“Will you be all right out there all alone?”

“I think so,” she said honestly. It still frightened her to think of seeing her mother. But she knew she had to. She was the one with the real answers. And especially the one to the final question: Why didn't you ever love me? She felt like a child in a fairy tale, looking for answers under mushrooms. Alice in Wonderland, or Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and she said as much to Peter.

“If you wait a few days, I'll go out there with you. I've got some time off later this week, and it might be easier for you.”

“I need to do this,” she explained, and promised to call him from San Francisco.

“Take care of yourself, Gabbie.” And then unexpectedly, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” she said softly. It was a prelude of better things to come between them, but not until she had resolved her past completely. She knew now, that without the answers, she had nothing to offer him, and he could never reach her. The pain of her childhood and knowing that she hadn't been loved would always stand between them. She would never believe him. And she would always believe that ultimately he would abandon her, just as they had. And the terror of waiting for it to happen would destroy them, or her, in the meantime.

“Call me when you get there,” he told her anxiously, and then he had to leave her to see patients.

She was very pensive as she walked upstairs to pack her suitcase, and as she had the night before, she found the room depressing. It was too full of Steve, and bad dreams, and ugly nightmares. She couldn't sleep all night thinking of the trip to San Francisco, but it was too far to go down four flights of stairs to call Peter, so she just lay there waiting for morning.

Everyone in the house was still asleep when she left, and she left a note for Mrs. Boslicki, telling her where she was going. “I've gone to San Francisco to see my mother.” It would have had a nice ring to it, she thought, if it had been a different mother.

The flight to San Francisco passed uneventfully, and she took a bus into the city, with her small overnight bag. She was surprised by how cold it was, although it was August. There was a brisk wind, it was a foggy day, and it was decidedly chilly, which everyone said was typical of a San Francisco summer.

She stopped and had a bite to eat, and then called the telephone number she'd been given, and then realized instantly how foolish she'd been not to call first. What if they were away on vacation? But instead of that, there was a recording saying that the phone had been disconnected. She didn't know what to do then. She got a cab and drove by the address, but when she rang the bell they said that no one by that name lived there. She was almost in tears by then, and the cabdriver suggested they stop at a phone booth and call Information. All she knew was that the name of the man her mother had married years before was Frank Waterford. She remembered him vaguely as a nice-looking man who never talked to her. But surely he would now. And she followed the cabbie's suggestion, and it proved fruitful. Frank Waterford was listed on Twenty-eighth Avenue, in an area the driver said was called Seacliff.

She dialed the number she'd gotten from Information. A woman answered, but it did not sound like her mother. She asked for Mrs. Waterford and was told they were out, and would be back at four-thirty. She only had an hour to kill then, and debated between calling and showing up, and she finally decided to just go there. They drove up in front of the house at exactly four-thirty, and there was a silver Bentley parked in the driveway.

Gabriella held her suitcase in one hand, and rang the doorbell with the other. It was the same battered cardboard bag she'd been given when she left the convent. But although her wardrobe had improved in the last year, her luggage hadn't. This was the first trip she'd ever taken.

“Yes?” A woman in a yellow cashmere sweater opened the door. She was wearing a string of pearls, and had blond hair that had been “assisted” in keeping its color, and she looked as though she was in her mid fifties. But she looked pleasantly at Gabriella. “May I help you?” Gabriella looked like a runaway with her blond hair tousled by the wind, her big blue eyes, and her suitcase, and she looked younger than her twenty-three years. The woman who opened the door had no idea who she was, as Gabriella asked politely for “Mrs. Waterford” and then looked stunned when the woman said she was. She had come to the wrong house after all, obviously a different Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waterford lived here. “I'm sorry,” the woman said pleasantly, when Gabriella said she was looking for her mother, as a tall, well-built man with graying hair came up behind her. But he was the Frank Waterford she remembered, only thirteen years older than when she'd last seen him.

“Something wrong?” He looked concerned, and then saw the girl with the suitcase in the doorway. She looked lost but harmless.

“This young lady is looking for her mother,” his wife explained pleasantly, “and she's come to the wrong address. I was trying to help her figure out what to do now.”

“Gabriella?” he asked, frowning at her in confusion. He had heard her say her name, and still remembered it, although he had hardly ever seen her, and she looked very different. She was all grown up now.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Mr. Waterford?” He smiled at her then, more than a little surprised to see her. “I'm looking for my mother.” A glance was exchanged between the two Waterfords, who understood now. “I take it she doesn't live here.”

“No, she doesn't,” he said carefully. “Why don't you come in for a minute?” He looked much happier to see her than her father had, and seemed much kinder. They invited her to set down her bag, and come into the living room with them. He offered her a drink, and she said she'd be happy with a glass of water, and the woman with the blond hair went to get it for her.

“Are you and my mother divorced?” she asked, looking a little nervous, and he hesitated, but there was no way to keep the truth from her, and no reason to do it.

“No, Gabriella, we're not divorced. Your mother died four years ago. I'm very sorry.” For a moment, Gabriella was stunned into silence. She was gone, taking all her secrets with her. Gabriella knew instantly that she would never be free now.

“I felt sure your father would tell you.” He had a soft Southern drawl, which she remembered now, and thought she had heard her mother say he was originally from Texas. “I sent him a copy of the obituary, just so he'd know, and I assumed he'd tell you.” The whole situation was puzzling to him until Gabriella explained it.

“I saw my father for the first time in fourteen years yesterday. He didn't say anything to me. But I didn't tell him I was going to come here.”

“But didn't you live with him?” Frank Waterford looked baffled. “She told me she had given up full custody of you to him in order to marry me, and he never let her see you again. She never even put any pictures of you anywhere, because she said it was too painful.” They were interesting people, her parents. What they had done to her was no accident, it had taken considerable effort.

She sighed as she answered him, amazed at the lies they had told their spouses, all in order to desert her. “There were no pictures of me, Mr. Waterford, they never took any. And she left me at St. Matthew's convent in New York when she went to Reno. She never came back. I never heard from her again, she just sent a check every month to pay for my board there, and it stopped when I turned eighteen. And that was the end of it.”

“She died a year later,” he explained, putting the pieces of the story together finally. “She always told me that was a charitable donation, that the nuns there had been good to her once. I never had any idea that you lived there.” He felt suddenly as though he should apologize to her, as though he had been part of the perfidy, but Gabriella knew he wasn't. It had all been her mother, and it was very like her.

“How did she die?”

“Of breast cancer,” he said, looking at Gabriella. There was something so sad in her eyes that he wanted to hug her. “She wasn't a very happy woman,” he said diplomatically, not wanting to offend her daughter, or destroy her illusions about her. “Maybe she missed you. I'm sure she must have.”

“That's why I came here,” Gabriella explained quietly, setting her glass down. “There were some questions I wanted to ask her.”

“Maybe I can help you,” he offered, as his wife listened with compassion and interest.

“I don't think so. I wanted to ask her why she left me, and why,” she found herself struggling with tears in front of these people who were strangers to her, and it embarrassed her, but they were land to her, and it was a difficult moment. “I wanted to ask her why she did a lot of things before she left me.” He could see easily that her questions were painful, and he began to suspect that there was more to the story than he had ever dreamed of, and he decided to be honest with her. It was too late now to be otherwise. And he felt that Gabriella deserved at least that from him. It was all he had to give her.

“Gabriella, I'm going to level with you. You may not like it, but maybe it will help you. I was married to your mother for the worst nine years of my life. We were talking about getting a divorce when she got sick, but I didn't feel right about it under the circumstances. I thought I should stick by her, and I did. But she was a cold, difficult, angry, vicious, vengeful woman, and I don't think she had a kind bone in her body. I don't know what kind of a mother she was to you, but I'd venture to say that she was no nicer to you than she was to me, and maybe the nicest thing she ever did for you was leave you at St. Matthew's. She was a hateful woman.” He said it dispassionately, and his new wife patted his hand as he said it. “I'm sorry she left you,” he went on, “but I can't imagine you'd ever have been happy with her, even with me around. When I was going out with her in New York, she forbade me to speak to you, and I never understood it. You were the cutest little thing I'd ever seen, and I love kids. I have five of my own in Texas, but they wouldn't even come here to visit when I was married to her. She hated them, and they hated her right up until the day she died, and I'm not sure I blame them. By the time she died, I wasn't too fond of her either. She was a woman without many redeeming features. Her obituary was the shortest one I've ever seen, because no one could think of anything nice to say about her.” And then, looking back into the past, he remembered something else he had forgotten. “You know, back in New York, she tried to tell me that you had destroyed her marriage to your father. I never figured that one out, but I always got the feeling then that she was jealous of you, and that's why she gave up custody to your father. She didn't want you around, sweetheart. But I never figured for a minute she'd desert you. I wouldn't have married her if I knew that. Any woman who can do a thing like that… well, it tells you something about ‘em… But knowing what she was, I believe it of her now. Amazing that for all those years, I never knew anything about it. I just figured it was painful for her talking about giving you up, so we never talked about you.”