had been.

“I just keep asking myself how you adjust to it. Maybe you have to throw away all the old measuring sticks, and start all over again, grateful for every step, every word, every tiny bit of growth and accomplishment …but how do you forget? How do you forget what she was, and learn to accept so little?”

“I don't know,” he said sadly, unable to even fathom it. “Maybe you just have to be grateful she's alive, and take it from there,” he said, as she nodded her head, realizing how lucky she'd be if Allyson lived through it.

“I guess I'm not even there yet.”

It was almost eight in the morning by then, and Page decided to call one of Brad's associates, to see if she could locate him in Cleveland.

With apologies, she woke Dan Ballantine and his wife, and explained briefly to Dan what had happened. She said that Brad was planning to play golf with the president of the company in Cleveland that day and if Dan had no clues as to what hotel he'd used, maybe he could call the president and leave a message with him for Brad to call her. It was a roundabout way to get hold of Brad, but it was the best she could think of. And Dan promised to get on it right away, and leave the number at Marin General for Brad without saying too much to frighten him. Dan told her too how sorry he was about the accident, and hoped Allie'd be okay.

“Me too,” Page said, thanking him again for his help. And it was less than an hour later when Dan called her in the emergency room. He had called the president of the company they were dealing with in Cleveland, and he did have an appointment with Brad the next day. But according to him, they had never made plans to play golf, or meet on Sunday morning.

“That's odd. Brad said …never mind, I probably misunderstood. I'll just have to wait till he calls,” she said tiredly. She was too exhausted to worry about why he had said he was playing golf with the man when he wasn't. She figured it had probably gotten canceled, and Dan had misunderstood. At least they had tried, so he'd hear eventually. And maybe by then the news would be a little better.