Danielle Steel - Accident

“I'm counting on it, Page … a lot of us are.” She nodded, and they sat for a long time in silence before she went back to Allie.

The phone was ringing when she got home that afternoon. It was a friend from the city whom she hadn't seen in months. Allyson and her daughter had gone to dancing school together two years before, and the girls weren't close friends, but they liked each other. She had heard about the accident and wanted to know if she could do anything to help, but Page told her there was nothing.

“Let me know if there is,” she persisted, and then hesitated for an instant. “What's happening with you and Brad, by the way? Are you …getting divorced?” Page was shocked by the question.

“No. Why?” But her blood ran cold as she said it. The woman knew something. It was obvious from the way she had asked the question.

“Maybe I shouldn't be saying anything …but I see him over here all the time with some young girl … I don't know, she must be in her early twenties. I thought she was a friend of Al-lie's at first when I saw him with her, and then I realized she was older. She lives in the next block, and I got the impression he was living with her. Actually, I saw them jogging together this morning before breakfast.” How nice for him. And how nice for him to embarrass her with everyone. It was a small community and now people were seeing him with the girl …Allie's age? …oh God. She felt two thousand years old as she explained that she was a good friend, and they worked together on projects at all hours, and it was nothing.

She knew she hadn't convinced her friend, but she wasn't about to admit to anyone that Brad was involved with someone else. And she was angry that the woman had called her. It was a mean thing to do, and she had to have known when Page said they weren't getting divorced that there was trouble.

“How was Allyson?” her mother asked as she walked into the kitchen.

“The same,” Page said distractedly. “How did you manage with Andy? Did he find the bathroom?” She smiled and her mother laughed.

“Of course. He's a wonderful boy. He made me and his aunt Alexis lunch and served it in the garden.” God forbid they should do anything for themselves for a single moment.

She found Andy playing in his room, and he looked up when he saw her. He looked worried and sad and it tore at her heart when she saw his eyes. All of their lives had changed brutally in the past three weeks, and none of them understood it. They were all like drowning people. She sat down on the bed, and reached a hand out and touched him.

“How was Grandma?”

“Funny,” he said, smiling up at her, as she longed to hold him. “She can't do anything. And neither can Aunt Alexis, her nails are too long to do anything. She can't even open a bottle of Evian. And Grandma asked me to wind her watch for her. She says she can't see it, and she couldn't find her glasses.” He knew them well, and then he looked up at Page with a worried expression. “Where's Daddy?”

“He's in the city, working.” She lied, as always.

“But it's Sunday.” He was no fool, but she didn't want to tell him the truth, and he sensed it.

“He works hard.” The bastard.

“Will he be home for dinner?”

“I don't know,” she said honestly, and then he climbed up on her lap and she held him. She wanted to tell him that she would always love him, no matter what happened with his father, but she didn't want to say too much, so she just told him how much she loved him.

She went to cook dinner after that, and Brad surprised them and came home, and it actually started out to be a very pleasant dinner. Brad did a barbecue for them, and he was very quiet and polite. He avoided Page's eyes, but he made an effort to be nice to her mother, and he had Andy help him make the hamburgers and steaks and chicken. Alexis explained that she wasn't eating meat today, and she had Andy open a bottle of Evian for her.

And it was only when Page stood alone next to Brad that she turned to him and told him about the call from the woman she knew in the city.

“I hear you went jogging today before breakfast.” He didn't say anything at first, he just looked at her, it had never occurred to him that anyone would tell her.

“Who told you that?” He sounded furious, and guilty.

“What difference does it make?”

“It's none of your fucking business,” he said in total fury.

“This is our life you're throwing in the trash, Brad …mine and Allie's …and Andy's. You think he doesn't know what's going on. Try looking at his face once in a while. He knows. We all do.”

“Great! What did you do? Tell him? You bitch!” He threw the cooking utensils down then, and stormed into the house, and Page struggled with the barbecue for a while until she burned herself, and Andy went running to get Brad. He was crying by then, he had heard them arguing and then he had seen Page burn herself. He didn't want her to get hurt, or his parents to shout, and he had heard them saying something about him. Maybe it was all his fault they were arguing, maybe his Dad was mad that Allie was hurt, and not Andy. He looked devastated as Brad prodded the steaks angrily, and finally finished the dinner. And all three Clarkes were extremely quiet as they sat down to dinner. But as usual, neither Mari-belle nor Alexis appeared to notice.

“What a marvelous cook you are,” Maribelle complimented him. The steaks were good, but the atmosphere was poisonous. “Alexis, you really ought to try one of the steaks, they're too good to be true.” But Alexis shook her head, happy with her lettuce leaves, and Page and Andy were picking at their dinner. Page still had an ice cube held to the two fingers she had burned, and there was already a nasty blister.

“How's your hand, Mom?” Andy asked her worriedly.

“It's fine, sweetheart.” Brad said not a word and never looked at his wife. He was convinced now that she had told Andy about his affair, and he was so mad he wanted to kill her. He started arguing with her again in the kitchen when they cleaned up, and neither of them saw Andy standing on the other side of the counter.

“You told him, didn't you! You had no right to do that!”

“I did no such thing!” she shouted back at him. “I wouldn't do that to him. But you might as well tell him yourself, you're never here. What is he supposed to think? And what if someone tells him the way they told me?”

“It's none of his goddamn business either!” He slammed out of the kitchen again, and Page was crying as she put away the dishes. Brad had gone back outside and was putting out the barbecue, when her mother walked into the kitchen.

“What a lovely dinner, dear. We're having such a good time here.” Page stared at her unbelievingly, not even sure what to say, it was all so surrealistic. But her family always had been.

“I'm glad you liked the dinner. Brad makes a good steak.” Maybe he'd come back to cook steak for them after he remarried.

“You're a wonderful couple,” she said, beaming at Page, who finally put down her dish towel and looked at her mother.

“Actually, Mom, things aren't going too well. I'm sure you noticed.”

“Not at all. Of course you're both worried about Allyson, but that's natural. I'm sure in afew weeks you'll all be back to normal.” It was amazing for her to even acknowledge that much.

“I'm not so sure of that anymore.” And then she decided to tell her the whole truth. Why not? If she didn't like it, she'd just pretend she didn't hear it. “He's involved with someone else, and it's putting an awful lot of strain on us at the moment.”

But her mother only shook her head, refusing to believe it. “I'm sure you're mistaken about that, dear. Brad would never do a thing like that. He'd never do anything to jeopardize your marriage.”