“Forget him. He doesn't care about you. Why waste your time thinking about him? He won't save you now,” she said, laughing at her, making fun of her, watching Gabriella's eyes fill with tears. The one thing that reached her now, with greater force than her mother's blows, was the knowledge that she would never see her father again, as her mother reminded her constantly, and that he had never loved her. It was hard to believe at first, and then eventually, she knew it had to be true. His silence confirmed it. But if he did love her, she knew she would hear from him one day. All she could do was wait.

And one year after he left she spent Christmas alone in the house on Sixty-ninth Street. Her mother spent the day with friends, and the evening with a man from California. He was tall and dark and handsome, and looked nothing like her father. He spoke to her once or twice when he picked her mother up to take her out to dinner, but whenever he did, Eloise made it clear to him that it was neither necessary nor welcome for him to speak to the child. Gabriella was wicked, she explained to him vaguely more than once, so much so that she was reluctant to share the details with him. And he understood early on that befriending Gabriella was not the way into Eloise's good graces. If anything, it was wiser to avoid her, so after a while, he said nothing to her at all.

There had been a constant parade of men who came to see Eloise to take her out, but the man from California was the most frequent visitor. His name was Frank. Franklin Waterford. And all Gabriella knew about him was that he was from San Francisco, and living in New York for the winter. She wasn't sure why, and he talked about California a lot with her mother, and told her how much she was going to love it when she came out. And then her mother began to talk about going to Reno for six weeks. Gabriella had no idea where that was, or why her mother wanted to go there, and they never explained any of it to her. All she knew was what she overheard as they walked past her room, chatting animatedly on their way out, or what she could hear when they sat in the library late at night, drinking and talking and laughing. And she couldn't help wondering what she would do about school when she and her mother went to Reno. But there was no way to ask her about it. She knew that if she asked her anything, her mother would fly into a rage.

Gabriella just went on with her life, waiting for news and explanations, checking the mail every day when she got home from school, hoping to find a letter from her father, telling her where he was. But it was never there, and when her mother saw her rifling through the mail one day, the inevitable happened. But the beatings were a little less energetic these days, and slightly less frequent. She was too busy with her own life now to worry about “disciplining” Gabriella. Most of the time, she informed Gabriella that she was hopeless. Her father had figured it out after all, hadn't he? And she herself could no longer be expected to waste her life trying to make something of Gabriella. It wasn't even worth her time to do that. So she left Gabriella to her own devices, to fend for herself and, most of the time, make her own dinner, if there was enough food in the house to do it at all, which more often than not, there wasn't.

Jeannie, the housekeeper, left promptly at five o'clock every afternoon, and whenever she thought she could get away with it, she left a little something on the stove for Gabriella. But if she fussed over her, or “spoiled” her, or talked to her too much, the child paid a high price for it, and she knew that, so she feigned indifference, and forced herself not to think of what would happen to Gabriella after she left. She had the saddest eyes of any child Jeannie had ever seen, and it pained her just to look at her. But she knew better than anyone that there was nothing she could do to help her. Her father had disappeared and left her to work out her own fate with her mother, and Eloise was a hellion. But Gabriella was her child, after all. What could Jeannie possibly do to help her, except leave a little soup on the stove sometimes, or put a cool compress on a bruise the child said she had gotten in the schoolyard. But even Jeannie knew that schoolyard bruises didn't happen in those sizes and locations. There was a handprint on Gabriella's back once that looked like someone had drawn it on her, and Jeannie didn't have any trouble figuring out how it got there. At times, she almost wished the child would run away, she'd have been better off alone in the streets, than with her mother. All she had here were warm clothes and a roof over her head, but she had no warmth, no love, scarcely enough food to survive, and no one in the world to care about her. But Jeannie knew that even if Gabriella ran away, the police would only bring her back. They would never interfere between parent and child, no matter what Eloise did to her. And Gabriella had long since known that as well. She knew that grown-ups didn't help you. They didn't interfere, or come riding up on a white horse to save you. Most of the time, they pretended not to see things, closed their eyes, or turned their backs. Just like her father.

But as the months passed from winter into spring, Eloise's rages seemed to dwindle to indifference. She seemed to care nothing about what Gabriella did now, as long as she didn't have to see or hear her. And the only time she had beaten her recently was when she claimed Gabriella “pretended” not to hear her. The “pretense” was simply that Gabriella's hearing was no longer what it had once been. She seemed to hear well most of the time, but from certain angles, or if there were other confusing noises in the room, she could no longer distinguish the words quite as clearly as she once could. It was simply a remnant of earlier beatings, and Gabriella never complained about it, though it hampered her in school at times, but no one seemed to notice, except her mother.

“Don't ignore me, Gabriella!” she would shriek, and descend on her like a banshee with fists flailing. But Frank was around more than ever these days, and she was careful around him. She never laid a hand on Gabriella during his visits, but now only when they were alone, or he disappointed her in some way by not showing up when he promised or forgetting to call her, which she always blamed on Gabriella. “He hates you, you little wretch! You're the only reason he's not here tonight!” Gabriella didn't doubt it for a moment, she only wondered what would happen if he stopped coming over. But for now anyway, that seemed less than likely, although he was talking about going back to San Francisco in April, and Gabriella could tell that made her mother very nervous, and her nervousness translated into something far more dangerous for Gabriella.

And in March, every time he came over, the door to the library was closed so they could talk in private, or they went upstairs to her mothers bedroom and stayed there for hours. It was hard to imagine what they were doing, and they were always very quiet. He would smile at Gabriella when he walked by her room, but he never stopped to chat, or even say hello anymore. It was as though he understood that that was forbidden. Gabriella was treated like a leper in her own house.

And in April, he left, as promised, and returned to San Francisco. But much to Gabriella's surprise, Eloise didn't seem particularly dismayed by it. If anything, she seemed busier and happier than ever these days. She scarcely spoke to Gabriella, which was a blessing. And she seemed to be making a lot of arrangements. She spent a lot of time on the phone, talking to her friends, and always lowered her voice when Gabriella came into the room, as though she were telling secrets. But Gabriella couldn't hear them anyway.

It was three weeks after he had left that she began dragging suitcases out of the basement, and asked Jeannie to help her get them upstairs. Eloise seemed to be packing everything she owned, and Gabriella wondered when she would tell her to pack her things. It was days after she had started when she finally told Gabriella to pack a suitcase.

“Where are we going?” Gabriella asked with cautious interest. It was rare for her to ask a question, but she wasn't sure what kind of clothes to put in the suitcase, and didn't want to infuriate her mother by packing the wrong ones.

“I'm going to Reno,” she said simply, which told Gabriella nothing. She didn't dare ask where it was, or how long they would be staying, and prayed she'd make the right guesses about what clothes to pack. She went quietly to her room and began packing, and she couldn't help wondering if, when they got there, Frank would be there. She didn't even know if she liked him. She scarcely knew him. All she knew was that he was handsome and tall, and very polite to her mother. They didn't shout at each other the way her mother and father had, but he didn't say anything to Gabriella either. It was hard to tell if she'd like him, or if she would disappoint him as she had everyone else. It was something she had come to expect now, a fear she lived with. She knew that if she loved someone enough, they would eventually come to hate her, and possibly leave her, just as her father had. And if her own father felt that way about her, who wouldn't? But maybe Frank would be different. It was hard to guess that. And just to relieve her own worries on the subject, she began writing stories about him, but when her mother found them, she tore them up and said she was a little slut, and she was after him herself. She had no idea what her mother meant, or why she was so angry. She had described him as Prince Charming in one of her stories, and she'd been beaten for it. It would undoubtedly have sickened Frank, if he knew that, but of course he didn't. He was already in California by then.