“He must have never known where I was.” Now in retrospect that seemed so awful. He had only been a few blocks away from her, and she had always thought he was in Boston.

“You can tell him yourself now.” Mother Gregoria had given her both an office and a home address, and his phone numbers, though they were more than a dozen years old. But it was a start at least, and she was going to call him as soon as possible, and hopefully, someone at those numbers would know where he was now.

“Thank you, Mother,” Gabbie said softly, and then added cautiously, “I've missed you so much.” So much had happened to her.

“We've prayed for you so often,” and then she smiled proudly. “I read your story in The New Yorker. It was wonderful.” Gabbie told her about the professor then, and the money he had left her, how kind he had been to her, and the Mother Superior closed her eyes as she listened, reveling in the voice she had so loved, and the child she had cherished, grateful that at least one person had been kind to her since she left them. It was still forbidden to speak her name in the convent.

“May I write to you and tell you what happened with my parents?” Gabbie asked hesitantly, and there was a sad pause as she waited.

“No, my child. Neither of us can do that. God bless you, Gabbie.”

“I love you, Mother… I always will…” she said, choking on a sob.

“Take care of yourself,” Mother Gregoria whispered, unable to say more as tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked older than she had a year before. The loss had cost her dearly.

Gabbie had wanted to tell her about Peter, but she hadn't dared. There was so little to say yet. And perhaps he would forget her when she left the hospital, or think better of it, or maybe he only talked to her because she was there and it was easy. She had learned that she couldn't trust any man not to hurt her or leave her.

“God bless you, my child,” Mother Gregoria said again, and they were both crying when they hung up. Gabbie had no idea if she would ever speak to her again. It was nearly unbearable to think she wouldn't hear the Mother Superior's voice for the rest of her life, but she knew that, more than likely, she wouldn't.

She waited for a few minutes to catch her breath, and dialed the office number Mother Gregoria had given her. She didn't want to wait until he got home that night to call him. She knew that the number was old. It was from thirteen or fourteen years before, and he might no longer work there, but when she asked for John Harrison they seemed to know who she was asking about. They put her on hold and he came on the line very quickly.

“Gabriella?” he said in a single breath, sounding extremely surprised. But his voice was so precisely as she remembered it that all she could think of was the vision she still had of him as a child, when, to her, he looked like Prince Charming.

“Daddy?” She felt nine years old again, or much, much younger.

“Where are you?” He sounded worried.

“Here in New York. I just got your number for the first time in all these years. I thought you were in Boston.

“I moved back thirteen years ago,” he said matter-of-factly, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what he was feeling. Probably the same things that she was. It was inconceivable to her that he wouldn't.

“Mommy left me in a convent,” she blurted out, still feeling like a child, and wanting to explain to him where she'd been, while he'd been missing.

“I know,” he said, sounding very quiet. “She told me. She wrote me a letter from San Francisco.”

“When?” Gabriella was confused now. He'd known? Why hadn't he called or come to see her? What could possibly have kept him from calling?

“She wrote to me right after she got there. I never heard from her again. But she wanted to let me know where she'd left you. I believe she remarried,” he said calmly.

“You've known for thirteen years?” Gabriella sounded puzzled, and his response didn't give her the answer she wanted.

“Lives move on, Gabriella. Things change. People change. That was a hard time for me,” he said, as though expecting her to understand that. But it had been harder still for his daughter. Harder than he knew, or cared, or wanted to consider.

“When can I see you?” she asked bluntly.

“I…” He hadn't expected her to ask that, and wondered if she wanted money from him. His career hadn't been brilliant, but moderately successful, in investment banking. “Are you sure that's a good idea?” He sounded uncertain.

“I'd like that very much,” she said, feeling very nervous. He hadn't sounded as excited to hear from her as she'd hoped he would. But fourteen years was a long time not to see someone, and she hadn't warned him she'd be calling. She wondered if she should have just walked into his office and surprised him. “Could I come today?” She still had some of the exuberance of her childhood, and hearing him made her feel the same age she had been when she last saw him. It was hard to remember suddenly that she was a grown-up.

Again, he hesitated, and at his end, he was looking pained. He had no idea what to say to her. And then finally, she got what she wanted from him. “Why don't you come and see me in the office this afternoon?” He wanted to get it over with. It was going to be painful for both of them. There was no point postponing it any longer. “Three o'clock?”

“I'll be there.” She was beaming as she set the phone down.

She was a nervous wreck all afternoon, thinking about him, wondering how he would look, what he would say, how he would explain all that had happened. She needed to ask him. She knew it was her mothers fault, but she wanted to hear from him now why it had happened, and why he had let it.

She put on her best navy blue linen suit, which she wore to work sometimes, and treated herself to a taxi to go to Park Avenue and Fifty-third to his office. It was a distinguished-looking office building, and when she got upstairs, an impressive-looking office. He worked for a small firm, with an excellent reputation.

His secretary said he was expecting her, and at exactly 3:01, Gabriella was led down a long hall to a corner office, grinning broadly. She was so happy to see him she could hardly stand it, and as nervous as she was, she knew that her terrors would be dispelled the moment she saw him.

The door was opened very deliberately by the secretary, who then stood aside as Gabriella stepped into a room with a view, and standing there, behind the desk, she saw him. At first she thought he had hardly changed, he was as handsome as ever, and when she looked more carefully, she saw that there were a few lines in his face, and gray in his hair now. She could calculate easily that he had just turned fifty.

“Hello, Gabriella,” he said, watching her intently, surprised by how beautiful she was, and how graceful. She looked nothing like her mother though, but much more like him. She had his blond good looks, and his eyes were exactly the same color hers were. And as he looked at her, he made no move to come toward her. “Sit down,” he said uneasily, pointing to a chair on the other side of his desk. She was desperate to come around the desk and hug him, and kiss him and touch him, but the surroundings seemed suddenly very daunting. She sat down in the chair then, and assumed he would come around to kiss her later, after they had caught up with each other and he knew her a little better.

She saw that there were photographs of several children on the desk, four of them, all in silver frames, two girls about her age, or perhaps a little older, and two boys who were much younger, and were obviously still children. The photographs looked recent. And there was a large photograph of a woman in a red dress, she looked a little stern, and not terribly happy. And Gabriella noticed immediately that there were no photographs of her from her childhood, but that was understandable, from what she could remember, there had been none.

“How have you been?” he asked formally, looking slightly pained, and she imagined that he must have felt guilty. He had left them, after all. It had to have been hard for him, or at least she imagined it was, and then she couldn't resist asking him a question,

“Are those your children, Daddy?” He nodded in answer.

“The two girls are Barbara's, the boys are our sons. Jeffrey and Winston. They're twelve and nine now.” And then he looked at her, anxious to get it over with, and get to the point of her visit. “Why have you come to see me?”

“I wanted to find you. I never knew you were here in New York.” He had been so close by, with a family, leading his life entirely without her. Without further explanation, that was painful.

“Barbara didn't like Boston,” he said, as though that explained it. But in fact, for Gabbie, it explained nothing.

“If you knew I was there, why didn't you come to see me at the convent?” As she asked him the question, she saw a look that she remembered from her childhood, a helpless, cornered look that said he wasn't equal to the situation. He had worn the same look, watching her being beaten, from the doorway.

“What was the point of seeing you?” he asked painfully. “We all had such terrible memories of my marriage to your mother. I'm sure that you do too. I thought it was better if we all closed the door on it and tried to forget it.” But how could he forget his daughter? “She was a very sick woman.” And then he added something that truly shocked her. “I always thought she would kill you,” he said in a choked voice, and before she could stop herself, Gabbie asked him one of the questions that had waited her entire lifetime for an answer.

“Why didn't you stop her?” She held her breath as she listened. It was important for her to know that.