Accident (15 page)

“It's not that I don't believe them,” Trygve answered her, “it's that I know how reporters write. The innuendos, the lies, the way they cover themselves, or develop a story to coincide with their opinions. Political reporters do it all the time. They only report what works with the story they have in mind, and their point of view, or that of their paper, it's not necessarily the whole truth. It's designed to fit a preconceived picture. And that could be happening here. Also Hutchinson's aides were pushing a lot of propaganda to cover her and make her look good. Maybe it wasn't her fault, but it could have been, and they wanted to be damn sure she looked like Mrs. Goodie Two Shoes, Mrs. Perfect Mother and Driver.”

“Do you think it might have been her fault?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it certainly could have been, just as much as it could have been Phillip's. I spoke to the highway patrol again, and they still maintain that the evidence is inconclusive. If anything, the cars seemed almost equally to blame. The only difference is that Phillip was a kid, he hadn't been driving as long as she had. Boys are assumed to be wild behind the wheel, but not all of them are. And from everything the kids have said, the Chapman boy was a very responsible guy. Jamie Applegate said he had half a glass of wine, and two cups of black coffee. I've driven on a lot more than that. Maybe I shouldn't have. But he was a big kid, half a glass of wine shouldn't have knocked him flat, not followed by two cups of coffee and then later, a cappuccino. But Mrs. Hutchinson said she didn't have a drink all night. So she was older, sober, better known, more respectable, more grown up, and without further evidence, Phillip somehow begins to look guilty. It isn't really fair. I think that's what bothers me. Kids always get a bad rap, even when they don't deserve it. It seems particularly unfair to his family. Why should he get blamed, if no one knows for sure whose fault it was?

“I spoke to Jamie today, and he swears that they weren't drunk, and that Phillip was paying attention. I wanted to blame him at first … I wanted to be mad at someone, and he was the obvious choice. But I'm not so sure he is anymore. And I have to admit, I wanted to kill the Apple-gate kid at first too, for conspiring with Chloe and getting her to lie to me, for getting her into that car in the first place. But he seems like a decent kid, and I've spoken to his father twice on the phone. Jamie is just beside himself over it. He keeps wanting to see Chloe, but I think it's too soon. I told him to wait a few days, and we'll see.

“Are you going to let him see her?” Page was impressed with his sense of fairness. And intrigued by his suspicion of Laura Hutchinson. The truth was that it was probably just what it appeared. An accident. With no one to blame, and too many who had paid too dearly for a moment's distraction, a glance in the wrong direction, the merest move of the hand on the wheel, and tragedy resulting. She wasn't really angry at anyone. She was just desperate for Allyson to survive it.

Trygve nodded in answer to her question about letting Jamie Applegate see Chloe. “I'd probably let him see her. If she wants to see him. I'll leave it up to her when she feels better. She may not even want to see him again. But he's so overwrought over the whole thing, it might do him good to see her, when she's a little better. His father says he's convinced they're all … ah …” Before he spoke, he realized the harshness of his words, and he didn't want to upset Page any further. “He's afraid that they might die, and he feels guilty for surviving. He said as much to me, he kept saying it should have been him instead of Phillip …and instead of Chloe …and Allie. Apparently, he and the Chapman boy had been best friends for years. He's in a terrible state.” And then he glanced at Page again, and gently asked her a question.

“Are you going to the Chapman boy's funeral tomorrow, Page?” He hated to ask her.

She nodded slowly. She hadn't been sure before, but now she thought she really should go. She owed it to them. They had lost their boy. And she had almost lost Allie. But almost was not the same, and her heart ached as she thought of the sorrow they must be feeling.

“It must be awful for them,” she said softly, as Trygve nodded.

“Will Brad go, or do you want me to drive you? I think it's in the afternoon, so the kids can go too. It might be easier not to go alone.” He was dreading it too, as she sighed, thinking of the sheer horror of it, and the pain. She could only pray that they wouldn't have to go through it with Allie.

“I don't know if Brad will go, but I doubt it.” He hated funerals, and she knew that, unlike Trygve, he was very vocal about blaming Phillip for the accident. She doubted that he'd be willing to go to the funeral with her, and with their current situation, it was even less likely.

“I don't know how you begin to survive that,” she said in a whisper, as she tried not to think about it. And then she looked at Trygve again with grief in her eyes. “I'm not even sure how you survive this. I'm beginning to feel like my whole life is coming apart, and it's only been two days. I don't know …what does one do? How do you learn to get through something like this, and not let your whole world fall apart?” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke to him. He felt like an old friend, or an older brother.

“Maybe you don't keep it from falling apart. Maybe it does, and you pick up the pieces later.”

“Maybe so,” she said sadly, thinking of Brad. Trygve seemed almost to read her mind with the next question.

“How's Brad taking
it?
It must have been quite a shock when he heard in Cleveland.”

For a moment she was tempted to tell him that he'd never been in Cleveland, but that didn't seem fair. She just shook her head and was silent for a long moment. “He hasn't taken it well at all. He's upset and frightened and angry. He blames Phillip for the accident. But in a way, I think he blames me too, for not knowing what she was doing. He hasn't exactly said it, but he implied it.” It was also a way of deflecting the guilt from him. It was a relief to him to blame her for something. “The worst thing,” she turned to him, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, “is that I'm not sure he's wrong. Maybe it
is
my fault. Maybe if I'd paid more attention, if I'd been suspicious, or questioned her, if I hadn't believed her …this would never have happened.” She began to sob openly then, from exhaustion and emotion, and he put an arm around her shoulders.

“You can't let yourself think that. We had no reason to suspect them. They'd never done anything like this before, and you can't play cop constantly. We trusted them, that's not a crime, and their lie wasn't so terrible either. Other kids have done the same thing. It was just the result that was so terrible, but who could have known that?”

“Brad thinks I should have.”

“So does Dana. But it's just talk. They need someone to blame, so we're it. You can't take it to heart. He's upset. He doesn't know what to say probably, or who to rail at.”

“Maybe,” she said, and she was quiet for a long time, as she remembered the statistics she'd often read about what accidents to children, or their deaths, did to destroy a marriage. If there was a crack in it somewhere, it would surely break. And their marriage apparently had a crack in it the size of the Grand Canyon. “Actually,” she said quietly, surprising him with her next remark, “things aren't going too well with me and Brad.” She wasn't sure why she was telling him, but she had to tell someone. She had never felt as alone or as miserable in her life, and there was no one else she wanted to talk to. She knew she had to call her mother one of these days to tell her about Allie, but she wasn't ready to do that yet. She needed time to adjust to what was happening herself, before she took on her mother in New York. It was just more than she could handle right then. Everything was, except being at the hospital, sitting with Allyson, or talking to Trygve. “Brad and I …” She started to say the words, and then found she couldn't.

“You don't have to explain, Page.” Trygve tried to make it easier for her. “No one would have an easy time with this. I was just sitting here thinking that Dana and I would never have survived it.” In fact, he still couldn't believe that even after he'd called her, she had decided not to come to see her daughter. She had accused him of negligence, but she didn't want to fly all the way to San Francisco to see Chloe. She just hoped she'd be well enough to meet her in Europe in the summer. She was definitely not a woman he admired, or even a decent mother. He could only wonder how he had stayed married to her for twenty years. Sometimes he felt like a total fool, when he thought about it, but he also knew that for the past several years he had stayed with her so as not to disrupt the children.

Page tried to explain what was happening to them. “Our problem doesn't have anything to do with the accident. It just happens to have come to light right now, in the midst of all this.” She was cryptic, but it was obvious that she was deeply upset about something that had happened with her husband. Maybe an affair, he thought, he had a lot of experience with those, and their impact on a relationship. But that didn't seem likely. Brad had never seemed the type to be unfaithful.

“You can't judge anything in a crisis.”

“Why not? What if it's real? What if nothing is the way I thought it was for all these years? What if it's all been a lie?”

“If it is, you'll know it later. Don't judge anything right now. Neither of you is in any condition to think straight.”

“How do you know that?” she asked worriedly. She had a lot to think about, and in some ways the hospital was a great place to do it.

“I have a lot of experience with difficult relationships, and things that aren't what they seem. Believe me, I know what I'm saying. But I also know that everything is upside down right now. You can't hold each other accountable for what you do or say, or the way you react. Look at you, you're exhausted, you haven't eaten decently or slept in two days. Your child almost died. You're completely traumatized. Who wouldn't be? So am I … so is Brad … so are our other children…. Do you really trust your own reactions right now? Hell, I'm afraid to order groceries, I'd probably order bird food for the dog, and dog food for the kids. Listen …give yourself a break. Try not to think about anything right now. Just try to get through this.”

“I didn't realize you did marriage counseling.” She smiled, and he laughed.

“I only know it from worst case. If anything good happens, don't consult me,”

“Was it that bad?” Somehow they felt like old friends now and he still had his arm around her shoulders.

“Worse.” But he was smiling as he said it. “I think we probably had one of the worst marriages in history. I think I've finally recovered, but it's made me damn scared to try it again.” She remembered what Allyson had said on Saturday afternoon, that he never went out with anyone, and Page was sorry for him. He was a very attractive man, intelligent, and a nice one.

“Maybe you just need more time,” she said sympathetically, and he laughed out loud.

“Yeah, like another forty or fifty years. I'm in no hurry to make the same mistakes again, and make myself and my children miserable. I'm taking it very easy in the meantime. They deserve a lot better than they had, and so do I. It's just not easy to find it.”

“Maybe once you stop being scared, you'll find it more easily,” she said gently.

“Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm happy like this, and so are my kids. That means everything to me, Page. It's a lot better to be alone, than to be with the wrong woman.”

“Maybe. I don't know. I've been married to the same man since I was twenty-three. I always thought everything was perfect, and suddenly the bottom dropped out of everything. I don't know what to think, or who I'm married to. Things have gotten very confused.” And all in a matter of days, hours, minutes.

“Remember what I said,” he warned again, “don't judge anything in the midst of a crisis.”

“Maybe not,” she said quietly, surprised that she was willing to tell him so much about her life. But what she had learned from Brad had shaken her to the core, she needed to talk to someone, and she trusted Trygve. She wasn't sure why, but she did, implicitly. In the past forty-eight hours, he had been there as no other friend would have. Even Brad had let her down. But Trygve had been there, and crisis or not, she knew she wouldn't forget it.

It was almost midnight by then. They had talked for a long time, and gone into ICU several times, to check on Allyson and Chloe. Chloe was asleep, and Allyson was still unconscious. Trygve was thinking about going home, when the resident came out to find Page, and explained that Allyson was having complications. The brain swelling that they had feared had begun to occur, and she was experiencing a lot of pressure on the wound, and her skull. This was the “third injury” they had warned her about, and the resident explained that they were afraid of blood clots.

Trygve volunteered to stay at the hospital with her, the head of the surgical team came, and Allyson began to experience further difficulties. With the swelling, her blood pressure had risen, and her pulse had slowed, and the doctor didn't like the way she was looking. By one o'clock, it looked as though she might not make it. Page couldn't believe it was happening. She had been stable only an hour before …but on the other hand, two days before that, she had been normal. Life had a way of changing a hundred and eighty degrees without a moment's warning.

By the time the rest of the surgical team came, Page had tried to call Brad several times, but the answering machine was on, and he didn't pick up. Finally, in desperation she asked Trygve to call Jane Gilson, and have her go over and wake Brad up. She could stay with Andy so Brad could leave. But when Trygve came back from the phone, he only shook his head and delivered Jane's message. Brad had never come to pick Andy up at all. The boy was sound asleep in her bed, and she had no idea where Brad was. He had never called her.

“He never called?” Page looked stunned. How could he do that now, with everything happening, and after all he'd said? What was he thinking of? His sex life, or his daughter?