“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.