“So where did you grow up?” he asked easily, curious about her, as he sipped his coffee. She was nice to talk to.

“Here. In New York.” But she didn't mention the convent. They discovered that they were both only children, and he had gone to Columbia Medical School, which was what had brought him to New York originally, and something they had in common. But in many ways, they seemed very different. He was very easy and open, and had seen a lot of cruelty in his life, but he had never lived it. There was something about her that suggested to him that she had seen more than most people her age, or many far older. There were doors that he knew were closed to him, but he didn't know how to find the key to unlock them. She seemed to do a lot of thinking.

And then, purely by coincidence, he mentioned that one of his friends from school had become a priest, and they had stayed close. He seemed very fond of him, and Gabriella smiled as she listened. He thought she was making fun of him, and he tried convincing her that even priests were people. She couldn't resist telling him then that she'd been a postulant, and grew up in a convent. But she didn't tell him about Joe or any of what had happened the year before.

He was fascinated by her history, and the fact that she'd almost been a nun, and eventually he asked her what had changed her mind about it.

“That's a long story,” she said with a sigh, ignoring the question.

He had to go back to work and promised to see her the next day. But he came back later that night, and was sure she'd be asleep by then, it was after midnight, and he was surprised to find she wasn't. She was lying in bed quietly, with her eyes open. There was something very quiet and peaceful about her.

“Can I come in?” He'd been thinking about her all evening, and felt drawn toward her room when he was passing it, when he finished with his patients.

“Sure.” She smiled and propped herself up on her good elbow. There was a small light on in the corner of the room, but it was mostly dark and cozy. She'd been lying there, reflecting about her parents. She had been doing that a lot lately, particularly her father.

“You looked pretty serious for a minute there. Are you okay?”

She nodded. She was, actually, considering everything that had happened. Steve had disappeared from her life like a dream. It was almost as if he had never existed. In one way or another, all the people she had ever cared about had vanished, except lately she seemed to feel more peaceful about it.

“I was thinking about my parents,” she admitted, and he was sympathetic. Her chart said she had no next of kin, and he assumed they had died at some point, and he asked her when it happened. She hesitated before she answered. “They didn't. I think my father is in Boston, and my mother lives in California. I haven't seen him in fourteen years, and my mother in thirteen.” He looked startled.

“Were you a bad girl? Did you run away to join the circus?” he asked, and she laughed at the image.

“No, I ran away to join the convent,” but he already knew that. “It's a long story, but my father left when I was a kid, and then my mother dropped me off at the convent and never came back.” It sounded like a fairly simple story, but he suspected it wasn't.

“That's a little unusual. Why couldn't they keep you? Had you done anything to seriously annoy them?”

“They thought so. They weren't too keen on children.”

“They sound like lovely people,” he said, watching her, wishing he could move closer to her, but he was on duty, and she was his patient. He was already spending a lot of time with her, and he didn't want to cause any comment.

“They weren't,” Gabriella said softly, and then decided she had nothing to hide from him. She felt strangely safe talking to him. And it was their dark secret as much as her own. She had always felt so ashamed about it, but now she didn't. “They were the car accident you asked me about. Or actually, she was. He was just the casual observer.”

“I'm not sure I understand.” He looked troubled as he said it. He didn't want to understand, couldn't conceive of what she was saying.

“The broken ribs. A Christmas present from my mother, several years in a row. It was her favorite gift, actually. She gave it to me often.” She tried to put a little levity into it, but it was a tough subject to lighten.

“She beat you?” He looked stunned. “That's what I saw on the X rays?”

“Probably. I never broke anything any other way. She spent ten years beating me up constantly before she left me.” Her eyes were big and sad and he reached out and touched her. He held her hand in his own, as his heart went out to her. He couldn't imagine what she'd been through.

“Gabbie… how awful… didn't anybody help you, or stop her?” That was even more inconceivable to him, that she had been a child with no allies.

“No, my father used to watch, but he never said anything. He was afraid of her, I think. And finally, he just couldn't take it anymore, so he left her.”

“Why didn't he take you with him?” It was a question she had never dared ask herself, but she wondered now, and shrugged as she looked up at Peter.

“I don't know the answer to that. There are a lot of answers I don't have about them. I've been thinking about it since all this happened. I know why Steve did it. It was right out front. I made him angry. He wanted money and I wouldn't give it to him. At least it was direct. But I never knew why they hated me, what made them hate me so much, I never understood it. They always said I was so bad… so terrible… that if I hadn't been so bad they wouldn't have had to do it. But how bad can a kid be?” It was a question that had begun to haunt her lately.

“Not bad enough to break bones about. I don't understand it either. Have you ever asked them?”

“I've never seen either of them again. I called my father once, a year ago, or tried to. But I couldn't find any listing for him in Boston.”

“What about your mother? She sounds like a good person to stay away from.”

“She was then,” Gabbie said honestly, the chords of memory still trembling deep within her. Steve's nearly killing her had awakened a lot of old feelings, and they were hard to still now. “I keep wondering if she'd be different now, if she changed, if she could explain it to me, if she's sorry now that so many years have passed. It nearly ruined my life, it must have nearly ruined hers too.” Her eyes met his so squarely that it took his breath way, she was so open and so honest and so fearless. “I keep wanting to know why she hated me so much. What was it about me that made her hate me?” It was important to her to know that.

“Some sickness in her own soul, I would guess,” he said thoughtfully. “It couldn't have been you, Gabbie.” He had seen victims of child abuse in the trauma unit before, and they always broke his heart, those terrified eyes and broken little bodies, telling you it was no one's fault, no one had done it, and protecting their parents. They were so helpless and such victims of vicious, sick people. He had lost a child on the unit only two months ago, beaten until she was brain-dead, by her mother. It was not something he could ever accept, and all he wanted to do the night the child died was run out of the room and kill the mother. She was currently in jail, awaiting trial, and her lawyers were asking for probation.

“I don't know how you survived it,” he said gently. “Did no one help you?”

“Never. Not till I got to the convent.”

“Were they good to you there?” He hoped so, he couldn't bear the thought of what her life must have been like before that. Although he scarcely knew her, it made him want to protect her. But all he could do now was listen.

“They were very good to me. I loved it, and I was very happy.”

“Then why did you leave?” There was so much to learn about her. And he wanted to know so much more about her.

“I had to leave. I did a terrible thing, and they couldn't let me stay.” In the past year, she had come to accept that, although she knew she would never be able to forgive herself completely.

“How terrible could it have been?” he said lightly. “What did you do? Steal another nun's habit?”

“A man died because of me. I cost him his life. It's something I will have to live with. Always.”

He didn't know what to say to her for a moment. “Was it an accident?” It must have been. She would never have killed anyone. As little as he knew her, he knew she couldn't. But she was looking long and hard at him, wondering just how much she could trust him. And for some odd reason, she knew she could trust him completely. She could feel it in him, and see it in his eyes as he watched her.

“He committed suicide because of me. He was a priest, and we were in love with each other. I was having his baby.” Peter looked at her in silent amazement. She had been to hell and back, and then some.

“How long ago was that?” Although he was not sure it really mattered.

“A year ago. Eleven months, actually. I don't know how it happened. I'd never looked at a man before. I don't think either of us understood what we were doing, until too late. It went on for three months. We were going to leave together. But he couldn't. He couldn't leave. It was the only life he'd ever known, and he had his own demons to live with. He couldn't bring himself to leave, and he couldn't leave me. So he killed himself, and left me a letter to explain it.”

“And the baby?” he asked, holding her hand tightly in his own, and desperately wanting to put his arms around her.

“I lost it.” It was all a blur now, a surrealistic impression of tragedy that always made her heart feel as though someone had just squeezed it. “It was last September.”