The long road home

Chapter 14

MOTHER GREGORIA DID not go to see Gabriella in the hospital again, but she called frequently to see how she was, and was encouraged by the reports from the nurses. They had stopped giving her transfusions finally. They had given her all they could, without risking an adverse reaction, and now her body had to repair itself, in time. But Mother Gregoria knew only too well that the body would heal faster than the heart would.

She was grateful, too, that the ambulance had taken her to a city hospital, and not to Mercy. Had she been there, it would truly have been impossible to quell the rumors. The story of her emergency appendectomy had spread quickly the night before, and now with silence imposed on all of them, they could not discuss it further. But Mother Gregoria knew she still had to deal with Gabriella. She had met with the priests from St. Stephen's again, and the archbishop came to see her the next morning. They had come to a difficult decision, but Mother Gregoria knew that there was no other way to handle what had happened. To bring her back into their midst again would be to plant a seed with a fatal flaw in it in a holy garden. Or at least that was what they told her.

She argued with them at first, begging for mercy for her, yet she knew herself that had it been any other girl than the child she loved, she would have come to the same conclusion as they had. It was obvious that Gabriella wasn't in a proper state to rejoin the Order, and maybe she never would be. Perhaps one day, in another place, another time, they said… but for now… Archbishop Flaherty was immovable in the conclusion he'd come to. And now it remained for Mother Gregoria to tell her.

She sent one of the Sisters to the hospital for her the morning she was released, and reminded her once again before she went of her vow of silence, and that they were not to engage in conversation. And as soon as they returned, Gabriella was to come to the Mother Superior's office. There was no doubt in her mind that the Sister she sent would follow her orders.

But she was in no way prepared for how Gabriella looked when she returned. She was so deathly pale, and appeared so frightened, that she looked like an apparition. She sat uncomfortably in the stiff chair where she had sat the morning they had told her that Joe Connors had hanged himself in his room at St. Stephen's. The morning she had nearly died, and still wished she could have. Her eyes met the Mother Superior's now, and there was something broken and empty in them.

“How are you, my child?” But she didn't need to ask the question. It was easy to see how she was. She was dead inside, as dead as Joe Connors, and their baby.

“I'm all right, Mother. I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you.” Her voice sounded weak, and she looked frail, and the black coif she wore with her postulant's dress made her look even more somber. But trouble seemed a small word for the two lives that had been lost, and the one remaining that had been ruined.

“I know you must be.” And she meant it, she knew that Gabriella must be torturing herself, but no one could help her. She had to find her own peace, and eventually, forgiveness. And Mother Gregoria knew it would not come easily to her, if ever.

“I am entirely responsible for Father Connors’ death, Mother. I understand that,” she said, as her lips quivered and her chin trembled. She could barely finish the sentence. “I will do penance for it for the rest of my life.”

For a moment, the Mother Superior stepped aside, and Gabriella glimpsed the woman. “You must remember one thing, my child. His mother did the same thing at an early age. It's a very wrong thing to do, not only in the eyes of God, but to the people one leaves behind. Whatever your part in this, there was something in him, more powerful than he was, that allowed him to do it.” It was her own way of giving Gabriella absolution, of reminding her that perhaps some fatal flaw in him had led him to do it. And in Mother Gregoria's eyes, it was a terrible sign of weakness. “You are very strong,” she said, fighting for composure herself, “and whatever life metes out to you, whatever it is, I want you to remember that you are equal to it. God will not give you more than you can handle. And when you think you can bear no more, you must remember that you will survive it. You must know that.” It was a message delivered from the heart, but one that Gabriella could bear no longer. They all told her how strong she was. It was always the sign they gave just before they hurt her.

“I'm not strong,” Gabriella said in a broken whisper. “I'm not. Why do people say I am?… Don't they know I'm not?” Tears swam in her eyes as she said it.

“You have more strength than you know, and much more courage. One day you will know that. These people who have hurt you, Gabriella, are the weak ones. They are the ones who cannot face it.” Like Joe, and her father, and her mother. “But you can.”

Gabriella didn't want to hear it, nor did she want to hear what Mother Gregoria was about to say to her, almost as much as the Mother Superior didn't want to say it. “I'm afraid I have some difficult news for you.” It was going to be quick and hard and cruel, but Mother Gregoria had no choice now, and she could not question their wisdom, no matter how much she questioned their mercy. But hers was a life of obedience, and she could not break her vows now, even for Gabriella. “The archbishop has decided that you must leave us. Whatever happened between you and… Father Connors,” the older woman felt as though she were fighting for air, but she knew she could not turn back now, despite Gabriella's sudden look of horror. “Whatever happened, or didn't, there is a crack now in the walls we built around you. It will never be the same again, it will never be repaired. The crack will only grow wider. And perhaps what you did, what you shared with him, is a sign that you did not belong here. Perhaps we pushed you to it, perhaps you stayed here out of fear, my child—”

“No, Mother, no!” Gabriella was quick to interrupt her. “I love it here, I always have. I want to stay here!” Her voice had risen alarmingly, she was fighting for her life now. But Mother Gregoria forced herself to stay calm and to go on talking. They had to reach the end of the road now, and she wanted to do it quickly.

“You cannot stay here, my child. The doors of St. Matthew's are closed to you forever. Not our hearts, or our souls. I will pray for you until the day I die. But you must go now. You will go to the robing room after you leave here, and change your clothes. You will be given two dresses, and the shoes you are wearing. The archbishop is allowing us to give you a hundred dollars,” and her voice trembled alarmingly as she said it, but she steeled herself to go on, remembering the day Gabriella had come here, with eyes filled with terror. Mother Gregoria saw the same look in her eyes now, but she could no longer help her, only love her. “And I am giving you four hundred dollars of my own. You must find a place to live, and a job. There are many things you can do. God has given you intelligence and a good heart, and He will protect you. And you have a tremendous gift in your writing. You must use it well, and perhaps one day you will bring great pleasure to others. But you must take care of yourself now. Make wise decisions, keep yourself out of harm's way, and know that wherever you go, my child, you take our prayers with you. What you did was wrong, Gabriella, very wrong, but you have paid a high price for it. You must forgive yourself now,” she said in barely more than a whisper, holding a hand out to her to touch the girl she loved so much for the last time now. “You must forgive yourself, my child… as I do…”

Gabriella put her head down on the desk and sobbed, clutching the old nun's hand, unable to believe that she had to leave her. This was the only real home she had ever known, the only real mother she'd ever had, the only place where she had found safety. But she had betrayed them, she had broken their trust ultimately, and now, the apple having been eaten to the core, the snake had won, and she had to leave the Garden of Eden.

“I can't leave you,” she sobbed, begging for mercy.

“You must. We have no choice now. It is only fair to the others. You cannot live among them as you did before, after all that has happened.”

“I swear I'll never tell them.”

“But they know. In their hearts, they all know that something terrible has happened, no matter how we try to protect them from it. And if you stayed, it would never be the same for you again, you would always feel that you had betrayed them, and one day you would hate them and yourself for it.”

“I already hate myself,” she said, choking back sobs. She had killed the only man she'd ever loved, and lost his baby. And now she had to lose all the rest. Mother Gregoria was forcing her to leave, and the realization of all she had lost, and was about to lose again, filled her with a terror so uncontrollable, she wanted it to kill her. But the worst fear of all was that it wouldn't.

“Gabriella,” Mother Gregoria said quietly, rising to her feet as she had the first time they met. It was a terrible day for both of them, as she looked down at Gabriella now, shaking visibly as she stood there. “You must go now.” Gabbie was stunned into silence as Mother Gregoria handed her an envelope with the money she had promised her, most of it from the small bank account she kept, with small gifts sent to her by her own brothers and sisters. And with it, she handed Gabriella the slim journal she had kept for Joe. They had found it under her pillow, but the young nun who had found it suspected what it was and hadn't read it. Gabriella recognized it instantly and her hand shook as she took it from her.

The two women stood looking at each other for a long moment, and Gabriella's sobs filled the air as she reached out to her, and Mother Gregoria took her in her arms, just as she had when her mother left her.

“I will always love you,” she said to the child she had been, and the woman she would become when she reached the other side of the mountains life had put before her. Mother Gregoria had no doubt that she would arrive safely on the other side, but she knew that she had a long journey ahead of her, and the road would be far from easy.

“I love you so much… I can't leave you…” Gabriella sounded like a child again as she clung to her, feeling the stiff wool of the habit against her cheek, knowing her own was about to be taken from her.

“You will always have me with you. I will be praying for you.” And then, without another word, she walked Gabriella to the door and opened it, and signaled to the nun waiting outside to take her to the robing room where she would change her habit and be given two ugly, ill-fitting dresses left there by someone else, and a battered suitcase. The rest of what she needed, whatever it was, she would have to purchase with the money they gave her.

Gabriella stepped out into the corridor on trembling legs, and turned to look at Mother Gregoria for one last time, as tears ran down her cheeks in rivers. “I love you,” she said softly.

“Go with God,” Mother Gregoria said, and then turned slowly around and walked back into her office without looking back, and closed the door gently behind her. Gabriella stood staring at it in disbelief. It was like watching the door of someone's heart close, except that on the other side, the old nun had buried her face in her hands and was silently sobbing. But Gabriella would never know that.

She followed the nun to the robing room silently, both of them still bound by the silence Mother Gregoria had imposed on them. And the young nun pointed to the two dresses that had been left for Gabriella, one an ugly navy blue floral print polyester that was two sizes too large for her, particularly after last week, and an even uglier shiny black one that had stains down the front that hadn't come out no matter how often the Sisters washed it. But it fit Gabriella better than the first one, and the somber color suited her circumstances. She was in deep mourning for Joe, and she exchanged one black dress for the other, and slowly took off her coif, remembering the many times she had done it for him, and left it in the car when they went for walks in the park, or to the borrowed apartment. This was the price she had to pay now. She had lost the coif, and all it represented to her, forever, and all the people who went with it.

She stood in front of the nun who had been assigned to assist her with her departure, and their eyes met and held, and without a sound they embraced as tears ran down their cheeks in silence. It was a sad day for both of them, and the one remaining knew she would never be able to tell anyone what she'd seen, or the sorrow she had seen so clearly on Gabriella's face as she left them. It was a lesson to all of them. She was being cast into the world, alone, with nothing, and no one to help her.

Gabriella put the money, the journal, and the blue flowered dress carefully into the cardboard suitcase, and then left the robing room behind the woman who for twelve years had been her sister and would soon be swept away by the tides that had overtaken Gabriella.

They reached the front door in the main hall all too quickly. She stood there for a moment, and the elderly nun in charge of letting people in and out came forward and opened the door very slowly, and for a long, silent moment, the three of them stood there. The old nun nodded then, showing Gabbie the way out, and with a single, trembling step, Gabriella stepped across the threshold. This was nothing like the days she had hurried out to meet Joe, pretending to do their errands. This was a single step into darkness. And as she stood in the bright sunshine outside, she turned and looked at them, and as their eyes met, the old nun closed the door, and she was lost to them forever.

Chapter 15

GABRIELLA STOOD OUTSIDE the convent door, staring at it, for what seemed like an eternity, and she had no idea where to go, or what to do now. All she could think of was all that she had lost in the past four days, a man, a life, and a baby. The enormity of it was so overwhelming, she felt as though she were reeling.

And then, she picked up her suitcase, and slowly walked away. She knew she had to go somewhere, find a room, and a job, but she had no idea where to go or how to do it. And as she looked at the buses passing by, she suddenly remembered some of the girls she'd gone to school with at Columbia. Some of them lived in boarding houses and small hotels. She tried to remember where they were. Most of them were on the Upper West Side, but she had never really paid any attention.

She still felt numb as she got on a bus and headed uptown, with no particular sense of where she was going. And for a crazed moment, she thought about trying to find her father in Boston. When she got off the bus on Eighty-sixth and Third, she walked into a phone booth and called Boston information. They had no listing for a John Harrison, and she didn't know where he worked, or even if he was alive by then, let alone if he wanted to hear from her. It had been thirteen years since she had last seen him. She was twenty-two years old, and she was starting her life as though she were a baby. And as she came out of the phone booth outside a coffee shop, she suddenly felt very dizzy, and realized she hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning. But she wasn't hungry.

People were hurrying past, and there were children in strollers being pushed along by their mothers. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere, and Gabriella was the only one with no direction and no purpose. She felt like a rock sitting in the river, as the currents and everything they carried with them rushed past her. She walked into the coffee shop for a cup of tea finally, and as she sat there staring into it, all she could think of was what Mother Gregoria had said to her when she left her. She wondered why everyone told her how strong she was. It was a death knell, she knew now, a sign that the people she loved were about to leave her. They were preparing her to be strong, because she would have to be, without them.

And as she finished her tea, she picked up a discarded newspaper. She needed to find a place to stay, and glanced down a list of small hotels and boarding-houses, and she noticed that there was a boarding-house not far away, on East Eighty-eighth Street, near the East River. She didn't know the neighborhood, but it was a start. But without a job, she wasn't even sure she could afford it.

She paid for her tea, and walked slowly back into the sunshine. She still felt dead inside, and the tea had only slightly warmed her. She had been icy cold for days, after all the blood she had lost, and even the hot drink hadn't really helped her. She was still deathly pale, and her whole body ached as she walked east down the long blocks toward the East River, wondering how much a room would cost her. She knew she couldn't survive long on five hundred dollars, or at least she didn't think so. She had never had to take care of her own needs. She didn't know what anything cost, not food or restaurants or rooms or clothes. She had no idea what she could do, or how to manage her money, but she was grateful for what Mother Gregoria had given her. Without it, she knew her situation would have been even more desperate.

She walked past it the first time, missing the small sign. It was a tired old brownstone with a chipping facade, and all the sign said was ROOMS FOR RENT in a dust-streaked window. Nothing about the place looked very inviting. And when she walked into the downstairs hall, it was clean but shabby and smelled of cooking. It was as far removed as anything could be from the stark, immaculate precision and order of St. Matthew's convent.

“Yes?” A woman with a heavy accent poked her head into the dark hallway when she heard Gabriella's footsteps. She had watched her come in, from her window, and wondered what she wanted. “What do you want?”

“I… ah… are there rooms to rent? I saw the sign… and the ad in the paper.”

“There might be.” Gabriella recognized the accent as Czechoslovak or Polish. She still remembered the accents of the people who had come to her parents’ parties, although this woman was very different. And she was looking Gabriella over. She didn't want any druggies or prostitutes, and Gabriella looked younger than she was. The woman didn't want any runaways or trouble with the police either. She ran a respectable house, and she liked old people a lot better. They got their social security checks and they paid their rent, and they didn't make a lot of noise, or give her a lot of trouble, except if they got sick, or died. She didn't want people cooking in their rooms either, and young people were always doing things they shouldn't. Smoking, eating, drinking, cooking in their rooms, bringing people in at all hours, making too much noise. They never followed the rules, or held down proper jobs. And the landlady didn't want any headaches.

“Do you have a job?” the mistress of the boarding-house asked, looking worried. Without a job, Gabriella couldn't pay her rent, and that would be a problem.

“No… not yet…” Gabriella said apologetically. “I'm looking for one.” She didn't want to lie to her and pretend she had one.

“Yeah, well, come back when you get one.” This was no rich girl with a trust fund, or parents on Park Avenue who were going to pay her rent for her. But then again, if she had been, she wouldn't have been there. “Where you from?” Gabriella could see the landlady was suspicious of her, and she didn't really blame her.

Gabriella hesitated for an instant, wondering how she could explain the fact that she didn't have a job and had nowhere to live. It sounded, even to her, as though she'd just gotten out of jail, and she could see that the woman wasn't impressed with her. And the ugly black dress with the stains down the front didn't exactly improve her image. “I'm from Boston,” she settled on, thinking of the father she'd been unable to find that day, “I just moved here.” The woman nodded. It was a believable story.

“What kind of work do you do?”

“Anything I can get,” she said honestly. “I'm going to start looking tomorrow.”

“There's a lot of restaurants on Second Avenue, and all the German ones on Eighty-sixth Street. You might find something there.” She felt sorry for her. Gabriella looked tired and pale, and the landlady thought she didn't look healthy. But she didn't look like a druggie. She seemed very clean, and very proper. Mrs. Boslicki finally relented. “I got a small room on the top floor, if you want to take a look. Nothing fancy. You share a bathroom with three others.”

“How much is it?” Gabriella looked worried as she thought of her small budget.

“Three hundred a month, no food included. And you can't do no cooking. No hot plates, no double burners, no crock pots. You go out for dinner, or you bring home a sandwich or a pizza.”

It didn't look like a problem. Gabriella looked like she'd never eaten. She was rail thin, and her eyes were so huge in her thin face, it made the landlady think she was starving. “You want to see it?”

“Thank you, I'd like that.” She was extremely polite and well spoken, and Mrs. Boslicki liked that. She didn't want any smart-aleck kids in her house. She had been renting rooms for twenty years, ever since her husband died, and she'd never had any hippies either.

Gabriella followed her upstairs while Mrs. Boslicki asked her if she liked cats. She had nine of them, which explained the smell in the downstairs hall, but Gabriella assured her she loved them. There had been one who sat with her sometimes while she did her gardening in St. Matthew's garden. And by the time they reached the top floor, the slightly overweight Mrs. Boslicki was breathless, but it was Gabriella who looked as though she might not make it. The room was on the fourth floor, and Gabriella wasn't up to that yet. The doctor had particularly told her to avoid stairs and too much exercise, or carrying anything heavy, or she might start bleeding, and she couldn't afford to lose another drop of blood after all she'd been through.

“You all right?” She saw that Gabriella was even paler than she'd been downstairs, she was almost a luminous green, and she was moving very slowly.

“I haven't been well,” Gabriella explained wanly as the old woman in the flowered housedress nodded. She was wearing carpet slippers, and her hair was neatly done in a small knot. And there was something comfortable and cozy about her, like a grandma.

“You gotta be careful with some of the flus around these days. They turn into pneumonia before you know it. You been coughing?” She didn't want any boarders with TB, either.

“No, I'm fine now,” Gabriella reassured her, as Mrs. Boslicki opened the door to the room she was willing to show her. It was small and dreary and barely big enough for the narrow single bed, the straight-back chair, and the single dresser with the hand-crocheted doily on it. She had rented it for years to an old woman from Warsaw, who had died the previous summer, and she hadn't been able to rent it since then. And even she knew that three hundred a month was a stiff price for it. The window shades were worn and the curtains were old and a little tattered, and the carpet was nearly threadbare. She saw Gabriella's face, who had been used to the spartan cells at St. Matthew's, but somehow they hadn't been quite this depressing. And for the first time, Mrs. Boslicki looked a little worried.

“I could let you have it for two-fifty,” she said, proud of her generosity. But she wanted the room rented, she needed the money.

“I'll take it,” Gabriella said without hesitation. It was grim, but she had nowhere else to go, and she was afraid to lose this one. And she was so exhausted just from coming up the stairs that she wanted it just so she could lie down for a while. She needed a place to sleep tonight, but thinking of this as her new home almost reduced her to tears as she handed the woman half of Mother Gregoria's money.

“I'll give you sheets and a set of towels. You do your own laundry. There's a Laundromat down the street, and a lot of restaurants. Most people eat in the coffee shop on the corner.” Gabriella remembered walking by it and she hoped it wasn't too expensive. She only had two hundred and fifty dollars left now, but at least she had a roof over her head for the next month.

They walked down the hall then, and Mrs. Boslicki showed her the small bathroom. It had a tub with a shower over it, and a pink plastic shower curtain. There was a small sink, and a toilet, and a mirror hanging from a nail. It wasn't pretty, but it was all she needed. “Keep it clean for the others. I clean it once a week, the rest of the time you do it yourselves. There's a living room downstairs. You can sit there anytime. It's got a TV,” and then she smiled a little grandly, “and a piano. You play?”

“No, I'm sorry,” Gabriella apologized. She remembered that her mother did, but they had never wasted lessons on her, and at the convent she did other things, like work in the garden. She had never had any talent for music, and some of the nuns had teased her about her singing. She loved it, but she sang too loud and a little off-key.

“You get yourself a job now, so you can stay here. You're a nice girl, and I like you,” Mrs. Boslicki said warmly. She had decided that Gabriella was all right after all. She had good manners and was very polite, and she didn't look like she was going to be a lot of trouble. “You gotta take care of yourself though. You look like you been sick. You gotta eat right and get healthy.” She bustled down the stairs then, and promised to come back later with some towels, and Gabriella said she'd stop in to pick them up herself to spare her the stairs and the trouble. Mrs. Boslicki waved as she disappeared, still clutching Gabriella's money.

Gabriella walked into the small room again, and looked around. She sat on the uncomfortable chair, and wondered if there was anything she could do to cheer the place up. She could buy a few things when she made some money, but not for the moment. A new bedspread, some prints on the wall, some fresh flowers would work wonders.

With a small sigh, Gabriella set her small suitcase down in the closet, and hung up her other dress. There was something else in her valise, her journal to Joe, which she left in the suitcase without looking at it. And it made her sadder now to realize that he had never seen it. She took it out, finally, unable to resist it, and sat down on the bed and opened the little book. It was filled with her notes about their meetings, and her love for him. It was brimming with all the excitement of first love, and the exquisite terror of their first clandestine meetings… and then further on, the passion she had found in his arms in the apartment. It was all there, right up to the end, talking about the life they would share, and at the very end it talked about the hopes that she had for their baby. And as she read the last entry, a letter fell out on the bed next to her, and she realized that she had never seen it. The envelope said “Sister Bernadette” in an unfamiliar hand, and then she realized with a start it was Joes writing, and she trembled as she opened it. It took a minute to understand what it was. It was his suicide note, the last thing he had written to her before he died by his own hand. Father O'Brian had left it with Mother Gregoria and she had slipped it quietly into the journal before she gave it to Gabbie. But Mother Gregoria hadn't warned Gabriella that it was there, and she touched it now with tears in her eyes as she read it. It was so strange that he had touched this paper only days before, that he had held it in his hand, that it was the only thing she had left of him. Just these words, carefully written on two sheets of white paper.

“Gabbie,” he began, the “Sister Bernadette” on the envelope had only been so that the letter would find her, and ultimately expose all their secrets. Without that, they might never have known, and she might still be at St. Matthew's. But that was done now, and there was nothing left to do but live with it. She couldn't go back now.

“I don't know what to say, or where to begin. You are so much better and more wonderful, and stronger than I am. All my life I have known how weak I am, what my failings are, how many people I have disappointed… my parents when Jimmy died, because I could not save him.” No matter that his brother had been two years older and far stronger, it was the younger brother who blamed himself for the heroic miracle he had been unable to accomplish, and perhaps they had silently blamed him, and if they had, she hated them for it. “I have disappointed everyone, people who knew me and loved me and counted on me. It is, ultimately, why I came to the priesthood. If I had not been such a disappointment to them.” He was talking about his parents again, and knowing him as she did, she understood that. Reading the letter was like listening to him, and it tore her at the heart now. She wanted to tell him how wrong he was, to convince him to stay… If only she had been there that night… if he had told her what he was thinking when she last saw him…

“Maybe if I hadn't been such a disappointment to them,” he went on, “or made a difference in their lives, my mother wouldn't have done what she did when my father died. She would have known that I would be there to help her. But she didn't. She preferred to die than live without him.

“But when I went to St. Mark's, they gave me everything I'd never had, all the love, all the chances, all the understanding I needed. They had so much faith in me, they forgave me everything, and I know how much they loved me, just as I know how much I love you now, and you me. These have been the only certainties in my life, the blessings I cling to, even now, in my darkest hours.

“I went into the priesthood for them, for the Brothers at St. Mark's, because I knew it was the greatest joy I could give them. It was the only thing they wanted of me, and I gave them my whole heart and my life. I thought that maybe if I did, if I did something right for a change, it would make up for my mother and Jimmy, and maybe God would forgive me.

“It was right for me for a long time. I've been happy here, Gabbie. I felt good about doing the right thing. I liked the idea that I had traded my life for theirs… until I met you, and I knew just how badly I wanted my life back. I had never known real happiness, or real love, until I met you, never knew what life could be like. All I could think of from the first moment I met you was being a husband and lover to you. All I wanted was to be with you, and give you everything I had, of myself, of my life, of my soul. But my soul and my life were no longer mine to give you.

“I have tried every way I could to imagine being with you, living with you, marrying you, being all that you deserve in life. But I know that if I did, I would only disappoint you. I don't know how to give you all that you deserve, and I cannot go back on a promise. I cannot now take my life back from God because I have found someone I love more, or want to be with more than I want to serve Him. I cannot do that to the Brothers at St. Mark's, or my fellow priests here at St. Stephen's. I traded my life for Jimmy's and Mom's, for failing them, and now if I take it back again, I will only fail you and myself and those I have already given my soul to. You will always have my heart, I will always love you, always be with you. I could not bear to live without you, nor to disappoint them all yet again. I cannot leave them now and prove to them how worthless I am. We would never have a decent life together if I did that. I know now that whatever it costs me, I must stay here. The deal was made a long time ago, and the things I have promised you were not mine to give you. But I also know now with every ounce of my heart and soul, that I cannot live without you. I cannot bear to be here another day, knowing that you are nearby and I can't be with you. Gabbie, I cannot live without you.

“I am going now, to Jimmy and Mom. It's time for me. I've done what I can here. I've done a little good for some people in my years in the priesthood. But how could I face them now, knowing how little I care about them, and how much I love you? I cannot be anywhere but with you, or nowhere at all. I cannot live up to the promises I made, neither to you, nor to them. I can't leave here, and can't leave you. I am torn apart, and as bad as I've been, how can I ever be a decent father to our baby?

“Gabbie, you're very strong,” the hateful words again, she winced through her tears as she read them, “you're so much stronger than I am. You'll be a wonderful mother to our baby. And I will be much happier watching both of you from heaven, if I ever get there. Tell the baby one day how much I loved him, or her, and how much I loved you, that I was a decent man, that I tried… and oh, God, Gabbie, tell him how much I loved you. Please always know that, please forgive me for what I've done, and for what I'm about to do now. May God protect you both… pray for me, Gabbie… I love you… may God forgive me…” The writing seemed to go off the page then, and he had signed it simply “Joe.” She sat and stared at it for a long time, sobbing softly. It was all so clear to her now, it was all right there. He thought he had failed them all, he thought she was so strong, but only because he was so afraid to do what he wanted. He had been so much more frightened than she was. And the baby he talked about was already gone. If only he had had the courage to leave St. Stephen's, if only they could have tried to have a life together she could have shown him how wrong he was, that he had not failed anyone until now… when he failed them all, and abandoned her, while telling her to be strong because he wasn't. In so many ways, he reminded her of her father, and he had left her now, all alone, with nothing but a letter to hold on to. She wanted to scream as she read it, but all she did was cry. She sat on her bed for a long time, and read it over several times. It was all there, all his anguish, all his fears, all the guilt he felt for things he had never been responsible for, like his brother's death, and his mothers suicide.

And who was responsible now? Whose fault was it”? She knew that it was her own, because she had led him to a place where he could not exist, she had led him right into the arms of yet another failure. She had done that to him, just by loving him. She had led him to the edge of a cliff he didn't know how to escape from, so he had jumped off, into the abyss, and taken her with him. But she had lived and he had died. He had condemned her to this now, a room in a boarding-house far from anything comforting or familiar. He had left her all alone, with nothing but memories and a letter that told her how strong she was, and had to be new, because he had opted for weakness. And as she read it for the tenth time, she was suddenly angry at him for what he hadn't dared, hadn't tried, hadn't cared enough to live for. He had run away, to be with his mother and Jimmy. He had done the same thing his mother did. He had chosen to die rather than to fight and take the chance that they might win this time, that it would be right, and they might even be happy. He had left her no choice, no options. He had taken the only way out he saw, and left Gabbie to fend for herself without him. She wanted to scream at him, to shout, and shake him… if only she had known what he was thinking. She could have talked to him, argued with him, even left him if it would have meant his staying alive. But he had shared none of it with her. He had simply left, at the end of a piece of rope in a dark closet.

It was a cowards way out, and part of her hated him for it, yet, she also knew that part of her would always love him. And as darkness fell, and she sat staring out the window long after dinnertime, she remembered Mother Gregoria's words about him, reminding her that his mother had done the same thing, that there was some fatal flaw Gabriella had nothing to do with. But even knowing that, she felt intolerably guilty. She knew in her heart of hearts that she was responsible for this, just as he knew it about Jimmy. And as she lay down on her bed in the darkness again, thinking about him, she knew that no matter how much she had loved him, and he her, she had killed him. She had paid a high price for it, but she also knew with utter certainty that whatever happened now, God would never forgive her.

Chapter 16

FOR AN ENTIRE week after she rented the room at Mrs. Boslicki's, Gabriella pounded the pavements. She looked for jobs everywhere she could think of. She tried department stores, the 5 & 10, coffee shops, restaurants, even the small, dirty restaurant across the street from where she was living. But no one wanted to hire her, despite her degree from Columbia, her experience at gardening, her gentle ways, or her talent at writing. All the restaurants said, dismissing her, was that she had never waited on tables. And the department stores and 5 & 10 said she had no experience with retail.

And she walked so much and so far, looking for jobs, that she hoped she wouldn't begin to bleed again, because she didn't dare spend any money on a doctor. She had all but given up hope, and her funds were dwindling alarmingly, when she stopped late one afternoon in a small konditorei on Eighty-sixth Street for a piece of pastry and a cup of coffee. She hadn't eaten anything since morning, and couldn't resist this one treat, but she was frightened of spending too much money.

She had an éclair and a cup of coffee with schlag, the delicious sweet whipped cream they served there. And she saw the old German man who owned the place put a HELP WANTED sign in the window. She knew how hopeless it was by now, but she decided to ask him anyway, when she paid for the pastry and the cup of coffee. She told him point-blank that she had no experience, but she needed a job, and she felt sure she could wait on tables. And then in desperation, she admitted that she'd lived in a convent and waited on tables there. He was the first one she'd ever said that to, she didn't want to have to answer a lot of questions, but she needed the job and was willing to say almost anything she had to, to get it. And he was obviously intrigued by what she said.

“Were you a nun?” he asked, looking at her with interest. He had a bushy white mustache and a shiny bald head, and all she could think as she looked at him was that he looked like Pinocchio's father, Geppetto.

“No, I was a postulant,” she said, with eyes so full of sorrow that he wanted to reach out and touch her. She looked as though she needed a good meal, and a kind hand in her life. She was rail thin and frighteningly pale, and he felt sorry for her.

“How soon can you start?” he asked, still watching her. She carried herself well, she had an elegant carriage, and she was a beautiful girl. He sensed that there was more to her than met the eye, and he was startled to see the ugly dress she wore. She was still wearing the shiny black one with the indelible stains that they had given her in the convent, but she didn't dare waste her money buying another. The funny thing about her, he thought, was that she had very aristocratic looks, and somehow looked as though she came from money, but it was obvious from what she was wearing that she had fallen on hard times.

“I can start anytime,” she answered him. “I live nearby. And I'm free now.”

“I'll bet you are.” He smiled. The state of her wardrobe told him she needed the money. “Okay. Then you start tomorrow. Six days a week. Noon to midnight. We're closed on Mondays.” It was a twelve-hour shift and she knew she wasn't up to it, but she was so grateful for the job that she would have done anything he wanted, scrub floors then and there if he'd asked her. But that would come later.

She learned that his name was Mr. Baum, and he came from Munich. There were four other women working in his shop, all of them middle-aged, and three of them German. It was a family operation, a nice clean place, and they served hearty German meals, and in between all afternoon, and late at night, they served pastry. Mrs. Baum made the pastries and did the cooking.

Gabriella was grinning from ear to ear as she walked into the house on Eighty-eighth Street, and Mrs. Boslicki saw her.

“Well, did you meet Prince Charming, or did you find a job finally?” Mrs. Boslicki had been worried about her. She was out all day, looking for work, and stayed in her room alone at night with the lights out. For a girl of her age, it wasn't a happy existence, or even normal.

“I got a job,” she said, beaming. They were paying her two dollars an hour, and she knew she could pay her rent now. Mother Gregoria's money had been dwindling daily. “I'm working at a konditorei on Eighty-sixth Street.” It was four blocks away, and despite the long hours, it seemed absolutely perfect. She just prayed that, for the next few weeks, being on her feet for so many hours wouldn't cause her to hemorrhage. It had been less than two weeks since the miscarriage… less than two weeks since Joe had been gone… only a week since she had been forced to leave the convent… so many awful things had happened to her, but now, finally, something good had happened.

“Congratulations!” Mrs. Boslicki said, grinning. “Maybe now you'll come out of your room once in a while, and watch a little television, or listen to some music. Everyone thinks I rented your room to a traveling salesman.”

“I'll be gone most of the time, Mrs. Boslicki,” Gabriella explained. “I'll be working noon to midnight. But I'll come down tonight. I promise.”

“After you go eat some dinner. Look at you, you look like a broomstick. You're never going to find a husband if you don't feed yourself once in a while. Boys don't like broomsticks.” She wagged a finger at her, and Gabriella laughed. She reminded her of some of the old nuns in the convent, although none of them had been pushing her to find a husband. Far from it.

Gabriella actually took her advice and went across the street to the greasy spoon that night, and ordered a plate of meat loaf. It was plain but nourishing, and reminded her a little of the food at St. Matthew's, which in the end made her homesick. She would have done anything to see Mother Gregoria again, just a glimpse of her, hurrying down the hall, with her arms crossed and her hands tucked into her sleeves, and her heavy wooden rosary beads flying. Or any of the other Sisters would have been a welcome sight too. Sister Agatha or Sister Timothy, or Sister Emanuel… or Sister Immaculata. She was thinking of all of them as she walked back to the boardinghouse again, and remembered her promise to Mrs. Boslicki to stop in the living room for a moment. She didn't feel like it, but she thought it might seem rude if she didn't. So she forced herself to go in for just a few minutes. And when she did, she was surprised how many people were sitting there. There were six or seven, chatting and playing cards. The TV was on, and an old man with white hair who looked like Einstein was tinkering with the piano. He said they needed a piano tuner to come look at it again, and Mrs. Boslicki was arguing with him and telling him it had never sounded better to her.

They all looked up in surprise as she walked into the room, and Gabriella was suddenly embarrassed. She hadn't expected to see so many people. There were men and women, mostly in their sixties, except for the man at the piano, who seemed even older. The women had white hair, some with a blue rinse, and they smiled when they saw Gabriella. She was such a breath of youth in the room, and she was so startlingly pretty. She was wearing the blue flowered dress, and old, well-worn shoes, but her straight, shining blond hair framed her face and looked almost like a halo. Her huge blue eyes seemed full of innocence, and none of them were perceptive enough to see the sadness beyond it. She looked far too young to have seen much of life or even have suffered. And just seeing her there in their midst made them feel happy.

Mrs. Boslicki introduced her to everyone. Many of them were European, and one of them, Mrs. Rosenstein, proudly said she was a survivor of the camp at Auschwitz. She had lived at Mrs. Boslicki's for twenty years now. And she introduced the man at the piano as Professor Thomas. Gabriella wasn't sure if it was his first name or his last, but he made a little bow to her and clarified it by saying his name was Theodore Thomas, and explaining that he was no longer a professor, he was retired. She was intrigued to learn that he had been a literature professor at Harvard. His field of expertise had been eighteenth-century English novels.

“And where did you go to school?” he asked with a mischievous smile, abandoning his attempts to revitalize the piano. It never occurred to him that she might not have gone to college at all.

“Columbia,” she said quietly.

“That's a fine school.” He smiled at her. They had heard about her from Mrs. Boslicki, though none of them had seen her even once in the week she'd been there.

“And what are you up to now, young lady?” he asked, looking a little wild and woolly with his fuzzy hair and droopy trousers. He definitely looked like an eccentric old professor. He was visibly older than the other guests there, and Gabriella correctly guessed him to be close to eighty, but his wits were still sharp, his eyes clear, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor.

“I just got a job working in a restaurant on Eighty-sixth Street,” she said proudly. It had been a real victory for her, and one she needed very badly. “I start tomorrow.”

“One of those cozy places that sells pastry, I hope. Mrs. Rosenstein and I will have to come to see you, when we take a stroll in that direction.” He was fascinated by the stories she told about her past, and he had lived there for almost as long as she had. His wife had died eighteen years before, and he had moved to the boardinghouse when he gave up his apartment. He lived on a pittance now, and had no relatives, and he enjoyed the company of Mrs. Boslicki and her boarders. But this latest addition to the group he found both fascinating and lovely. And he commented to everyone in the room afterward that she had a face like an angel and a noticeable natural elegance and style.

But for now he asked her what sort of things she had studied at Columbia, and embarked on a long, interesting conversation with her about the novels she'd read while she'd been there. He was intrigued to discover that she did a bit of writing. But she was very modest about it and said that it was nothing anyone would want to read. She was sure, although she didn't say it to him, that only the nuns who knew her would like her stories. Joe had read some of them, of course, she had given them to him one afternoon when they met in the park, and he had told her he thought they were terrific. But like the nuns, he knew and loved her.

“I'd like to see some of your work one day,” the professor said, giving it an importance she knew it didn't deserve, and she smiled shyly.

“I don't have any of it with me.”

“Where are you from?” he asked, fascinated by her. It had been a long time since he'd had a chance to chat with a girl her age, and he found it incredibly refreshing. It reminded him instantly of his years at Harvard. There was something about youth and the excitement of their minds that still invigorated him, and he would have loved to sit and talk to her for hours.

“She's from Boston,” Mrs. Boslicki answered for her, and Gabriella looked suddenly nervous. If he had taught at Harvard, he knew the city well, and of course she didn't.

“My mother lives in California,” she said by way of a distraction. “My father lives in Boston.” And she lived nowhere. Only here now.

“Where in California?” one of the women asked. She had a daughter in Fresno.

“San Francisco,” she said, as though she had seen her mother, or at least talked to her, only the day before, instead of the twelve years it had been since she'd seen her last.

“They're certainly both lovely cities,” Professor Thomas said easily, watching her eyes. There was something about her that touched him, something deep and sorrowful, and excruciatingly lonely. Mrs. Boslicki would have put it down to homesickness, but it was far deeper, and something far more raw than that, and he sensed an aura of tragedy about her.

Her gentleness touched all of them, and she chatted with each one, and then went upstairs finally, with a set of fresh towels Mrs. Boslicki had handed her, and for which she thanked her politely.

“Lovely girl,” Mrs. Rosenstein said, and one of the other women said she reminded her of her granddaughter in California. “Very well brought up. She must have nice parents.”

“Not necessarily,” Professor Thomas said wisely. “Some of the best students I had, and the most decent ones, came from people who were slightly less well behaved than Attila the Hun, and some of the brightest ones had incredibly stupid parents. There's no telling what mysteries happen in the gene pool.”

Gabriella would have been relieved to hear it. All her life she had waited anxiously, in fear of seeing telltale signs of her mothers personality defects emerging in her, but so far, much to her relief, that hadn't happened. It was why, until she met Joe, she had never wanted children.

“But she is a very nice person. I hope she stays for a while,” he said warmly.

“I don't think she's going anywhere now that she has a job,” Mrs. Boslicki reassured them all. It was nice having someone young in the place, although she was certainly very quiet. “She doesn't seem to have any friends here. And her parents haven't called all week. I thought they would, but she never asks for messages. She doesn't seem to expect anyone to call her.” They noticed everything about each other at Mrs. Boslicki's, since they had nothing else to do with their time, being widowed or retired. Once in a while a young boarder came into their midst, but only to stay temporarily, until they saved some money and moved on. Until Gabriella the youngest resident of the house was a salesman in his early forties, who had just gotten a divorce. He had been more than a little intrigued by Gabriella, and her striking looks hadn't been lost on him, when she was introduced to him as he stopped by to say good night on his way in from a movie. But she hadn't even seemed to see him. She was far more interested in talking to Professor Thomas.

“I'd like to spend some time talking to her,” Professor Thomas said, and Mrs. Rosenstein smiled at him.

“If you were fifty years younger that would worry me, but I don't think it does now.” She had had a crush on him for years, but their relationship was strictly play tonic.

“I'm not sure I'm flattered.” He looked at her over his glasses. “I wonder why a girl with a degree from Columbia, and a mind like hers, is working as a waitress.

“It's not easy to find a job these days,” Mrs. Boslicki said practically, but he sensed more than that, and had an odd impression that there was some mystery about her.

He saw her leaving the house the next day, and stopped to talk to her. She was on her way to work, and wearing the same blue dress she had worn the day before. It was so unattractive that it looked ridiculous on her and only heightened the contrast between it and her good looks. As pretty as she was, he thought she could have worn sackcloth and ashes and still look lovely.

“And where are you off to?” he asked, taking a grandfatherly interest in her. She still looked tired and pale, and he couldn't help wondering if she slept well.

“Baum's Restaurant,” she said, smiling at him. His hair looked wilder and woollier than ever, as though he'd stuck a wet finger in an outlet.

“Good. I'll take a walk up there later. I'll be sure to sit at one of your tables.”

“Thank you.” She was touched by his obvious interest in her, and as she left the house, Mrs. Boslicki waved at her from the living room window. She was watering her plants, and one of her many cats was crawling all around her. It was an odd place, filled with funny old people, but Gabriella was surprised to find she liked them. It was a comfortable place to be, after the warm community she had shared for so long in the convent. And even if she could have afforded it, which she thought she never would, she would have been lonely in an apartment.

She arrived at Baum's ten minutes early for work, and put a clean apron on over her dress, while Mrs. Baum explained their procedures to her, and Mr. Baum checked the cash register, as he did constantly, and he was pleased to see that she looked nice. Her dress was unflattering but clean, her shoes had been shined, and her hair was immaculate, she had it pulled back from her face, and had gone to the 5 & 10 to buy a headband. She still needed to grow it, it was still fairly short from the convent, but it was clean and neat.

As far as the Baums were concerned, she was perfect. And by that afternoon, they were even more pleased. She was polite to all their customers, took their orders carefully, and hadn't made a single mistake in what she delivered to them. What's more she was quick, and seemed comfortable handling several tables. In some ways, it reminded her very much of serving meals to the Sisters in the convent. You had to be fast and neat and organized to serve that many people, and she was all of those things. By the time Professor Thomas came in, with Mrs. Rosenstein, Gabriella was feeling very much at home there.

They ordered strudel and plum tarts, and coffee with lots of whipped cream, and they left her a big tip afterward, which embarrassed her, but she thanked them both profusely. And on the way out, she saw them stop and chat with Mr. Baum, and heard them tell him how good the strudel was, and he promised to tell his wife that. They were still talking to him when she went back to the kitchen to pick up several other orders. And when she came back, they were just leaving. They told her they'd see her at Mrs. Boslicki's, and she waved and went back to delivering her orders.

They came in every day after that, at the same time. And it became a kind of ritual, but after the first day, she always refused to take a tip from them. She said that bringing her their patronage, and seeing them there, was payment enough. They didn't have to give her any money, all they had to do was pay Mr. Baum for the apple strudel

And on Monday, on her day off, as she walked back from the Laundromat, she ran into Mrs. Rosenstein coming back from the dentist. She invited Gabriella to sit with them in the living room that night, and she commented later to Mrs. Boslicki that the girl was looking better. She seemed stronger and healthier, and not quite as pale as she had been. And Professor Thomas thought she looked a little less grief-stricken when he saw her in the living room later. They were sitting side by side, chatting amiably, while the others played cards, when he turned to her and spoke in a gentle voice no one else could hear, and Gabriella looked up at him in amazement.

“Mr. Baum tells me you were a nun,” he said quietly. It had never occurred to her that Mr. Baum would say that. She had only told him that so that she would get the job waiting on tables, and she knew it was the only experience she had that might convince him. But the professor wondered now if that accounted for her sadness, or if there was another, deeper story. He suspected the latter.

“Not really,” she explained, looking away from him pensively, and then up at him again. “I was a postulant. That's not quite the same thing.”

“Yes, it is,” he smiled. “It's just a tadpole instead of a frog.” He grinned and she laughed out loud at the description.

“I'm not sure the Sisters would be happy to hear you say that.”

“I always had a priest or two in my classes at Harvard. Mostly Jesuits. I always liked them, they were well educated, intelligent, and surprisingly open-minded.” And then without pausing for breath, he turned the conversation back to Gabriella. “How long were you in the convent?”

She hesitated before answering him, there was a lot to explain, and she didn't really want to do that. Even thinking about all she had lost so recently was still far too painful, and he could see sorrow in her eyes again as she answered. But she liked him enough to be honest with him.

“Twelve years,” she said quietly. “I grew up there.”

“Were you an orphan?” he asked gently, and she had the feeling that he was asking her because he cared, not because he wanted to announce it to the others. He was a sensitive, kind man, and she was surprised by how much she liked him.

“I was left there by my parents. It's really the only home I've ever known.” Yet she had left there, and he was compassionate enough not to ask her the reason. And he could sense easily that she didn't want to tell him.

“It must be a difficult life, being a nun. I can't imagine it. Celibacy has never appealed to me much,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “until lately.” He glanced at Mrs. Rosenstein playing bridge intently across the room and they both laughed. He had been devoted to his wife for forty years, and although he had good friends here, he had never wanted to date, or remarry. “I had a number of very interesting conversations with my Jesuits on that subject, and they never convinced me of the validity of the theory.” But what he said reminded her instantly of Joe, and he could almost see her pull back in anguish, and he was immediately sorry. “Did I say something to upset you?” he asked, looking worried.

“No… of course not… I just… miss it a lot,” she said, turning sad eyes up to him, and he could see tears there. “It was hard to leave them.” Something about the way she said it told him she had been forced to, and he decided it was time to change the subject.

“Tell me about your writing,” he said warmly.

“There's nothing to tell.” She smiled gratefully at him. “I just write silly stories occasionally. Nothing worth talking about, and certainly nothing of the caliber you're used to at Harvard.”

“The best writers say things like that. The really bad ones tell you how great their work is. Beware of the writer who tells you how much you're going to love his novel. I guarantee you, you'll be asleep before the end of the first chapter, and snoring!” he said, wagging a finger at her for emphasis as she laughed at the description. “So, having said all that, when may I see your work, Miss Harrison?” He was gentle, but persistent, giving it an importance she knew it didn't deserve.

“I don't have any with me.”

“Then write some,” he said, waving a hand magically. “All you need is pen and paper, and a little inspiration.” And time, and perseverance, and the soul to put into it, still feeling as though her own had been extinguished when Joe died. “I suggest you buy a notebook tomorrow.” And then he hit a nerve again, without intending to, and he realized that talking to her was like tiptoeing through a minefield. “Have you ever kept a journal?” he asked innocently, and was devastated when he saw her look of sorrow.

“I… yes… I have… but I don't do that anymore.” He didn't ask her why she'd stopped. He could see it was a painful subject. For one so young, she had a great many scars, and many of them seemed fresh still.

“What do you enjoy most? Poetry or short stories?” He liked drawing her out, and talking to her. And he liked sitting next to her too, she was so young, and so pretty. It reminded him of a thousand years before, with Charlotte, when they had both been at the University of Washington, and had been barely more than children. He married her the week after they graduated, and his only regret with her was that they had never been able to have children. But for forty years after that, his students had been his children. She had taught music, theory and composition. She used to write him songs sometimes, with wonderful lyrics, and he told Gabriella all about it while she listened, smiling at him.

“She must have been a lovely person.”

“She was,” he said wistfully. “I'll show you a photograph of her sometime. She was very beautiful when she was young. I was the envy of all the young men who knew her. We got engaged when we were twenty.” He asked Gabriella how old she was then, and she said twenty-two. The memory of it made him smile, as he patted her smooth hand with his gnarled one.

“You don't know how lucky you are, my dear. Don't waste it with regrets of the places and people you have lost. You have a lifetime to fill, so many good times and good years and great people ahead of you. You must rush to meet it.” But she wasn't rushing lately. She was still barely crawling, and she knew it. But what he said to her touched her deeply.

“Sometimes it's difficult not to look back,” Gabriella mused to him, and in her case, she had a great deal to look back at, and not all of it pretty.

“We all do that at times. The secret is in not looking back too often. Just take the good times with you, and leave the bad times behind you.” But she had so many of them, and the good times had been so sweet and so brief, and there had been so few of them, except for her peaceful years at the convent. But now, even the memory of that was painful, because she had lost it. And yet, she had to admire him. His life was mostly behind him, and he was still looking ahead with enthusiasm and excitement and interest. He liked talking to her, and keeping up with the young, and he hadn't lost his energy or his sense of humor. She found it extremely impressive, and he set a worthy example to the others. The other people in the room were complaining about their health, their ills, the size of their social security benefits, their friends who had died recently, the condition of the sidewalks in New York, and the amount of dog poop they saw there. He cared about none of that. He was far more interested in Gabriella and the life she had ahead of her. He was offering her a road map to happiness and freedom.

She sat with him for a long time that night. He never played bridge with Mrs. Rosenstein and her friends, he said he hated it, but eventually he played dominoes with Gabriella, and she truly enjoyed it. He beat her every time, but she learned a lot from him, and when she went upstairs to her room finally, she had had a delightful evening. They were small pleasures that they shared, but she suddenly felt as though her life was filled with new adventures. She had spent the evening talking to an eighty-year-old man, but he was far more interesting to her than anyone half his age, or half that again. And she was looking forward to speaking with him again, and had even promised him she'd stop on the way to work the next day, and buy a notebook for her writing.

And when he came to Baum's the next day, this time without Mrs. Rosenstein, who had gone to the urologist, he asked Gabriella if she'd done it.

“Well, did you?” he asked portentously, and she didn't know what he meant by the question, as she wrote down his standard order for coffee and apple strudel.

“Did I what?” She'd been busy all afternoon, and she was a little distracted.

“Did you buy the notebook?”

“Oh.” She grinned at him victoriously, amused by his persistence. “Yes, I did.”

“I'm proud of you. Now, when you come home from work tonight, you must start to fill it.”

“I'm too tired when I come home from work at night,” she complained, she was still exhausted from the blood loss she'd suffered in the miscarriage, though she didn't want anyone to know it. The doctor had said it would take months to improve, and she was beginning to believe him. But Professor Thomas was not accepting any excuses.

“Then do it in the morning, before work. I want you to start writing every day. It's good for the heart, the soul, the mind, the health, the body. If you're a writer, Gabriella, it's a life support system you can't live without, and shouldn't. Write daily“ he emphasized, and then pretended to glare at her. “Now go get me my strudel.”

“Yes, sir.” He was like a benevolent grandfather, one she had never had, and had never even known enough to dream of, she'd always been far too busy concentrating on her parents, and what they represented to her. But the presence of Professor Thomas in her life was a real gift, and she thoroughly enjoyed him.

He continued to come to see her every day, and on Mondays when she was off, he began taking her to dinner. He told her about his teaching days, his wife, his life in Washington as a boy, growing up in the 1890s. It was a time she could barely imagine it seemed so long ago, and yet he seemed so aware of what was happening in the present day, and so completely modern. She loved talking to him, and listening even more than talking. And more than anything, they talked about writing. She had written a short story finally, and he was extremely impressed with it, made a few corrections, and explained how she could have developed the plot more effectively, and told her she had real talent. She tried to brush off his compliments, and told him he was just being kind to her, and he got very annoyed, and wagged his famous finger at her. That had always been a sign of danger to his students, but she was anything but frightened of Professor Thomas. She was growing to love him.

“When I say you have talent, young lady, I mean it. They didn't hire me at Harvard to grow bananas. You have work to do, you still need some polishing, but you have an instinctive sense for the right tone, the right pace… it's all a question of timing, of sensing when to say what, and how, and you have that. Don't you understand that? Or are you just a coward? Is that it? Are you afraid to write, Gabriella? Afraid you might be good? Well, you are, so face it, live up to it. It's a gift, and few people have it. Don't waste it!” They both knew she was no coward, and then she smiled sadly at him, remembering the words she had always hated.

“Usually people tell me how strong I am,” she said, sharing one of her secrets with him. It was the first of many. “And then they leave me.”

He nodded wisely and waited for her to say more, but she didn't. “Perhaps they're the cowards then. Weak people usually congratulate others for their strength so they don't have to be strong, or they use it as an excuse to hurt you… it's a way of saying, You can take it, you're strong.’ A great deal is expected of strong people in this world, Gabbie. It's a heavy burden,” and he could see it had been. “You are strong though. And one day you'll find someone as strong as you are. You deserve that.”

“I think I already have.” She smiled at him, and patted the gnarled hand with the wagging finger which was at rest now.

“You're just lucky I'm not fifty or sixty years younger, I'd teach you what life is about. Now you'll have to teach me, or at least remind me.” They both laughed.

He took her out every week, to funny little restaurants on the West Side, or in their neighborhood, or the Village, and sometimes they took the subway to get there. But he always treated her to dinner, despite the fact that he appeared to live on a brutally tight budget, and in deference to that, she was always careful about what she ordered. He complained that she didn't eat enough, remembering what Mrs. Rosenstein had said about her being too thin, and sometimes he made her order more in spite of her protests. And now and then he scolded her for not making any effort to meet young people, but he loved having her to himself, and was happy she didn't.

“You should be playing with children your own age,” he growled at her, and she smiled at him.

“They play too rough. Besides, I don't know any. And I love talking to you.”

“Then prove it to me by doing some writing.” He was always encouraging her, pushing her, and by Thanksgiving, two months after they'd met, she had filled three notebooks with stories. Some of them were excellent, and he told her frequently that thanks to her diligence, he thought her style was improving. He had encouraged her more than once to send her work to magazines, just as Mother Gregoria had, but she seemed to have no inclination to do it. She had far less faith in her writing skill than he did.

“I'm not ready.”

“You sound like Picasso. What's ‘ready’? Was Steinbeck ready? Hemingway? Shakespeare? Dickens? Jane Austen? They just did it, didn't they? We are not striving for perfection here, we are communicating with each other. Speaking of which, my dear, are you going home for Thanksgiving?” They were at a tiny Italian restaurant in the East Village, and she was startled by his question.

“I… no…” She didn't want to tell him there was no home to go to. He knew she had grown up in the convent, but she had never told him clearly that she had no contact with her family at all, and she was no longer welcome in the convent. The only family she had was him now. “I don't think so.”

“I'm happy to hear it,” he said, looking pleased. Mrs. Boslicki made a turkey for them every year, and he had been hoping Gabriella would be there. Only a few of the boarders there still had relatives, and the young divorced salesman had already moved to another city. “I was hoping to share the holiday with you.”

“So was I.” She smiled and went on telling him about her latest story. There was a flaw in the plot and she couldn't quite figure out how to solve it, with violence, or an unexpected romance.

“There's certainly quite a contrast in your options, my dear,” he mused, “although the two are sometimes related. Violence and romance.” His words reminded her of Joe again, and her eyes clouded over but he pretended not to see it. He wondered if she would ever tell him what tragedies she had lived through. For the moment, he was still guessing, but wise enough never to ask her directly. “Actually love is quite violent.” He went on, “It is so painful at times, so devastating. There is nothing worse. Or better. I found the highs and lows equally unbearable, but then again, the absence of them is more so.” It was a sweet, romantic thing for a man his age to say, and she could almost imagine him as a young man, in love with his bride, the youthful hero. But clearly he had been. “And you, Gabriella, I suspect you have found love painful as well. I see it in your eyes each time we touch on the subject.” He said it with the tenderness of a young lover, and touched her hand gently as he said it. “When you can bring yourself to write about it one day, you will find it all less painful. It is a catharsis of sorts, but the process can be brutal. Don't do it until you're ready.”

“I…” She began to say something to him, and then thought better of it. She wanted to, but she was afraid to, and it still hurt too much to say it. “I was very much in love with someone once.” She admitted it to him like a terrible secret, and in their case, it had been. But he suspected immediately that there was a great deal more to it than she was saying.

“At your age, Gabriella, once is pretty fair. You'll have a few more of those before it's over.” He had never loved anyone but Charlotte, but they had been both rare and lucky. Most people weren't. “I take it it didn't go well.” It sounded to him as though the affair was over, and she nodded, and took a sharp breath before she continued.

“He died in September.” It was barely more than a whisper. She didn't offer to tell him more than that, and he didn't ask her. He only nodded. “I thought it would kill me, and it very nearly did.” She remembered the miscarriage, or what she knew of it, all too vividly, and she still hadn't recovered completely, although she was feeling a great deal better.

“I'm very sorry to hear it.” He had known there was a tragedy in her life somewhere, perhaps even several. He could smell it. “Love doesn't always end that way, and it never should. It leaves everything so unfinished. Even after forty years, I still had so much left to say to Charlotte.”

Gabriella nodded, understanding what he meant, but she couldn't go on talking, and he covered for her for a while, chatting about his wife, and Gabbie's writing. He wondered how the man had died, he assumed an accident, but he would never have asked her. He was gone, and she was heartbroken, that was all that mattered. But he couldn't begin to imagine the tragedy it had been, or the toll it had taken. Gabriella knew that even he couldn't have written that story, it was far too ugly for his gentle imagination.

They took a cab back to the boardinghouse that night. It was cold and he was feeling flush, his social security check had just come in, and he knew it had cost her a lot to tell him about the man who had died two months before. He wanted to do something special for her, and she was grateful to him as they got out in front of Mrs. Boslicki's tired old brownstone. And they both looked up at the sky at the same time. It was snowing. The first snow of the winter, and suddenly she remembered how beautiful the first snow had always looked in the convent garden. As a child, she had loved to play there, and the nuns had always let her. She said something about it as they walked inside, and she smiled at the memory, and he was happy for her. She needed something happy to cling to. They all did.

“I had a wonderful time tonight,” she said softly as she stopped outside his room. “Thank you, Professor Thomas.”

“Not at all, the pleasure is always mine, my dear,” he said, executing a little bow as she smiled. She couldn't begin to imagine how he looked forward to these evenings, now more than ever. She was almost becoming a daughter to him… or a beloved grandchild, especially after she had shared her confidence with him that evening. It was a sign of trust, which he cherished deeply. “I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving,” he said gently.

“So am I,” she said, still smiling at him, and meant it. Before that, she'd been dreading it, but it didn't seem quite so bad now. She had lost a lot, but she had found something, like a diamond sparkling in the snow. And as she walked slowly upstairs, thinking of him, she thought of how sad it might have been if she had missed it.

Chapter 17

THANKSGIVING WAS BEAUTIFUL for all of them. There was a thick blanket of snow outside, and the entire city stopped moving. People skied in Central Park, and children played in the streets, made snowmen, and threw snowballs. And Mrs. Boslicki made a turkey no one would ever forget. It was so large she barely got it into the oven. And as he did every year, Professor Thomas carved it. And everyone seemed to have funny stories to tell about Thanksgivings that had gone wrong, appalling relatives, or silly things about their childhoods.

They all went for a walk afterward, and everyone said they felt as though they were about to explode. Baum's Restaurant was closed that day, and Gabriella was happy to be at home with all of them. She was like everyone's favorite daughter or niece or grandchild. In the two brief months she'd been with them, they had all come to love her.

And for the rest of the weekend, they talked about Christmas shopping, and there were suddenly decorations everywhere. Mrs. Boslicki and Mrs. Rosenstein went downtown to go shopping at Macy's and reported on the crowds with amazement. And for the entire weekend that she was off, Gabriella stayed in her room and worked on a story, and on Sunday night she dropped her notebook in the professor's lap with a smug expression.

“There! Now stop complaining!”

“All right… all right… let's see what you've got here.” But even he was amazed this time. Her story was brilliant. It was a Christmas story of sorts, filled with pathos and moments that brought tears to even his eyes, but it was beautifully done, elegantly written, and the surprise turn at the end was nothing short of brilliant. He let out a whoop of admiration and glee when he finished. She had been watching him with her arms crossed from a comfortable old club chair in the comer.

“Do you like it?” she asked nervously, but she could see he did. He was ecstatic about it, and he insisted it had to be published. This time he wouldn't allow her to deny it.

“Like it? I love it!”

“I still need to do some work on it,” she said anxiously when he talked about getting it published.

“Why don't you let me do some editing first?” he suggested, cleverly putting her notebook in his pocket before she could argue with him about it, and then offering her a game of dominoes to distract her. But she was so pleased he liked it that she would have done anything for him, particularly tonight. She had worked hard on it, and was very happy with the outcome. Even she had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that it was her best story. She even beat him at dominoes that night, and had a general feeling of victory when she went to bed, relieved to have completed the story. She had stayed up working on it until well past three that morning. It was the first time that she had felt a total mastery of her subject, and the feeling was both heady and addictive.

And the next day she was still excited about it when she went back to work. After being closed over the long weekend, Mr. Baum had decided to open on Monday. Professor Thomas still came in to see her there every day, sometimes with one of the others from the boardinghouse, or sometimes alone, and when he left that afternoon, Gabriella warned him to be careful going home. The slushy snow had become icy. But he was extremely independent.

All the customers that came in were in high spirits that day, and were all talking about getting ready for Christmas. Even the Baums were more expansive than usual, after spending Thanksgiving with all three of their daughters, and greeted their customers with a little more cheer than normal. They asked her how her holidays were, which was unusual because they only looked at her as a worker and never seemed interested in getting to know her.

And when Gabriella got back to the boardinghouse that night, Mrs. Boslicki stuck her head into the hallway when she heard her. She beckoned Gabriella to come closer, and Gabbie was instantly worried about the professor, but Mrs. Boslicki looked to be in too good a humor to be the bearer of bad tidings.

“We have a new boarder,” she said triumphantly. She had been trying for weeks to replace the traveling salesman.

“That's wonderful.” Gabriella congratulated her, relieved that her news had nothing untoward to do with the professor. He had become enormously important to her. In a short time, he had become the only family she had, and sometimes she worried about him so much, she had nightmares about him. She still slept at the bottom of the bed, as she always had, even more so lately, since leaving the convent.

“He's very handsome,” Mrs. Boslicki added about her new boarder.

“That's nice,” Gabriella said blankly, not sure what that had to do with her. But Mrs. Boslicki seemed pleased, and Gabriella smiled, wondering if her landlady had a crush on her new tenant.

“He's twenty-seven, and very smart. He went to college.” Gabriella smiled at her, only mildly amused. She had no interest in any man, of any age, no matter how smart or attractive he was. The only man she needed in her life now was the professor.

“Good night, Mrs. Boslicki,” Gabriella said firmly. It had been a long night for her, but the tips had been good. She had been able to buy herself some new clothes recently, and she suspected the Baums were relieved too. They had made several comments about her two hand-me-down dresses from the convent. Most of the time now she wore skirts and sweaters. She had even bought a strand of fake pearls, and once when she looked in the mirror, she was afraid that she was beginning to look like her mother, but the Professor loved the way she looked and never hesitated to say so. He always said that she looked exactly like Grace Kelly.

Gabriella walked upstairs, relieved to know that the room that had been vacant was on the second floor, and she didn't have to share a bathroom with the new man. The bathroom she did share was only used by women. And she hoped it would be a while before she had to see him.

But she ran into him the next day for the first time, as she was leaving for work, bundled up against the cold, in her heavy gray coat, which was one of her purchases, and a pair of white earmuffs. He was standing at the door, helping Mrs. Boslicki with a bag of groceries, and he smiled pleasantly at Gabriella.

“Hi, I'm Steve Porter,” he introduced himself. “I'm the new kid on the block.”

“It's nice to meet you,” Gabriella said coolly, unconsciously relieved that she didn't find him handsome. He had thick dark hair, and dark eyes, he was tall and slim, but he had powerful shoulders. He looked very clean-cut, but there was something she didn't like about him, and as she walked to work, she decided it was arrogance. He was too sure of himself, and entirely too familiar. He was nothing like Joe in any way, who had become, for her, as the only man she'd ever known biblically or otherwise, the standard of perfection. But she had known instantly that she didn't like this one. And she said so to the professor in no uncertain terms the next time she played dominoes with him.

“Oh, don't be such a grouch,” he said to her gruffly. “He's a nice kid, Gabbie. He's a good-looking guy and he probably knows it. So what? That doesn't make him a villain.”

“I don't like him,” she said firmly.

‘You're just afraid to get hurt again. You know, they don't all die, or walk away, they're not all going to hurt you,” he said gently, and she shook her head and refused to pursue the conversation with him. She pretended to be intent on winning, but they both knew she wasn't. And something about her told the old professor that she was frightened.

Steve Porters presence in the house was actually threatening to her. But it wasn't surprising after spending all of her adolescence and adult life in the convent. “Don't worry about him,” the professor said comfortingly, “he's probably not interested in you either.” And he could see that that relieved her, although he hoped that he was wrong and that Steve would become intrigued by her. He looked like a nice guy, and the professor thought it would be good for her to have a real date with someone. She seemed to have no desire whatsoever to see anyone but the professor, which was flattering for him, but not healthy for her. But he thought maybe if he left it alone, eventually the two young people would find each other.

But in the ensuing weeks, Gabriella seemed to do everything she could to avoid Steve Porter. If anything, she was rude to him, which was unusual for her. She was always so polite to everybody. But not to Steve. For him, she reserved her grumpiest behavior, but Steve seemed not to notice. He seemed to be in good spirits all the time, and he was particularly kind to all the old people. He bought a lovely Christmas tree for them, and set it up in the living room. He bought the decorations himself, because Mrs. Boslicki had never bothered, and she was always afraid to offend her boarders who were Jewish. But no one seemed to mind, they thought he was a lovely young man. He had just arrived from Des Moines, and he was looking for a job working with computers. He went out to interviews every morning and afternoon, and he was always nicely dressed, either in a sports coat or a suit. Everyone in the house, except Gabbie, approved of him. And they all thought it would be terrific if the two young people got together. And Steve was pleasant enough to her, but Gabbie made it clear that she had absolutely no inclination in that direction.

In fact, she was annoyed at him one afternoon on her way to work. He had bought little Christmas wreaths for everyone, and hung one on her door, without asking her. She didn't want to be indebted to him in any way or form, and she was very irritated that he had done it. But she thought it would be ruder still to take it down, so now she felt obliged to keep it. And she grumbled about it to herself all the way to work on Eighty-sixth Street.

“You look happy this afternoon,” Mr. Baum teased her as she walked in. It was rare to see Gabbie in a bad mood, but today she was definitely in one, and he didn't dare ask her what had happened.

Christmas was only a week away by then, and although some people were feeling stressed, most seemed to be in high spirits. The holidays seemed to bring out the worst and the best in everyone. He loved Christmas himself, and Mrs. Baum had been making beautiful gingerbread houses for weeks and selling them to people for their children. It was something she did every year, and they were always the prettiest ones on Eighty-sixth Street. Just seeing them in the window always brought people in, and today was no different. There were half a dozen people at the counter and the cash register, with their children standing near them, pointing to the specific house they wanted. There were little candies stuck all over them, and chocolate and spun sugar decorations. There were even tiny chocolate reindeer. Gabriella loved looking at them, and wishing she had had something magical like that in her childhood. But there had been no magic in Gabriella's childhood, no gingerbread houses, no visits to Santa. Christmas had always been a time when her mother was particularly malevolent and on edge, and never failed to beat her.

She was trying not to think about it, as she waited on a table and saw a woman come in with a little girl, who was pointing excitedly to one of the houses Mrs. Baum had made. “That one! That one!” She was about five years old and so excited she could barely contain herself as her mother held her hand and told her to calm down, they were going to buy one.

They stood in line behind several other people, and when it was finally their turn, the child started to jump up and down, clapping her hands in her little red mittens. She was wearing a funny little hat with a bell on it, and when she hopped around, it made a tinkling sound that, to Gabriella, seemed to be full of the magic of Christmas. But suddenly as she jumped, she stumbled and fell down, and without hesitating, her mother reached down and yanked her to her feet by one arm, and the child began to cry and hold her arm, while her mother shouted at her.

“I told you to stop that, now you got what you deserved. And if you do it again, Allison, I swear I'm going to slap you.” Gabriella stopped what she was doing, and stood and stared at them, forgetting all about the customers whose orders she had just taken. She was mesmerized by what she had just seen, and the familiar words, and she was watching the expression on the woman's face. There was something particularly vicious about it, and the child standing next to her was still crying. The quick yank on her arm seemed to have dislocated it, and she was crying ever more loudly as she held it. It had happened that way to Gabriella once, her mother had pulled hard on her arm, and pulled her elbow right out of the socket, and she still remembered vividly what it felt like. Her father had gently put it back for her eventually, with a sharp twist and a turn. Later her parents had fought about it, and then her mother had gone after her in earnest. But this woman was furious now as the child continued to wail, and Gabriella walked slowly over to her to suggest that the arm, or the elbow more precisely, might have been dislocated.

“Don't be ridiculous,” the woman snapped at her as the Baums watched, “she's just whining. She's fine.” But Allison looked anything but fine as she continued to clutch her elbow. “Now, do you want a gingerbread house or not?” she shouted at her then, yanking on the arm again, and everyone who watched them winced in unison. It was obvious that this time her mother had really hurt her. “Allison, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to pull your pants down right here and spank you in front of all these people.”

“No, you're not,” Gabriella said quietly, with a power she had never felt in her life, a rush of adrenaline that suddenly surged through her. But this was not going to happen twice, and she was not going to stand there and watch the woman do it. “You're not going to do anything of the sort.”

“What right do you have to interfere with my disciplining my daughter?” The woman looked outraged. She was wearing a mink coat and she had walked over from Madison, on her way back to their Park Avenue apartment. But the scene was all too familiar to Gabriella. And the word discipline set off a bell in her heart that sounded like a death knell to her as she listened.

“You're not disciplining her,” Gabriella answered her in a voice she didn't recognize herself, “you're humiliating her, and torturing her in front of all these people. Why don't you tell her you're sorry? Why don't you fix her arm? If you take her coat off, you'll see that it's dislocated.”

With that the woman turned to Mr. Baum with an aristocratic look of outrage. “Who is this girl? How dare she speak to me that way?” And with that, as the child continued to cry, the mother gave another hard yank on her arm, and the child let out a yowl that almost ruptured Gabriella's remaining eardrum. And without thinking twice, she gently pulled the child away from her mother's hand, and began taking her little red coat off. It came off easily and she saw instantly that what she had suspected had in fact happened. The arm dangled uselessly and the child screamed the moment Gabriella touched it.

“Take your hands off my child!” the woman was screaming. “Someone call the police,” and with that, Gabriella turned around, and spoke to her in a voice that almost sounded like the devil.

“Yes, let's call the police, and explain to them what you've been doing to her. And if you make another sound, I'm going to slap you right in front of all these people,” and with that, as the woman stared open-mouthed, Gabriella turned to the child, and quickly did what she remembered her father doing to her, praying it would work this time. There was a terrible snap and a frightening sound as she first pulled the arm away from the child and then sharply turned it, but within an instant, the crying stopped, and the little girl was smiling. The dislocated elbow had been put back in its socket. But the woman came alive again then, grabbed the child's coat from her, shoved it, trembling, onto the child again and yanked her halfway to the door, while screaming at Gabriella.

“If you ever touch my child again, I'll call the police and have you arrested.”

“And if I ever see you doing that to her again, I'm going to testify against you in court, and well see who gets arrested.” There were no thanks for what she had done, but she knew enough about situations like these not to expect that. Gabriella was just grateful that she'd been able to help the little girl and stop her from hurting. But the little girl was halfway out the door with her coat on now, and crying for the gingerbread house she'd been promised, and which her mother hadn't purchased.

“But Mommy, you said I could have one!”

“Not now, Allison. Not after what you've just done, we're going straight home and I'm going to tell Daddy what a bad little girl you were today and he's going to spank you! You embarrassed Mommy in front of all these people.” She was concentrating on the child and didn't see the horrified expression on the faces of all the other people. She was truly a monster, but nothing about what she was seeing was new to Gabriella.

“But you hurt my arm!” the child was saying imploringly, looking back over her shoulder at Gabriella, wanting to stay, wanting to seek protection from the only kind lady she'd ever met. It reminded Gabbie instantly of Marianne Marks, the woman who had let her try on her tiara, and how she had wished that she had been her daughter. There were always people like that crossing the paths of children in distress, and they never knew or saw the longing they spawned in these terrified children.

Gabriella watched Allison fly out the door, pulled sharply along by her mother. She got no gingerbread house that afternoon. She got nothing. And she was being told how terrible she was as they left, how it was all her fault, how her mother would never have to spank her if she weren't so naughty. It made Gabriella feel physically ill as she watched them, and she turned toward the Baums with a glazed expression. But what she saw there startled her even more than what she had seen happen to the child called Allison at the hands of her mother. They were furious with her. They had never been part of a scene like that before, and they were outraged that she had put them in an awkward spot, challenged a customer, no matter how wrong she was, and cost them the sale of one of their gingerbread houses. In fact, Mrs. Baum had decided, watching her, that Gabriella was probably crazy. And she had been for a minute. With very little additional provocation she would have gladly slapped the woman in the mink coat so she could understand what it felt like. Gabriella's memories were extremely clear on the subject. She could still remember the piercing sound when her mother had hit her so hard she ruptured her eardrum.

“Take your apron off,” Mr. Baum said quietly, as both customers and other employees watched them. “You're fired!” he said, holding out a hand for the white apron, while his wife nodded her approval.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Baum,” Gabriella said quietly, not arguing for her job, but only for the salvation of one small child, who had no one else in the world to defend her. “I had to do that.”

“You had no right to interfere. It's her child, she has a right to do anything with her she wants to.” It echoed the voices of an entire world, which believed that parents had a right to do anything they wanted to their children, no matter how cruel, or dangerous, or inhumane, or violent. But if no one were to stop them? What then? Who would ever defend those children? Only the strong, and the brave. Not the cowards like the Baums, or her father, who had let it all happen to her. No one had ever stepped in for her either.

“And if she kills her? What then? What if she stood here in your store and killed her? What if she goes home and does it now, Mr. Baum? What then? What will you say tomorrow when you read about it in the paper? That you're sorry, that you wish you'd helped… that you never knew? You knew. We all know. We see it, and most of the time people walk right by it, because they don't want to know, because it scares the hell out of them, and it's embarrassing, and it's just too damn painful. What about the child, Mr. Baum? It's painful for her too. It was her arm that was hanging out of the socket, not her mother's.”

“Get out of my restaurant, Gabriella,” he said clearly, “and don't ever come back here. You're dangerous, and you're crazy.” And with that he turned to wait on his customers, who despite what they had seen and heard, just wanted to forget about it.

“I hope I am dangerous to people like that,” she said calmly, laying her apron on the counter. “I hope I always will be. It's people like you, who turn away from it, who are the real danger,” she said, looking at the crowd as well as her employers, who were too embarrassed to look at her. And with that, she picked up her coat from a hook at the door, and saw for the first time that Professor Thomas was watching. He had just walked in when the child began to cry and he had seen everything that had happened. He had seen it all with utter and complete amazement. He helped her put her coat on without a word, and walked out of the restaurant with his arm around her, and he could feel how violently she was shaking, but she stood tall and proud and she was crying when she finally faced him.

“Did you see what happened?” she whispered. Now that it was over she could hardly speak, and in spite of the warm coat she couldn't stop shaking. He walked her away from the restaurant and thought he had never admired anyone so much in his entire life, and he wanted to say so, but for a moment, he was almost too moved to say it.

“You're a remarkable woman, Gabriella. And I'm proud to know you. What you did in there was beautiful. Most people just don't understand it.”

“They're too afraid to,” she said sadly, as they walked away, with his arm still around her shoulders. He wanted more than anything to protect her, from the past as much as the future. “It's so much easier to pretend you don't see it. That's what my father always did. He just let her do it.” It was the first time she had talked about her childhood to him, and he knew there was more there, much more, and he had a feeling she was going to tell him about it when she was ready.

“Was it like that for you?” he asked sadly. He had never had children, but he couldn't imagine anyone treating them that way. It was beyond his realm of comprehension.

“It was much worse,” Gabriella said honestly. “My mother beat me senseless, and my father let her. The only thing that saved me finally is that she left me. I'm almost deaf in one ear now, I've had most of my ribs broken, I have scars, I had stitches, I had bruises, I had concussions. She left me bleeding on the floor, and then beat me harder because I stained the carpet. She never stopped until she left me.”

“Oh my God.” Tears sprang to his eyes as he listened to her, and he felt suddenly very old. He couldn't imagine the nightmare that had been her childhood, but he believed her. It explained a lot of things to him, why she was so careful about people, and so shy, why she had wanted to stay in the refuge of the convent. But what he saw in her now was why people told her she was strong. She was more than strong. She had the power of a soul that had defied the devil, she had lived through worse nightmares than anyone could ever dream of. And with all her scars and the things she described to him now, she had survived intact. She was a whole person, and a very strong one. Despite all her efforts to destroy her, her mother had never been able to kill her spirit. And he said as much to Gabriella as they walked home to Mrs. Boslicki's.

“That's why she hated me so much,” Gabriella said, walking tall next to him. She was proud of what she had done for the child in Baum's Restaurant. It had cost her her job, but to Gabriella, it was worth it. “I always knew she wanted to kill me.”

“That's a terrible thing to say about one's mother, but I believe you.” And then, with a worried frown, “Where is she now?”

“I have no idea. I suppose San Francisco. I never heard from her again after she left me.”

“That's just as well. You should never contact her again. She's caused you enough pain for one lifetime.” And he could understand even less the father who had never stopped it. They sounded like animals, worse than that, to Professor Thomas.

They walked into the boardinghouse together, hand in hand, and Mrs. Rosenstein saw them as soon as they walked in. She knew it was too early for Gabriella to come home, and she looked instantly worried. She thought maybe something had happened to him, and Gabriella had brought him home, but it was Gabriella who had had the problem.

“Are you all right?” she asked both of them with anxious eyes, and they both nodded.

“I just got fired,” Gabriella said calmly. She wasn't shaking anymore. She was strangely calm, and Professor Thomas went to his room to pour both of them a brandy.

“How did that happen?” Mrs. Rosenstein asked, as he returned with a small glass for her too, but she declined it, and he volunteered to drink it for her. “I thought everything was going so well for you there.”

“It was.” Gabriella smiled, feeling suddenly very free and very powerful, as she took a sip of the brandy. It burned her tongue and her eyes and her nose, but after it had burned her throat as well she decided that she liked it. “Everything was going fine, until I shot my mouth off, and threatened to slap one of their customers tonight.” Gabriella suddenly smiled, it almost sounded funny to her, except she and the professor knew that it wasn't.

“Did someone get fresh with you?” She imagined it was a man, and she was outraged that someone would do that to Gabriella.

“I'll explain it to you later,” the professor said, as he downed the second shot glass, just as Mrs. Boslicki appeared, having heard the stir in her hallway.

“What's happening? Are you having a party out here, and did you forget to invite me?”

“We're celebrating,” Gabriella said, laughing. She was beginning to feel a little tipsy, and she didn't mind it. It had been a hard night for her, full of ugly memories, but she had come through it feeling stronger.

“What are you celebrating?” Mrs. Boslicki asked happily, anxious to share it.

“I just lost my job,” Gabriella said, and then giggled.

“Is she drunk?” she asked, with an accusing look at the professor.

“Believe me, she's earned it,” he said, and then remembered that they had real cause for celebration. It was why he had gone to the restaurant to see her. And looking at Gabriella, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her. It had only taken two weeks. He had thought it would take much longer. “If you're not too drunk,” he said to Gabriella lovingly, “read that.”

She opened the envelope, and then the letter carefully, with the exaggerated gestures of someone who'd been drinking a little. She had never before tasted brandy, but it had actually calmed her, as well as warmed her. But as she read the letter he handed to her, her eyes grew wide, and she was instantly sober. “Oh my God… oh my God! I don't believe this. How did you do it?” She turned to him with a look of amazement and then started jumping up and down like a child, holding the letter.

“What is it?” Mrs. Boslicki asked. They were all crazy tonight. Maybe they'd been drinking for a long time in the hallway. “Did she win the Irish Sweepstakes?”

“Better than that,” Gabriella said, throwing her arms around her, Mrs. Rosenstein, and then finally the professor.

He had sent her most recent story to The New Yorker without telling her, and they had agreed to publish it, in their March issue. They were informing her that they were going to send her a check, and wanted to know if she had a literary agent. They were going to pay her a thousand dollars. Overnight, thanks to the professor, she had become a published writer. He had taken a liberty with her work, but he knew, as she did, that on her own, she would never have done it.

“What can I ever do to thank you?” she asked him. It was proof of everything he had said to her, and Mother Gregoria before him. They were right. She was good. And she could do it. She couldn't believe it.

“The only thanks I want is for you to write more. I'll be your agent. Unless, of course, you want a real one.” But she didn't need one yet, although one day he was sure she would. She had the makings of a great writer, and he had seen that clearly the first time he had read one of her stories.

“You can be anything you want. This is the best Christmas present I've ever had.” Suddenly she didn't care at all that she'd lost her job. She was a writer now, and she could always find another job as a waitress.

They sat in the living room after the others went to bed, for long hours into the night, talking about what had happened in the restaurant, and what it meant to her, her own childhood, and her writing, and what she hoped to do with it one day. Professor Thomas said she could go far as a writer, if that was what she wanted and she was willing to work for it. And when she said she did, he believed her. But what's more, with the letter from The New Yorker clutched firmly in her hand, she now believed it.

She thanked him again profusely before she went up to bed that night, and as she stood in her small room, thinking about it, she thought of Joe, and how proud he would have been of her. If things had been different, they'd have been married by then, starving in a little apartment somewhere, but happy as two children. They would have been celebrating their first Christmas, and she would have been five months’ pregnant. But life hadn't worked out like that for them. He hadn't been willing to fight for it. He had been too afraid to cross the bridge into another life with her. And suddenly she knew what he had meant when he said how strong she was. Because therein lay the difference between them. •She was willing to cross the bridge, to fight for anyone, or anything. She had been willing to be there for him, but no matter how much she loved him, or he her, he just couldn't do it. She wondered if he could have stopped the scene in the restaurant, and she couldn't see him doing that either. He had been a gentle man, and she knew she would never again love anyone as she had loved him. But whatever he had been, and however much he had loved her, he hadn't loved her enough to fight for it. He had turned back at the last minute, he had given it all up, and they had lost everything. And now little by little, she had to start over. She didn't hate him for it, but she was still very sad, and thought she probably always would be, whenever she thought about him.

And as she looked out her window that night, she could see his face in her mind's eye so clearly, she could almost touch him. The big smile, the blue eyes, the way he had held her in his arms… the way he kissed her. It made her heart ache thinking about him. But as much as she loved him, she knew something else now. She was a survivor. He had abandoned her, and she didn't die. And for the first time in her life, she was excited about what life had in store for her, and she wasn't frightened.

Chapter 18

TWO DAYS BEFORE Christmas, less than a week after she'd been fired, Gabriella walked into a bookshop to buy a gift for Professor Thomas. She wanted to get something wonderful for him, something he'd really want, and didn't already have on the crowded shelves in his bedroom.

She had decided to wait until after Christmas to get another job. She had enough money saved to pay for her January rent. And the money from The New Yorker was going to be a real windfall. She wanted to buy something really nice for the professor from it. She had already bought little gifts for everyone in the boarding-house, she had something small and thoughtful for each of them, except for Steve Porter. She had decided that she didn't know him well enough to buy him a present.

And she had thought of buying something for Mother Gregoria too, but she knew that given her circumstances, the Mother Superior wouldn't be allowed to accept it. What she had decided to do instead was send her a copy of The New Yorker when her story was published. She knew how pleased she would be, and how proud of her. It would be gift enough just knowing how much she had helped her, and even if Mother Gregoria never answered her, Gabriella knew in her heart how much the Mother Superior still loved her. It was just very hard not being able to see her. It was the first Christmas she hadn't spent with her since she was a child. But that couldn't be helped now.

Gabriella walked into a handsome bookstore on Third Avenue and looked around. They had new books, and a section of old leather-bound books as well, and even some rare first editions. And she was shocked to see how expensive they were when she browsed through them. There were even one or two that cost several thousand dollars. But she settled on something finally that she thought would really please him. It was a set of very old books, by an author she had heard him use as an example to her very often. They were leather bound, and obviously had been much read and held by loving hands. There were three volumes, and when she paid for them, she doled out her money slowly and carefully. She had never in her life bought anything as expensive, but he was worth it.

“That's a great choice you made,” a young Englishman said, as he counted her money. “I bought them in London last year, and I was surprised no one snapped them up immediately. They're very rare editions.” They chatted for a few minutes about the books, and then he looked at her curiously and asked her if she was a writer.

“Yes, I am,” she said cautiously, “or I'm starting to be. I just sold a story to The New Yorker, thanks to the man I'm giving the books to.”

“Is he your agent?” he asked with interest.

“No, a friend.”

“I see.” He told her he wrote too, and had been struggling for the past year with his first novel.

“I'm still on short stories.” She smiled. “I'm not sure I'll ever get up the courage to write a novel.”

“You will,” he said confidently, “although I'm not sure I'd wish that on you. I started out doing short stories, and poetry. But it's awfully hard to make a living at it.” He was sure that she already knew that.

“I know,” she smiled at him again, “I've been working as a waitress.”

“I did that too.” He grinned. “I was a bartender in the East Village, then a waiter at Elaine's, and now I work here. I'm the manager, actually, and they let me do some of the buying. The people who own the store live in Bermuda. They're retired, and they bought this because they love books so much. They're both writers.” He mentioned two names that instantly impressed her, and then he looked at her curiously. “I don't suppose you'd want to give up waiting on tables?” He knew the tips could be good, but the hours were long, and the conditions usually gruelling.

“It just gave me up, actually.” She laughed. “I got fired this week. Merry Christmas.”

“The woman who usually works here with me is having a baby, and she's leaving for good next Friday. I don't suppose you'd be interested, would you? The salary is pretty good, and you can read all you want when business is quiet.” He smiled at her shyly then. “And they say I'm not too dreadful to work for. My name is Ian Jones, by the way.” He extended a hand and she shook it and introduced herself to him, excited about the offer he'd made her. He told her what the salary was, and it was more than she'd been making at Baum's, including tips, working twelve hours a day. And this was exactly the kind of job she wanted. She offered him references and he said that wasn't necessary, he liked her look and the way she carried herself. She was well-spoken and intelligent, and a writer. As far as Ian was concerned, she was perfect. And she agreed to start the day after New Year's.

He wrapped her package for her, and she tucked it under her arm, and took the bus home with a broad grin on her face, and she practically exploded into the boardinghouse when she got there.

“Did you sell another story?” Mrs. Boslicki asked excitedly, as she ran into the hallway to meet her.

“No, better than that, almost. I got a great job in a bookstore! I start the day after New Year's.” She told Professor Thomas about it later that afternoon, and he was pleased for her, and delighted to see her so happy. He hadn't been feeling well all day. He was coming down with the flu, and he was starting to develop bronchitis. But he was happy for her, and they sat in his bedroom and talked, while he stayed warm and cozy in his old bathrobe. She could hardly wait to give him his Christmas present, but she was determined to wait until Christmas morning.

And on her way upstairs to her own room, she ran into Steve Porter. He was looking a little subdued and he couldn't help commenting on how happy she was. She told him she'd just found a job that afternoon, and he congratulated her and said he wished he'd been as lucky. He'd been in New York for a month, interviewing everywhere, and so far he'd had no luck at all, and he said he was running out of money.

“I hear you sold a story to The New Yorker too,” he said admiringly. “It sounds like you're having a lucky streak these days. I'm happy for you.” He didn't know that she'd already paid her dues and had had enough bad luck to last a lifetime. But she was sorry he was looking so glum. It seemed unfair to be in such good spirits when he was having such a hard time, and she felt suddenly guilty for all the unpleasant things she'd said about him.

“Thank you for the wreath, by the way.” It was the first time she'd really thanked him. He seemed to do a lot of nice things for everyone, and she'd been very critical of him, and now she was sorry. “I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, Steve.”

“Thanks, I need it.” And then as he walked away, he turned and looked at her hesitantly and she saw it. “I've been meaning to ask you something, but I wasn't sure if it would sound odd to you. I was wondering if you'd want to go to midnight Mass with me on Christmas Eve.” She was touched that he had asked her. She knew it was going to be a hard Christmas for her, with Joe gone, and having left St. Matthew's. But she also hadn't been to Mass since she'd left the convent.

“I'm not sure I want to go,” she said honestly, “but if I do, I'll go with you. Thanks for asking.”

“Sure. Anytime.” He smiled and went back downstairs to pick up his messages. Understandably, since he was looking for a job, he made a lot of phone calls. And Gabriella realized suddenly how wrong she'd been about him. Professor Thomas was right. He was a nice guy. And so was Ian Jones, her new boss. She thought he was going to be fun to work with. He said he lived with someone, and it was obvious that his interest in Gabbie was professional and intellectual, and not romantic, which suited her to perfection. She wasn't interested in getting involved with anyone, or dating. She was still missing Joe, and she wondered if she'd ever be ready for someone else in her life. She couldn't imagine ever finding anyone even remotely like him. But it was sweet of Steve to ask her to Mass anyway. It would be nice if they could be friends. She was in such a good mood these days, that she was much more open to being friends with him than she had been. And she said as much to Professor Thomas that night after she brought him dinner from across the street, and they ate it in his bedroom.

“I think you might be right about him,” she admitted, talking about Steve. “He seems like a nice guy after all. He says he's having a hard time finding work.”

‘That's hard to believe for a bright young guy like him. I've talked to him a few times. He has a lot going for him. He went to Yale, and graduated summa cum laude. And he has an MBA from Stanford. Pretty impressive.” It was one of the reasons he would have liked to see him go out with Gabbie. He was bright, well educated, and once he got a job, the professor was sure he would do well. He just had to be patient. Listening to him, Gabbie realized again how lucky she'd been to find a job that suited her so well only days after she lost the last one. She still thought about the scene with the little girl in the restaurant, and she knew she'd always be glad she'd come to the child's rescue. Maybe it would tell Allison one day that somewhere in the world there were people who could care about her.

She and the professor talked for a while that night, but his cough sounded worse to her so she left him to get some rest and she went back up to her own room to do some writing. And she was surprised when she found a note from Steve there. It was polite, and neatly written.

“Dear Gabbie, thanks for the encouragement. Right now I need that. I've been having a lot of problems with my family, my mom's been sick for the last year, and we lost my dad last winter. We could all use a bit of cheer, and I can't get back to Des Moines right now, so if you come to Mass with me on Christmas Eve, it would mean a lot to me. If not, we'll make it another time. Maybe even dinner. (I'm a great cook, if Mrs. Boslicki will ever let me use her kitchen! Steaks, spaghetti, pizzas! You name it!) Take care, hope this Christmas season ends as well as it started for you. You really deserve it. Best, Steve.”

She read it over carefully, and was touched by what he'd said about his family. He was obviously having a rough time, and she promised herself she'd be nice to him from then on. She didn't know why she'd been suspicious of him at first. He just seemed too slick to her, he tried too hard, and was too friendly. But you could hardly hold it against someone for being pleasant. She was ashamed of herself now for her suspicions, and she thought maybe she would go to Mass with him on Christmas Eve, if only for his sake. And maybe she owed it to Joe and Mother Gregoria anyway, to pray for them. It would be hard this year, but she'd survive it.

She put the note from Steve on the dresser, took out her notebook, and forgot about him. She didn't see him again until Christmas Eve, when she told him in the afternoon that she'd be happy to go to midnight Mass with him, and he looked ecstatic and thanked her profusely for her kindness. It made her feel even worse about the earlier things she'd said about him, and she said as much to Professor Thomas when she brought him another dinner.

“You should feel guilty,” he scolded her. ‘He's a nice guy, and he's having a hard time.” He got a million messages every day, but he never found a job. The professor wondered if he'd set his sights too high, and expected to be running General Motors. But in spite of what Gabbie had said about him initially, he didn't seem arrogant, just smart, and easygoing.

They met in the hallway at eleven-thirty, and Steve held the door open for her, as they walked out into the bitter-cold night. There was ice on the ground, and frost in the air each time they spoke to each other. They didn't say much because the air was so cold it felt like fire in their lungs each time they breathed, and Gabriella's face was tingling by the time they got to St. Andrew's. It was a small church, but it looked as though the entire parish had come and brought friends. It was filled to the rafters. And Gabbie felt a rush of familiar feelings as she slipped into a pew beside him. The incense was strong, the candles were lit everywhere, and there was the smell of pine boughs from the altar. It was like coming home for her, and she was overwhelmed by a wave of grief and nostalgia. She stayed on her knees most of the time, and once when Steve looked at her, he saw that she was crying. He didn't want to bother her, but he put a gentle hand on her shoulder just to let her know he was there, and then took it away so she didn't feel he had intruded on her.

The hymns were particularly beautiful that night, and she knew all of them. The entire congregation sang “Silent Night,” and they both cried when the choir sang “Ave Maria.” They both had tender memories. He had lost his dad, and his mother was sick, and he couldn't be with her.

And afterward Gabriella went to one of the side altars, and lit three candles to the Blessed Virgin, one for Mother Gregoria, one for Joe, and the third one for their baby. She prayed for all three of their souls, and she was very quiet when they left St. Andrew's. Steve waited awhile to say anything to her, and then he commented on how hard it was to be far from home and lose people you loved. She took a deep breath, said nothing, and then nodded.

“I get the impression this may not have been an easy year for you either,” he said to her. It had been impossible to ignore the fact that she was crying, although he didn't say anything about it.

“It wasn't,” she admitted, as they walked home side by side.

He was careful not to touch her, although in church she had felt the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder while she was crying. “I lost two people I loved very much this year… and there's a third one I can't see anymore. It was a very hard time for me when I moved to Mrs. Boslicki's.” She was trying to tell him that she understood what a hard time he was having.

“She's been very nice to me,” Steve said gratefully. “The poor thing spends half her day taking my phone calls.”

“I'm sure she doesn't mind it,” Gabbie said. They were within a block of the house, and then, as though he'd just thought of it, he asked Gabbie if she'd like to stop for a cup of coffee. It was one o'clock by then, but the coffee shop on the corner was still open. “Sure. Why not?” she said easily. She knew that if she went home now, she would think about Joe and wind up crying. It was Christmas Eve, and it was impossible not to feel alone. Maybe they both needed company. He had his own griefs and worries to cry over.

He talked about growing up in Des Moines, and going to Yale and then Stanford, how much he'd loved. it in California, but he had thought New York would be a better place for him. He thought he'd find a better job here, and he was worried that he might have made the wrong decision.

“Give it time,” she said quietly, and then he told her he had heard that she had been in the convent, and she nodded. “I spent twelve years at a convent called St. Matthew's. I was a postulant. But I left for a lot of complicated reasons.”

“Most things are complicated in life, aren't they? It's a shame it has to be that way. Sometimes it seems like nothing can ever be easy.”

“Sometimes it's easier than we make it. I think we all complicate things for ourselves. Or at least, I'm beginning to see it that way. Things can be easier, if we let them.”

“I wish I believed that,” he said, as the waitress poured their third cups of coffee. They had switched to decaf. He told her then that he'd been engaged to a girl he'd met at Yale, and they'd been planning to be married last summer, on the Fourth of July. And two weeks before the wedding, she'd been killed in an accident, on the way to see him. He said it had changed his life forever. And then he decided to really take Gabriella into his confidence, and he had tears in his eyes when he told her that it was all the worse for him because she had been pregnant. They weren't getting married because of it, they'd been getting married anyway, they just moved up the wedding a few months, and he'd really been looking forward to having their baby. And as she listened, Gabbie looked at him in amazement. It was almost like the reverse of Joe. She had lost Joe, and their baby. She wanted to tell him about it now, but she didn't dare. A love story between a priest and a postulant was still a lot for most people to handle. She hadn't even admitted that to Professor Thomas.

“I felt the same way when Joe died,” she admitted. “We were thinking about getting married, but we had a lot of things to work out.” And then, with huge sad eyes, she looked at him across the table, and decided to lay down at least one of her burdens. “He committed suicide in September.”

“Oh my God… oh Gabbie… how awful.” Without thinking about it, he reached out and touched her hand, and she didn't stop him.

“Looking back at it now,” and it had only been three months, “I don't know how I lived through it. Everyone felt it was my fault, and so did I. I'll never be able to tell myself it wasn't,” she said sadly. It was one more guilt added to all the others, but this was by far the worst one.

“You can't blame yourself. When people do things like that, there are a lot of reasons. They're usually under a lot of pressure. They stop seeing things clearly.”

“That's more or less what happened. His mother had committed suicide when he was fourteen, and I think he blamed himself. And his older brother died when he was nine, and Joe was seven, and he felt responsible for that. But I can't absolve myself completely. He basically did it because of me. He didn't think he could live up to my expectations.”

“That's a tough thing to put on someone.” It didn't sound fair to him to blame her for that, but he didn't want to say that to her. She had had a hard time, they both had. And as they walked back to the boarding-house, he put a gentle arm around her shoulders, and she didn't resist him. It was Christmas Eve, and they had shared a lot of confidences. It was amazing how much they had in common.

He left her on the stairs up to her room, he didn't want her to feel pressured by him, and he waved to her as he went into his own room. She thought about him for a while that night. He was a nice man, and he had been through many of the same agonies that she had. But as she still did too often now, she sat down on her bed and cried as she reread Joe's letter. If only she could have talked to him, if she could have been with him, everything might have been different. If she had, she might not have been alone tonight, sharing her sorrows with a total stranger, and telling him how much she and Joe had loved each other. It still seemed so unfair, so wrong of him to have done it. But she wasn't angry at him anymore, she was past that now, she was just sad. And when she went to bed that night, she dreamed that she saw him, still waiting for her in the convent garden.

Chapter 19

MRS. BOSLICKI MADE one of her turkey dinners for them on Christmas Day, and this time Steve joined them. He told a lot of funny stories and made them laugh, and everyone exchanged small presents with each other. She had gone out and bought Steve a bottle of aftershave the day before, embarrassed that she didn't have a present for him, and he said he loved it. He said he had just run out and couldn't afford to buy another bottle.

And Professor Thomas was crazy about the books she'd bought him. He couldn't believe she'd found them for him, and she told him that was how she had found her new job, shopping for him. It all seemed very providential, as did her meeting with Steve. They spent a long time that night talking to each other, and the Professor noticed it and was pleased, although Gabriella spent a long time talking to him too, and as usual he beat her at dominoes. And after the first game, he invited Steve to join them.

Gabriella was worried about the fact that the professor wasn't looking well, he still had the flu, and had been dragging the same cough for weeks now. Mrs. Boslicki made him drink tea with lemon and honey, and he added a shot of brandy to it, and then offered Steve a glass, which he took gratefully. He said that if it hadn't been for all of them, it would have been his worst Christmas, but thanks to them, it wasn't. And he glanced across the room at Gabriella especially as he said it.

He walked her to her room that night, and hovered in the doorway for a while. He had given her a beautiful leather-bound notebook, which she knew he could ill afford. But he had given all of them lovely gifts, and a warm scarf to the professor.

“They're beginning to feel like my family,” he said, and Gabriella understood perfectly. She felt the same way about them. They talked about her new job, and her writing, and they stayed off the subject of the past. They had enough to cope with as it was, without dealing with that too. But she had missed everyone at the convent that night at dinner. And she found herself wishing that shed had a photograph of Joe that she could look at. They had never taken any, and now all she had were her memories, and she was always terrified that she might forget him, the exact look of his face, his eyes, the funny way he smiled. She found herself thinking of the baseball game he'd organized on the Fourth of July, and laughed remembering something he'd said. She was still so haunted by him, and Steve sensed that. He didn't want to push her, but he loved being with her, and he gently touched her face with his hand that night before he left her. She worried about it afterward. It was still too soon for her to get involved with anyone. She didn't know if she ever would again, and Steve was very different. He was so much a part of the world, he was a businessman, he didn't have Joe's innocence or naïveté, he didn't have the same magic about him. But he was a nice man, and he was alive and there with her, and Joe wasn't. Joe had abandoned her. He had taken the easy way out, because he wasn't brave enough to fight for her. There was no denying that now either.

And on the day after Christmas, Steve came upstairs and knocked on her door. He had gone for a walk and brought her a cup of hot chocolate. She was always impressed now by how thoughtful he was, and he was impressed when he saw that she was writing.

“Could I read something you wrote?” he asked, sounding a little awestruck. And she handed him a couple of her stories. He seemed bowled over by them, and she was pleased. They sat and talked for a long time, and afterward they went out for a walk. It was cold again, and it felt like it was going to snow that night. And in the morning, when they all woke up, the city was blanketed with snow, and she and Steve went out and threw snowballs at each other like children. He said it reminded him of when he was a kid, and she said nothing to him about her childhood. She didn't feel ready to share that. But they had a nice time, and afterward, when they went inside, he admitted to her how worried he was about money. He was sending money home, to help his mom, and if he didn't find a job soon, he'd probably have to go back, or at least give up his room and find a cheaper one, maybe somewhere in one of the rougher neighborhoods on the West Side. That sounded awful to her, and she didn't want to embarrass him, and she had no idea how to broach the subject to him, but with the money from The New Yorker, she was going to have a little left over in her savings. She could easily lend it to him, until things got a little better for him. And after an agony of attempts, she finally said that to him, and he had tears in his eyes when he thanked her. She offered to pay the January rent for him. His room was almost the same price as hers, and he could consider it a loan, and pay it back whenever he could afford to. She had a job, she was in good shape, and she was very cautious with her money.

Gabbie gave it to Mrs. Boslicki for him the next day, and as she took it from her, Mrs. Boslicki raised an eyebrow.

“So? You're supporting him now? How did a poor boy get so lucky?” She didn't want anyone taking advantage of her, even a nice boy like Steve Porter. After all, she said to Mrs. Rosenstein that afternoon, what did anyone know about him? All she knew was that he got a lot of phone calls. But Gabbie told her it was just a loan, and this one time only.

“I hope so,” Mrs. Boslicki said, and went to put away the money. She liked getting her rent paid, but she liked getting it from the people she was supposed to.

Gabbie talked to Professor Thomas about him the next day, and told him what she'd done, and he didn't seem to disapprove. He thought that Gabbie could trust him, and he was happy to see that they were getting closer to each other.

And on New Year's Eve, Steve asked her if she wanted to go to a movie. It was her first New Year's Eve out in the world, and she was a little hesitant about it, but he just seemed to want to be with her. They went to see the new James Bond movie, and they both thought it was fun. And afterward they went out for hot dogs, and came home in time to watch the ball drop in Times Square on the TV in the living room, and she was relieved when, at midnight, he made no move to kiss her. Instead, he talked about his fiancée, and she thought about Joe, and he walked her slowly up to her room, just happy to be with her. And then, as they stood in the doorway, he looked down at her, and without saying a word, he pulled her slowly to him. She could have stopped him then, and she wanted to, but there was something so compelling about the way he looked at her, that she knew she didn't really want him to stop, as he kissed her. She tried to force the memory of Joe from her mind, and she was embarrassed to realize with how much fervor she had returned Steve's passion. He was getting excited just holding her, and they kissed again, and Gabbie felt swept away by him this time as he walked her into the room and closed the door behind them. There was something almost mesmerizing about him, and she felt his hand opening her blouse and touching her, and with great difficulty she stopped him.

“I don't think we should do this,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Neither do I,” he whispered back, “but I can't seem to stop.” He looked very boyish and very handsome, and he was far more passionate than she had suspected. And then he kissed her again, and suddenly she found she wanted him, and she opened his shirt as he unhooked her bra and fondled her breasts and then bent to kiss her nipples. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she found she couldn't. And when she finally pulled away from him, they were both half dressed, and breathless with desire, and Gabriella looked worried and startled.

“Steve, I don't want to do anything well both regret,” she said finally, knowing that if she didn't stop him now she never would. They were both adults, and had no one to answer to, and they had both lost people they loved dearly, and their emotions were still raw, their nerves more than a little jagged.

“I don't think I'd ever be sorry for anything I did with you,” he whispered to her. “Gabbie, I love you.”

But she couldn't say that to him, because she didn't. She still loved Joe, but Steve's hands seemed to work a thousand wonders. She wanted him to go back to his room, and yet she didn't. She wanted to be with him, and lie with him, and not be alone just this once. It was New Year's Eve, and just tonight she didn't want to think about anything but the present.

“Gabbie, let me stay with you. I don't want to go back to my room, it's so lonely there… I promise, I won't do anything you don't want to do. I just want to be here.”

She hesitated as she looked at him, and she felt the same way now. She didn't want to be alone with her memories, and they could be together, and not do anything they'd regret later. They were both strong enough to do that.

She nodded finally, and kept her blouse and her stockings on as she climbed into bed with him. He wore his shirt, and his underwear, and they lay side by side under the covers and held each other. He felt very different to her. He wasn't as powerful as Joe, and she didn't love him, but he was a kind man, and she wondered if in time she would come to love him. It was certainly a possibility, and as he stroked her hair and whispered to her, she felt safe with him, and that meant a lot to her. They were both so very lonely.

They whispered in the dark for a long time, and finally she began to doze off in his arms. It was so comfortable being there with him.

“Happy New Year, Steve,” she whispered sleepily, and a moment later she was nearly asleep, when suddenly she felt him. He was lying next to her, as he had before, but somewhere he had lost his underwear and he had his shirt off, and he was gently pulling down her pants. Her stockings were already off, and she wasn't sure she wanted to resist him. He touched her gently, and without meaning to, she moaned softly in the darkness. He was sensual and adept, and awoke a passion in her that even Joe hadn't touched, in all his innocence, Theirs had been the passion of two hearts, two souls, given completely to each other without reservation. And what she began to share with Steve now was very different, it was a passion of a sexual nature of the highest order, and what he unleashed in her would have frightened her if he hadn't been so good at what he was doing. He kissed and touched and stroked, and drove her slowly into a frenzy, and she wouldn't have stopped him now for anything in life. In fact, she would have begged him not to. Their clothes lay in a heap on the floor, and he played her body like a harp as she arched her back and keened to have him within her, and finally, with agonizing slowness he gave her everything she wanted from him. She was overwhelmed by him, and driven crazy by him as he made her come again and again, until finally she begged him to stop, she couldn't stand it any longer. And afterward, they snuck into the shower, and he made love to her again standing with her, and then lay her down on the bathroom floor, still soaking wet, and took her with a force and renewed sensuality that surprised her and left her spent and breathless. She had never known anything like it with Joe, and suspected she never would again, but it was a night she would never forget, and when they went back to her bed and he pulled her into his arms finally, and held her pressed against him, their bodies sated and exhausted, she slept like a baby.

Chapter 20

THE AFFAIR THAT began between Steve and Gabriella on New Year's Eve was consummated again the next morning before they got up, and several times that afternoon, and within days of becoming involved with him, it seemed to be all they did now. They were polite and circumspect when they were downstairs amidst Mrs. Boslicki's other guests, and the moment they could get away, they raced upstairs separately, met silently in her room, and made love with each other. They made love every way and every place they could, and he taught her things she had never known or dreamed of. It was nothing like the pure, sweet love she had shared with Joe Connors. But what she shared with Steve was something very powerful and highly addictive. She could hardly bring herself to leave him to go to work every morning.

She had begun her new job on schedule after New Year's Day, and she loved working there. The bookshop was everything she had dreamed of. And then her nights were spent with Steve, reveling in the spell he had cast on her. And when they weren't in bed, they talked and laughed and teased, and most of the time didn't even bother to eat dinner. They devoured each other instead, and lived on potato chips and cookies.

“I can't afford to feed you anyway,” he teased her, but whenever they could force themselves to get out of bed, she treated him to dinner. She knew the tables would turn eventually, and he would repay her the money she'd paid Mrs. Boslicki for his rent in January. But for the moment, he just didn't have it. He talked about moving out on the first of February, and she hated to see him leave now. She paid his February rent for him as well, although this time she paid it directly to him, so no one would know she'd done it. Professor Thomas was pleased to see she liked Steve, and he still thought highly of him, and always talked about how educated he was, but she knew that some of the others had begun to suspect the affair, and were less enthusiastic about it. Steve had been out of work for four months, and people were beginning to make comments.

He still got as many phone calls every day, but none of his leads ever panned out, in spite of his good looks, fine mind, and expensive wardrobe. People just weren't hiring men with his qualifications, or so he said to Gabriella, and she believed him. He said people were nervous about him, because they thought he was over-qualified, and some of them were just plain jealous, and she could see that. He had so much to offer.

She was doing less writing these days, and the professor had scolded her for it, and when her story came out in The New Yorker in March, he reminded her that it was time to write another story. He said she should strike while the iron was hot. But the only heat she wanted now was from Steve's body. She was discovering a world with him that was exciting beyond anything she had dreamed, and very heady. And the only dark note in her life was that the professor hadn't been feeling well since Christmas. Mrs. Rosenstein was urging him to get tests, but he always said he hated doctors, and said they invented trouble when there was none, and Gabriella was inclined to believe him. But there was no denying that he did not look well, and he still coughed constantly. It was a deep, wracking cough, and even if she hadn't been involved with Steve, the professor would not have been well enough to take her to dinner. He was happy she was busy with Steve, she looked better than she had in months. She seemed to be thriving with Steve's attention.

Steve came to visit her at work sometimes, and always had interesting exchanges with Ian. The two men seemed to like each other, which pleased Gabbie too, and on more than one occasion they went out to dinner with Ian and his girlfriend. And as she always did, Gabriella had to lend Steve the money. He just didn't have it. His bank account had been empty for three months now, and the only money he had was whatever Gabbie lent him. In effect, she was supporting him on the salary she made at the bookshop. It meant deprivations for her, but it seemed a small sacrifice to make in order to help him. And he was always very grateful, and repaid her by taking care of her, being nice to her, doing their laundry while she was at work, and more often than not making love to her for several hours the moment she came through the doorway. Sometimes he was already waiting for her in bed, naked. And she didn't want to tell him how tired she was, what a long day she had, or that she just didn't feel like it. He loved pleasuring her, it was the only gift he could give her, and he was more than generous with his body.

It was May before she even realized that he was no longer telling her about his interviews, or the companies he'd called. He seemed to have stopped looking for a job entirely, and was no longer as embarrassed to ask her outright to give him money. And he no longer called it a loan now. And the only thing that bothered her was that there had been a subtle change in their relationship, and he seemed to expect it. She found him going through her handbag more than once, and helping himself to whatever she had there. After that, she found that she had started hiding her money from him. She never told him what day she got paid. And on the first of June, she realized that she had paid his rent at Mrs. Boslicki's for six months, and she asked him how he felt about giving up his own room. Of the two, she liked hers better, though his was cheaper. But he didn't warm up to the suggestion.

“I think that would be embarrassing,” he said proudly. “Everyone would know you're supporting me. Besides, it's not good for your reputation.” But paying for his room every month was wreaking havoc with her budget. A salary that would have been adequate for her, though not overly generous, was vastly diminished by her having to pay his rent, his cab fare to appointments and interviews, and his daily food bills. She was ready to suggest he get a job waiting on tables, as she had. But when she tried to broach the subject with him after she'd paid his rent again, and couldn't afford to get her own clothes out of the dry cleaners, he got angry with her.

“Are you calling me a gigolo?” he accused her in a heated argument in her bedroom, and she was mortified that he would think so.

“I didn't say that. I'm just saying I can't afford to support you.” She had never covered this ground with anyone before, it was unfamiliar territory to her, and she didn't like it. It made her feel like a monster, and he seemed to feel she owed him something, and he was easily insulted.

“Is that what you think you're doing?” he shouted at her, wounded to the core. “Supporting me? How dare you!” But she was, no matter what he chose to call it. “All you're doing, Gabriella, is advancing me money.”

“I know, Steve… I'm sorry. It's just… I can't always manage it. My salary just isn't big enough. I think you have to get some kind of job now.”

“I didn't go to Yale and Stanford in order to learn how to wait on tables.”

“Neither did I, and I went to Columbia. That's a good school too, but I had to eat when I left the convent.” And he did too, but he had her to pay for it. And he made her feel guilty every time the subject came up, so eventually she stopped asking him, and decided to try to write some stories. But this time, when she did, every one of them got rejected. And the day the last rejection came in, she found Steve once again plundering her handbag. He had most of her salary in his hands when she came back from the bathroom.

“What are you doing with that?” she asked, looking panicked. “I haven't paid our rent yet.”

“She can wait. She trusts us. I owe someone some money.”

“For what? Who?” she asked, on the verge of tears. He was creating a situation she couldn't handle, and she had no other resources to draw on. It was rapidly becoming a nightmare, and when she tried to reason with him about it now, he got hostile, probably because he felt embarrassed, she explained to herself. But his answers had become vague, and this time he answered, “People.”

“What people?” she asked him. He didn't know anyone in New York. But then again, for a man who didn't know anyone, he sure got a lot of phone calls. For months, Mrs. Boslicki had complained that she felt like she was running a switchboard. There were a lot of things Gabriella realized she didn't know about him, and he wasn't anxious to share his secrets.

“I'm sick and tired of your questions,” he raged at her when she pressed him, and he had taken to slamming out of her room, banging the door behind him, and disappearing. Sometimes he vanished for hours, and she had no idea where he went to, but he always made her feel that his disappearances were her fault. He was good at that, and it was a role she had played for her entire lifetime. She was always willing to blame herself, and assume the innocence of others. And she knew he was under a lot of pressure. He had been in New York for eight months, and was mortified about not working, or so he told her.

And when she talked to Professor Thomas about it, she felt disloyal to Steve, and the professor always told her to be patient. He couldn't be out of work for much longer. “I'd hire him in a minute if he came to me for a job. Believe me, someone else will.” She hated to bother him with her problems, his health had been failing since the previous winter. He was beginning to look his age, and was very frail now. And that spring, they had discovered that Mrs. Rosenstein had cancer. They all had their troubles. And Gabriella's seemed small in comparison. She knew that her problems with Steve would end the moment he found employment.

But it was July when she realized that he was stealing her checks, and forging her name on them. He had cashed several by then, and her bank manager was going crazy. Steve had bounced checks all over town, and for the rest of the month, they were both out of money. It was only a week after that that Mrs. Boslicki took three phone calls in one afternoon from the Department of Probation in Kentucky. And not knowing what to make of it, she went to talk to the professor. But he was sure there was a reasonable explanation for it, and told her not to panic.

But it was by a series of strange coincidences that the professor opened some of Steve's mail after that and discovered that he had been using several other names, cashing checks everywhere, and was on parole in both Kentucky and California for being a forger. Professor Thomas made several phone calls of his own then, and what he uncovered was not a pretty story. Steve Porter was none of the things he had claimed. He had attended neither Yale nor Stanford Business School, and his name wasn't even Steve Porter. It was Steve Johnson, and John Stevens, as well as Michael Houston. He had a multitude of names and identities and a police record as long as his stories. He had come to New York on parole, not from Des Moines, but from Texas. And the professor felt terrible that he had been so wrong about him and had encouraged Gabriella to see him. The man was a monster.

Professor Thomas had no idea what to say to her, but after a great deal of thought and anxiety, he decided to confront Steve himself, and suggest he leave town immediately, or the professor would expose him. It seemed a simple plan, and in exchange for his rapid departure, the professor would agree to keep his secrets from Gabriella. He didn't want her to know that she had been used shamelessly, and the man she thought was so in love with her was a con artist and a liar. After all the grief she'd been through in her life, the professor felt that Steve could at least give her that much.

He waited for him in the living room, and when he heard Steve come in, he got up and went to meet him. The professor was wearing a clean shirt, his best suit, and he was coughing badly, but he wanted this to be a meeting between reasonable men, a kind of gentlemen's agreement to protect Gabriella. And he had no doubt whatsoever that Steve would agree to it.

But the moment he saw Steve come in, he knew there was going to be trouble. He looked as though he were in a dark mood, and the professor correctly suspected he'd been drinking. He'd made a small deal on the Lower East Side to buy some marijuana he wanted to resell, and the deal had gone badly. He'd been ripped off by the dealer, and had wasted the last of Gabriella's money.

“Steve, I'd like to speak to you for a moment, if I may,” the professor said politely, and Steve nearly snarled at him as he walked past him. His manners were no longer quite so impressive.

“Not now, Professor, I've got some things to take care of.” He wanted to go through her room carefully, sometimes she hid money from him, and he knew all her hiding places. He wanted to get to them now before she did.

“This is important, Steve,” the professor said, looking stern. It was an expression that used to terrorize his students, but they were outclassed by Steve Porter, and so was the professor.

“What is it?” Steve turned and looked at the old man, as the professor handed him a stack of letters. They were the incriminating documents that the professor had used to begin his investigation. And he had done his homework. He had called Stanford and Yale, and the Department of Corrections in four states. He had the goods on Steve Porter, and glancing at the letters he handed him, Steve knew it. And he didn't like it. “Where did you get these?” He advanced on the old man slowly, but the professor looked anything but frightened.

“They came to me by mistake, and I opened them in all innocence. But I think we'd both prefer Gabriella not to see them.”

“I'm not sure I understand you,” Steve said clearly. “Are you planning to blackmail me, Professor?”

“No, I'm asking you to leave, so I don't have to tell her.” Everyone else in the house was out. Even Mrs. Boslicki had gone to her doctor. The two men were alone in the house, and Steve knew it.

“And if I don't leave?” He looked at the old man through narrowed eyes. But the professor knew he had the winning hand now.

“I expose you. It's that simple.”

“Is it?” Steve asked, giving the professor a gentle shove, which sent him reeling backward, but he regained his balance quickly. “You expose me? I don't think so. I think you say nothing to Gabriella, my friend, or you have a serious accident the next time you walk down the street, and I don't think you or Gabriella would enjoy that. You know, one of those nasty little things that end up in a broken hip, or a crushed skull, or a hit and run. I have very effective friends here.”

“You're a rotten little bastard,” the professor said in a fury. Steve was evil to the core, and he had taken full advantage of the kindness and naiveté of Gabriella. It made the professor sick to think it. “She doesn't deserve this. She was good to you. You've gotten all you could out of her. Why don't you leave her alone now?”

“Why should I?” Steve asked evilly. “She loves me.”

“She doesn't even know you, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Stevens… Mr. Houston. Who the hell are you, other than a small-time operator, a rotten little con man who preys on women? You're nothing.”

“It works for me, Grampa. You don't see me knocking myself out nine to five, do you? It's great work, if you can get it.”

“You hateful little shit,” the old professor said, advancing on him, but it was like facing a cobra. Steve was far too dangerous for the professor to win this one, but he did not yet know it. He still thought he could intimidate Steve into leaving, which was a fatal error. Without saying a word, Steve sprang forward and gave the old man an enormous shove and sent the professor reeling backward, until he tripped and knocked the side of his head against a table. There was blood at his temple as he fell, and he was more than a little dazed, as Steve bent down and picked him up by his collar.

“If you ever threaten me again, you pathetic old bastard, I'll kill you, do you hear me?” But in the face of his own rage, the professor began coughing fiercely, and suddenly he was fighting for air, as Steve continued to hold him there, choking him as he pulled back his collar. He fought desperately to catch his breath and couldn't, and then as he hung there, suspended in space, his entire face contorted. It was precisely what Steve had wanted, as he continued to hold him. A heart attack would have served his purposes to perfection. But instead, something even worse seemed to be happening as the professor choked and spluttered. He lost consciousness in Steve's hands, as Steve dropped him to the floor and he lay there seemingly lifeless. Steve righted the table then, walked slowly around the room, making sure that all was in order, and then dialed the operator very slowly. When she answered, he explained frantically that an old man in the boarding-house where he lived was on the floor, unconscious, and she promised to have an ambulance there in five minutes.

He picked the offending letters up off the floor, and put them in his pocket, and when the ambulance arrived, he told the attendants that he had found the professor on the floor, and the old man looked as though he had hit his head on a table. But they could see almost instantly that it was more than that. The problem they observed instantly was more likely the reason for his fall, rather than the reverse. They shone a light in his eyes, took his vital signs, and put him on a stretcher, wasting no time at all to talk to Steve about the details.

“Will he be all right?” Steve shouted after them. “What is it?”

“Looks like a stroke,” they shouted back to him, but they were gone two minutes later, with sirens screaming, as Steve walked back inside with a slow smile, and closed the door behind him.

Chapter 21

GABRIELLA WAS PUTTING a stack of new books away when the phone rang at the bookshop. Ian was out picking up lunch, and she hurried down from a ladder to answer. She was still thinking about the books she'd been looking at when she heard Steve's voice, and she sensed instantly that something had happened. He sounded distraught and he was nearly crying.

“Is something wrong?” She had never heard him sound like that. Things had been a little strained between them recently. They were both upset that he hadn't found a job, and she didn't want him to think she was pressuring him, but having to make her income stretch to cover both of them had her constantly worried. “What is it?”

“Oh… oh God, Gabbie, I don't know how to tell you this…” He knew how much she loved the professor, and a knife of terror sliced through her heart as she listened. She couldn't even imagine what he was trying to tell her. “It's the professor.”

“Oh my God, Steve… tell me quickly…”

“I came home and found him on the floor in the living room… he looked as though he had hit his head… there was blood on the side of it, and he was lying near a table. I don't know if he got dizzy and fell, or tripped, or what happened.”

“Was he conscious?” she asked breathlessly… or worse yet, was he dead? She couldn't even dare to think it.

“Not really. He was incoherent when I found him, and then he passed out. I called the operator for an ambulance right away. The ambulance attendants thought he might have had a heart attack or a stroke. They didn't seem to know. He just left here, I called you the minute the ambulance left. They've taken him downtown to City Hospital.” It was a big public hospital and Gabbie wasn't sure he'd get the best care there. She'd been begging him for months to get some tests, as had Mrs. Boslicki and Mrs. Rosenstein. His health had been failing steadily since the previous winter. He never took her out anymore, he was hardly well enough to leave the house, even for short walks. And his wracking cough had been persistent.

“They said they'd call us the minute they know something. I'll wait here by the phone,” he said valiantly, and Gabbie was instantly grateful that he had called her.

“Thank God you were with him, or at least that you found him. I'll go down there as soon as Ian comes in. He just went out to get us lunch.” All she wanted to do was grab her handbag and go, but she didn't want to close the store while Ian was at the deli, without telling him what had happened.

“Maybe you should wait till they call us,” Steve suggested, but she wouldn't hear of it. She couldn't stay away from him. The professor was the only semblance of family she had, and she wanted to be with him.

“I couldn't stand waiting for the phone to ring,” she said anxiously. “Ill go the minute Ian walks in,” and as she said it, she saw him come through the door, and signaled him to hurry. “I'll call you from the hospital,” she said hurriedly, knowing that Steve would be as frantic for news as she was, as would be the others once they heard what had happened.

She told Ian the news hurriedly, and apologized for leaving him in the lurch, but he understood perfectly, and wished her luck as she ran out the door of the bookstore clutching her handbag. She hailed a cab right outside, and told him which hospital, and when she opened her wallet to pay him, she was surprised to see she had so little money. She was sure she'd had more than that the day before, and then with a nervous flutter, she wondered if Steve had once again helped himself to her wallet. He was so embarrassed to ask her most of the time, that now he just “borrowed” it without telling her, but sometimes it left her badly strapped when she least expected it. She barely had enough for the cab fare.

As she hurried into the emergency room, she forgot about it, and had to ask several people for directions. She gave them the professor's name, and it was very confusing trying to find out what was going on. It was nearly an hour before they told her anything, but at least they didn't tell her he had died on the way to the hospital. But when she saw him, finally, she was shocked at his condition. His face was gray, his eyes were closed, there were monitors attached to him everywhere, and a full team was working on him, struggling to keep him going. In order to get in to see him at all, she had to tell them she was his daughter.

No one seemed to realize she had entered the room, and they were talking to each other in staccato phrases. He was getting oxygen and an IV, and they were doing an EKG on him as Gabriella stood silently in the comer. It was a long time before any of them noticed her, and they asked what she was doing there. They had no idea how long she'd been there. And she just stood there with tears coursing down her cheeks, terrified that they were going to lose him.

“How is he?” she asked the nurse who approached her.

“Is he your grandfather?” the woman asked, curt but sympathetic.

“My father.” She decided she'd better stick to the same story, and knew that the professor would be flattered. He always said to her how much he and Charlotte would have loved to have a daughter like her.

“He's had a stroke,” the trauma nurse explained. “He's got a fair amount of paralysis on the right side. He can't speak, and he has no motor control on the right side, but when he's conscious, I think he hears us.” Gabriella was shocked at what the woman told her. How could something so terrible have happened to him? And so quickly?

“Is he going to be all right?” She barely dared to whisper the words, but she wanted some kind of reassurance.

“It's a little early to say, his EKG isn't looking great, and he got quite a blow when he fell, which compounds it.”

“Can I talk to him?” Gabbie said, fighting panic.

“In a few minutes,” the nurse said, and then went back to the others.

But the minutes turned into hours as they did more tests, attached more machines, and by the time they wheeled him into ICU, Gabbie was frantic. She had seen what they were doing, and they were obviously having a rough go of it trying to keep him breathing. But at last, in the ICU, they let her see him.

“Don't say too much to him, and don't expect him to answer you. Keep it short,” the nurse in charge said, as Gabriella approached his bedside. His hair looked wilder than usual, and his eyes were closed, but they fluttered open slowly the moment he heard her.

“Hi,” she said softly, “it's me… Gabbie…” He looked like he wanted to smile at her, and his eyes recognized her instantly, but he couldn't move and he couldn't say anything to her. She gently took his left hand in her own, and lifted it to her lips, as a lone tear rolled down his cheek and onto his pillow. “Everything's going to be okay,” she tried to encourage him, willing him to live. “The doctors said so,” she lied, but he didn't look as though he believed her. And then he frowned as though he were in pain, and scowled at her. She had the feeling he wanted to say something to her, but there was no way he could do it. He was trapped behind a stone wall, and all he could do was hold her fingers. He made little grunting sounds then, and he looked agitated, and the nurse assigned to him spotted it immediately and said she'd have to go now.

“Can't I stay?” Gabriella begged her with imploring eyes, and he tightened his weak grip on her fingers.

“You can come back in a couple of hours. He needs to sleep,” she admonished her, wishing people could understand what the ICU was all about. Having visitors there at all was a hazard and a nuisance.

“I'll come back later,” she whispered, stroking his cheek gently with her hand, and he closed his eyes for just an instant, and then opened them as he made a deep guttural sound. It was obvious that he was trying to speak to her. “Don't try to talk. Just rest.” She kissed his cheek, and then told him what he knew anyway, “I love you.” She meant it from the bottom of her heart, and all she wanted now was for him to get better.

She cried all the way home on the subway. She didn't have enough money on her for a cab, and she reminded herself to ask Steve about the money in her wallet when she got back. But when she walked into the boardinghouse, everyone was so upset that she forgot all about it. Steve was waiting for her, and Mrs. Boslicki and Mrs. Rosenstein, and several other boarders. They had been sitting in the living room for hours, waiting for news, as Steve explained again and again how he had looked, and where he'd been lying, and what he thought must have happened when he found him.

“How is he?” they asked almost in unison the moment they saw her.

“I don't know,” she said honestly, “he had a stroke, and he hit his head when he fell. He can't speak and his right side is paralyzed, but he recognized me. He keeps trying to talk, but he can't, and he seems very upset.” She didn't want to tell them how terrible he looked, but it was written all over her anyway, and Mrs. Rosenstein started to cry again as soon as she heard Gabbie's description. Gabriella went to her then, and hugged her, and tried to tell her he'd be all right, but none of them could be sure now.

“How could something like this happen so quickly?” Steve railed at the fates, and everyone kept saying how fortunate it was that he had walked in and found him before it was too late. If he hadn't, the professor would be dead now. Of that there was no question. “I guess there are some blessings to being unemployed,” he said cynically, and Gabbie looked sympathetic. She knew how embarrassing that was for him, but he'd had a lot of bad luck, and she understood that. She was sorry for all the complaining about it she'd done recently, and the pressure she'd put on him. She felt guilty now, seeing the condition the professor was in. It reminded her of how quickly life could change, and how easily one could lose the people one loved. But she had already learned that. It made the problems between them seem so unimportant.

He walked over to her and held her. “I'm sorry, Gabbie.” He knew how much the professor meant to her, or he thought he did. But in fact, he didn't. The professor had become the final symbol of the family she never had, the one person she could turn to, and count on, other than Steve. He was the father she had never had, trusted confidant, beloved mentor. He had given her the praise and the hope and the unconditional love she had always longed for. He meant as much to her as Mother Gregoria had, though she had known him for a shorter time. And having lost so many and so much before, the thought of losing him now, she knew, would destroy her. He couldn't die. She wouldn't let him.

Gabriella called the hospital several times, while Mrs. Boslicki and Mrs. Rosenstein forced her to eat dinner. She could barely get the food down, as Steve went upstairs to do some things. But she managed to eat a few mouthfuls of stew, just to please them, and two of Mrs. Boslicki's famous dumplings. And as soon as she'd finished, she jumped up from the table.

“I'm going to go back to the hospital now,” she announced, looking for her bag, and then she remembered that she had no money. She ran upstairs to her room. She had an envelope with some cash in a drawer, underneath her stockings, and she pulled it out of its hiding place quickly, and was shocked to see that it was empty. She had had two hundred dollars in it only yesterday morning, and it was no mystery to her where it must have gone to. She didn't want to confront Steve now, but she didn't want to take the subway at night either.

She hurried downstairs to Steve's room, and he was sitting there, reading some letters he had written. “I need money for a cab,” she said without ceremony.

“I don't have any, babe. I'm really sorry. I had to order more stationery today, and xeroxing my résumés again cost a fortune.” He looked genuinely apologetic, but she wasn't in the mood now.

“Come on, Steve, you took two hundred dollars out of my envelope, and almost everything I had in my wallet.” They both knew that no one else could have done it.

“Honest, sweetheart, I didn't. I just took about forty bucks last night for the xeroxing. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you. I was going to tell you tonight, but with everything happening, I forgot. All I have left is two dollars.” He opened his wallet and showed her, and she was even more upset that he was lying. She knew he was embarrassed to be taking money from her, and that he lied about it sometimes. But his stories wouldn't pay her cab fare.

“Steve, please, I need it. I don't have any money to get to the hospital, and I don't get paid again till Friday. You have to stop doing this.” Lately every time she opened her wallet to pay for something, she discovered that it was empty. But this was no time for his nonsense.

“I didn't do anything,” he said, looking instantly hurt and angry. “You're always accusing me of something. Can't you see how hard this is for me? Do you think I like it?”

“I can't talk about this now,” she said, feeling panicked again. She just wanted to get back to the professor.

“Stop blaming me for everything. It's not fair.”

“I'm sorry.” She always tried to be fair with him, but the inequities between them made them both very touchy. “Mrs. Rosenstein's not doing it,” she said, trying to sound calm to Steve. “And somebody keeps taking all my money, I didn't mean to be rude about it.”

“I forgive you,” he said, walking over to kiss her. “Do you want me to come with you?” He looked mollified after her apology, though still visibly wounded, and she always felt so terrible after she accused him of something. Maybe it really wasn't him. She left her door unlocked a lot, it could actually have been one of the other boarders, and looking at Steve's face, she was beginning to think so.

“I'll be okay. I'll call you if anything happens.” She ran down the stairs then, after kissing him again, and looking embarrassed, she asked Mrs. Boslicki if she could borrow cab fare. And without hesitating, her landlady handed her ten dollars from her own purse. It was the first time Gabriella had ever asked her for anything, and she wasn't surprised, since everyone knew that she was supporting that deadbeat. They had all grown tired of him by then, with all his grand stories about Stanford and Yale, and his excuses about why he couldn't get a job. They couldn't see why, since everyone else did. Maybe he thought he was too good for the jobs he was being offered. He got enough phone calls, and they had to be for something. Mrs. Boslicki was sorry now that she had pushed Steve at Gabbie at Christmas. She thought she could do a lot better.

“Call and tell us how the professor is,” Mrs. Boslicki said as Gabriella flew out the door and ran down the street to hail a taxi.

And as soon as she saw him, she knew things were not going well. He looked restless and seemed to be in pain, and every time he looked at Gabbie, he got agitated and stared at her so intently, she was frightened. Eventually the nurses asked her to leave again, but she decided to stay anyway, and sleep on the couch in the ICU hallway, just in case something happened.

She went back and sat with him at dawn. The nurse on duty said he was awake, and he seemed a little more peaceful.

“Hi,” Gabbie whispered, as she sat down next to him. “Everyone at the house said to say hello.” She had forgotten to tell him the night before, but she was sure he knew that anyway. “And Mrs. Rosenstein said to tell you to take your medicine, and don't make a fuss about it.” She had actually said that to her, dabbing at her eyes with a hankie. “We all love you,” she said, and meant it more than she could ever tell him.

She had been thinking all night about taking some time off, and nursing him when he got home. She was sure Ian would understand, for a few weeks at least. She had some vacation time coming anyway, and there was nothing she wanted to do more now than be with him. She started telling him about a story she'd been working on the week before, and she told him that Steve really liked it. And as she said it, the professor frowned again and lifted his left hand and slowly wagged a finger at her. He was very weak and he could hardly raise even his good hand, and she smiled as she saw what Mrs. Rosenstein called his “famous finger.” He was always pointing and waving a finger at someone to emphasize a point or warn them of something. She thought he was scolding her for not writing more often.

“I will,” she said, thinking she understood him, but she didn't. “I've just been so busy, with work, and trying to help Steve, it's hard for him still being out of work,” she said gently, as the finger wagged again, and he looked like he was going to start crying. “Don't try to talk,” she admonished him. “They'll make me leave again if you get all worked up. When you come home,. we'll go over some of the stories together.”

She hadn't sold a story since the first one, but she knew she wasn't working as much as she should have. The rest of her life seemed too distracting. And now this. She couldn't imagine writing a word while she was worried about him. All she wanted to do now was infuse him with life, and help him get healthy. That was the only thing that mattered to her.

He closed his eyes again then, and slept for a while, but he stirred fitfully, and every time he opened his eyes and saw Gabbie sitting next to him, he stared at her intently, as though willing her to know what he was thinking. The nurse on duty that day was nice about letting her stay, the others all made her follow the rules of the ICU, and made her leave the room regularly. But this one just let her sit quietly in the corner, watching him sleep and praying for him. She hadn't prayed as hard or as long since her days in the convent. And she thought about the Sisters now, and Mother Gregoria, remembering the community they had been, their quiet strength and utter certainty that their God would always love and protect them. She wished for that now, to be able to draw on the faith that had brought her through everything, and she was willing Professor Thomas to feel it with her.

He was still dozing when she finally left him that afternoon, to go home and shower and change and report to the others. He seemed to have stabilized, and she thought he'd be all right for a while. She kissed his cheek gently before she left, but he didn't stir this time. He was in a deep sleep finally, and she turned to smile at him from the doorway. He was going to be okay, he was strong, and he was fighting to stay alive, she could feel it. And she tried to say as much to the others. Mrs. Rosenstein was going to visit him that afternoon, and Mrs. Boslicki was already talking about the food she was going to prepare for him when he got home. Steve was out when she got back, but he had left her a note. He'd gone to play ball in the park with a friend, someone who knew about a job for him, and he promised to see her later.

Gabbie stood in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water run over her, and thinking of the man who was fighting for his life in the ICU, and all that he meant to her. He was so much more than just a friend to her, he was a part of her soul now, and she knew she could not lose him. She would do anything she had to, to keep him, she would pour her own life into him if she had to. God had given him to her, and she would not let him go now. She would not let Him take him from her. He had no right to. He had already taken far too many. And her own sense of justice told her she would not lose this one.

When she got back to see him at the hospital that afternoon, Mrs. Boslicki and Mrs. Rosenstein were just leaving. Both women were in tears, and they told her he had had some kind of a setback. The paralysis on his right side seemed to be worse, and he was having trouble breathing. They had finally done a tracheotomy on him, and attached him to a respirator, and when Gabbie saw him as she walked into the brightly lit room, he looked exhausted.

“I hear you've been misbehaving today,” she said as she sat down. “They told me you've been pinching all the nurses.” His eyes smiled weakly at her, and he continued to look at her intensely. But the finger didn't wag, and he made no sound at her. He couldn't with the respirator. He seemed weaker to her, but his color was a little better. She chatted to him, knowing he could hear what she said, and telling him about the things they were going to do when he got home. She pretended to complain that he hadn't taken her to dinner in ages. “Just because I have Steve in my life doesn't mean we can't go out. He's not jealous of you, you know, although he should be.” She kissed his cheek again and the eyes closed. He looked as though he were fighting a terrible battle. She told him Steve was playing ball that afternoon with someone who knew about a job, and his eyes flew open again and he stared at her, but the room was filled with silence. The sound of the machines keeping him alive and monitoring him were the only sound between them.

Gabbie stayed with him all that afternoon, and she was thinking about going home that night, but in the end she called the boardinghouse and talked to Steve, and told him she had decided to stay. He said he was having dinner with the guys he had played baseball with that afternoon. They'd had a great day, and his team had won. They were good guys and all worked at various firms on Wall Street. It was a terrific connection for him, and Gabbie was relieved that he was busy and didn't mind her staying. She had been feeling guilty for deserting him, and after she hung up, she wondered how he was going to pay for dinner. She was still pondering the question when she walked back into the ICU and took her familiar seat next to the professor.

He was quiet most of that night, the respirator seemed to be keeping him more peaceful. He didn't have to fight to breathe now. And halfway through the night, he reached for Gabbie's hand with his one good one, and he gently held it.

“I love you,” she whispered to him, and sometimes she wondered if he thought she was Charlotte. There was a gentle look in his eyes whenever he opened them. They were closed most of the time, but sometimes when she opened hers, she would see him looking at her. And she had an odd feeling late into the night that he was happy. Maybe he knew too that he was going to be all right, she thought. Maybe her strength had communicated itself to him, which was why she wanted to be there with him.

They both slept for a while, holding hands, as her head drooped and she thought of many things. She had odd dreams about Joe that night, and her father, and Steve, and the professor. She was thinking about him when she woke up. The sky was getting gray, and there were streaks of pink appearing on the horizon. It was the beginning of a new day, and the fight was still on. But she had no doubt now that he was going to make it, and when she turned to look at him, his eyes were closed, and his jaw was slack, he looked completely relaxed. The respirator was breathing for him rhythmically, and as she looked at it one of the monitors made a high-pitched whine and another one began beeping. She didn't have time to ask herself what it meant, as two of the nurses came running. A blue light went on, and two male nurses rushed in, and they pushed Gabbie aside as they began giving him CPR, pressing powerfully on his chest while silently counting compressions. The room filled with people suddenly and Gabbie watched, filled with dread, as she heard what they said and understood what had happened. The respirator was still breathing for him, but his heart had stopped. They worked frantically for a while, and then one of the men shook his head, and one of the nurses spoke gently to Gabbie.

“He's gone… I'm very sorry…” She stood staring at them in disbelief, knowing they were lying to her. They had to be. He couldn't do that. He'd been right there next to her… he had looked at her… she had held his hand and willed him to live with every ounce of strength she had. He couldn't die now. He couldn't. She wouldn't let him. But he had. He had gently let go of life, and gone to be with his beloved Charlotte.

They turned the respirator off, and left the room, as Gabbie stood there silently, looking at him, refusing to believe what had just happened. She sat down next to him again and took his hand in her own, and spoke to him as though he could still hear her.

“You can't do this to me,” she whispered as tears ran down her face. “I need you too much… don't leave me alone here… don't go away, please… come back…” But she knew he wouldn't. He was peaceful now. He had had a full life. Eighty-one years. And he didn't belong to her. He never had. He had only been on loan to her for a short time, not long enough. He belonged to God, and to Charlotte. And just as everyone else had, he had left her. Without malice, without anger, without accusation, or recrimination. She had done nothing to hurt him or to send him away. He didn't blame her for anything. Only good things had passed between them. But he had still left anyway, on his own schedule, to another time, another place, where she couldn't be with him.

A nurse came and asked her if she needed anything, but she shook her head. She just wanted to be with him for as long as she could. And then they asked her about arrangements.

“I don't know. I'll have to check and see what he wanted.” She didn't even know who to ask. Mrs. Rosenstein maybe. He had no family, no children, no relatives, only the people at the boardinghouse where he'd lived for nearly twenty years, and Gabbie. It was a sad end to a full life, and a great loss to all of them. He had given her so much, so much love, so much wisdom, so much power about her writing. She couldn't imagine what she would do without him.

She stood up finally, and kissed him one last time, and she could sense that he was gone now. The spirit had flown, only the flesh remained, tired and broken and unimportant. The best part of him was no longer there. And as she set his hand down gently on the bed, she whispered, “Say hi to Joe for me…” There was no doubt in her mind that they would be together.

She walked slowly out of the ICU, took the elevator downstairs, and walked out into the bright July sunshine. It was a beautiful day, and there were no clouds overhead. People were walking in and out of the hospital, and it seemed odd to hear them talking and laughing. It seemed so strange to her that life should go on, that the world hadn't stopped, even briefly, to acknowledge his passing. And the heavy weight on her heart reminded her of the day she had left the convent. She could almost hear a door closing behind her as she walked slowly uptown to the boardinghouse where they lived. She couldn't take a cab or the subway this time, and she didn't care. She had no money left in her purse, and she wanted the air, and time to think about him, all alone, and as she walked slowly home in the summer sunshine, she could almost feel him near her. He hadn't deserted her after all. He had left her so many things, so many words, so many feelings, so many stories. And although he was gone, as the others were, she knew that this time was different.

Chapter 22

MUCH TO EVERYONE'S surprise, Professor Thomas had left all of his affairs in extremely good order. He had always seemed a little vague to all of them, and Gabbie had expected to find a mess, but instead he had left neat files, a sealed will, and careful instructions. He wanted a small memorial service, and not a funeral, preferably outdoors, and he wanted a passage read from Tennyson, and another small poem by Robert Browning, which had always reminded him of Charlotte. He had a safe-deposit box in a bank downtown, and a huge file cabinet filled with correspondence.

Mrs. Rosenstein was devastated, and behaved like a grieving widow. But Mrs. Boslicki and Steve were very helpful to everyone in making all of the arrangements. They went to a funeral parlor nearby and selected a somber casket. He was to be buried on Long Island, with Charlotte. And they did everything precisely as he had asked them.

A handful of them went to Long Island for the burial in a rented limousine, and Gabbie stood for a long moment alone at the grave site, and left a single red rose on his casket. And the only addition to the service he'd described was a poem Gabbie had written for him, and which she read herself, with a voice trembling with emotion. Steve stood next to her and held her hand, and she tried not to think of Joe as she read it. She was grateful for Steve's presence in her life, and the strength he gave her now. He had been wonderful to all of them, and had even redeemed himself with Mrs. Boslicki.

Professor Thomas had been buried in his one dark suit, and they gave the rest of his things away, to charity. A small obituary appeared in The New York Times, and it turned out his teaching career was filled with honors and awards that none of them had been aware of. There was a formal reading of the will, in the living room, conducted by one of the boarders, who was a retired attorney. He told them all exactly what to do, and the will was unsealed for the first time in the presence of all of them. It was written in the professors neat, careful hand, and it was more a formality than a serious legal event, as they all knew he had very little.

But what the lawyer read astounded all of them, and as he read the bequests, his eyes widened, as everyone's did. The professor had been hoarding, and quietly investing, a great deal of money. And he had stayed at the boardinghouse not out of necessity, but only because he loved it.

To his good friends Martha Rosenstein and Emma Boslicki he had left, to each of them, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, with his love and gratitude for the kindness they had bestowed on him over many years of friendship. He left Mrs. Rosenstein his gold watch as well, which was his only piece of jewelry, and he knew it would mean a great deal to her. She cried as the lawyer read it. And as for the rest of his worldly goods, the only thing that meant anything to him was his library, and he left all of it to his young friend, and protégée, Gabriella Harrison, as well as what remained of his bank accounts and investments, which, at the time of his death, amounted to slightly over six hundred thousand dollars. There was a sudden gasp in the room, as the attorney paused for breath and stared at Gabriella. His stock certificates were apparently all in his safety-deposit box in the bank, and everything was said to be in good order. But Gabriella could not believe what she had just heard the lawyer say. It was impossible, a joke. Why would he leave all that to her? But he had also explained that in his letter. He felt that she would use the money wisely and well, and it would help her to embark on a serious literary career without the burden of financial concern, which might otherwise hinder her progress. She was young enough, he felt, for the money to make a real difference to her, and to give her the kind of security she had not been fortunate enough to have in recent years, if ever. And he said as well that he had regarded her as the daughter he had never had, and what he gave, he gave with his love, and his heart, and his great admiration for her, as a writer and a person. He thanked them all then, and wished them well, and had signed the letter formally, Professor Theodore Rawson Thomas. The letter was properly dated and signed, and the lawyer assured them all that it was legally correct and in good order.

There was a stunned silence in the room when he was through, and then a sudden babble of voices, exclamations, and congratulations to Gabbie. They were sincerely pleased for her, and didn't begrudge her her good fortune. She felt like an heiress, and as she glanced at Steve, he was smiling at her. It was easy to see he was happy for her, and she was relieved to see that he didn't look angry or jealous. No one did. They all thought she deserved it.

“I suppose you'll be leaving us now,” Mrs. Boslicki said sadly. “You can buy your own brownstone,” she said, smiling through tears, as Gabbie hugged her.

“Don't be silly, I'm not going anywhere.” She still couldn't believe it, and they were all amazed at the genteel fortune quietly amassed by the professor. No one had ever suspected that he had anything more than his social security checks, but it did explain his frequent generosity in taking Gabbie to dinner. The will explained a lot of things, mostly how he felt about her, and she was only sorry she couldn't thank him. The only thanks he had wanted from her was that she pursue her writing career, and she had every intention of doing that now, in his honor, as much as for her own pleasure.

“Well, princess, what now? A limousine or a vacation in Honolulu?” Steve was teasing her, as he put an arm around her. But even she had to admit it certainly took the edge off her problems. It changed a lot of things, and she was only sorry she couldn't share the news with Mother Gregoria, and the Sisters at St. Matthew's. Perhaps there was indeed a blessing in everything. Had they not closed the door on her, this would never have happened. It had been an extraordinary year for her, and it was hard to believe it had only been ten months since she left the convent. The professor had written his will in June, almost as though he had had a premonition that his time was coming. But with Mrs. Rosenstein getting ill that spring, and his own health growing more delicate, he had wanted to make his wishes known, which proved to be providential.

They all went out to dinner that night, and Gabriella treated them officially, although Mrs. Boslicki had to advance her the money. And when they got back, Gabbie went quietly to the professor's room, and looked over the library she had inherited. There were some beautiful books, including the ones she had given him the previous Christmas. She sat at the desk after that, and looked at his files, and then she opened one of the drawers to see if there were more papers in it, and she noticed a neat stack of letters marked “Steve Porter.” She was surprised to see them there, and took them out. They were copies of all the correspondence he had shown Steve the week before. The letters to Stanford and Yale, and their responses, along with a series of letters from assorted departments of corrections, and as she looked at them, and read them carefully, one by one, her eyes widened in horror. She discovered in them a man she had never known, a number of them, a “monster,” as the Professor had put it to him. She read the list of his various aliases, his crimes, his sentences, the time he had spent in various jails and prisons, mostly for forgery and extortion. He had bilked money from women in several states and was apparently known for the games he played, having affairs with them and then using them in every way he could until he exhausted their supply of money. He occasionally sold small quantities of drugs as well. He did whatever he had to do to extort money from everyone. And she noted in a letter based on a social worker's interview with him in jail that he had never finished high school. So much for Stanford and Yale. But the implications for her were far more terrifying than the lack of a diploma. She suddenly knew what had been happening to her for the past seven months, and what he'd been doing. He had used her, mercilessly, cruelly, he didn't give a damn about her, didn't care who she was. There had been no accident, no fiancée, his parents had died when he was a child, and he had grown up in foster homes and state institutions. There was no sick mother in Des Moines, his father had not died the previous year. Every single thing he'd told her to evoke her sympathy and get closer to her had been a lie. All of it. Even the name he used was not his true one. The Steve Porter she knew and thought she loved was entirely a fabrication.

It was worse than anything that had ever happened to her so far, worse even than losing Joe. That had been heartbreaking, but it was real and she knew he loved her. This man was a con artist and a criminal. He had lied to her, used her, stolen from her, and taken advantage of her in every way he could. She suddenly felt sick and dirty. It made her feel ill thinking of him now and the things he'd done to her, the intimacies they'd shared. She felt like a prostitute, except he was the prostitute. He was worse than that.

She sat for a long time with the letters in her hand, and then put them back in the drawer and locked it. She didn't know what to say to him, how to escape him. And then with a sense of terror, she suddenly wondered if the professor had confronted him, if Steve knew what the professor had discovered about him, and had somehow hurt him. The thought made her tremble. She felt sick as she thought of it, but she suddenly knew that something terrible had happened.

She left the room quietly and went back to her own room. She was sitting on the bed, trying to sort out her tangled thoughts about all of it as Steve came into the room and saw her.

“You okay?” She looked strange to him, but she'd had quite a day. It was a real bonus he had never expected. He had thought the old fool was dead broke, and all he had to go on was Gabriella's salary and meager savings. This was a real windfall, and he didn't doubt for a minute that he had her in his pocket.

“I have a terrible headache,” she said, sounding groggy. She was stunned by the realization of her discoveries in the professor's desk, and she turned to look at Steve now as though he were a stranger. He was, nothing of what she knew of him existed.

“Well, sweetheart,” he said glibly. He was in high spirits. “You can buy a hell of a lot of aspirin with six hundred thousand dollars. What do you say we go out to dinner to celebrate tomorrow night? And then maybe go away somewhere… Paris… Rome… Atlantic City…” The possibilities were endless. He had some real work to do on her now, and Europe would be the perfect place to do it.