“And if she kills her? What then? What if she stood here in your store and killed her? What if she goes home and does it now, Mr. Baum? What then? What will you say tomorrow when you read about it in the paper? That you're sorry, that you wish you'd helped… that you never knew? You knew. We all know. We see it, and most of the time people walk right by it, because they don't want to know, because it scares the hell out of them, and it's embarrassing, and it's just too damn painful. What about the child, Mr. Baum? It's painful for her too. It was her arm that was hanging out of the socket, not her mother's.”

“Get out of my restaurant, Gabriella,” he said clearly, “and don't ever come back here. You're dangerous, and you're crazy.” And with that he turned to wait on his customers, who despite what they had seen and heard, just wanted to forget about it.

“I hope I am dangerous to people like that,” she said calmly, laying her apron on the counter. “I hope I always will be. It's people like you, who turn away from it, who are the real danger,” she said, looking at the crowd as well as her employers, who were too embarrassed to look at her. And with that, she picked up her coat from a hook at the door, and saw for the first time that Professor Thomas was watching. He had just walked in when the child began to cry and he had seen everything that had happened. He had seen it all with utter and complete amazement. He helped her put her coat on without a word, and walked out of the restaurant with his arm around her, and he could feel how violently she was shaking, but she stood tall and proud and she was crying when she finally faced him.

“Did you see what happened?” she whispered. Now that it was over she could hardly speak, and in spite of the warm coat she couldn't stop shaking. He walked her away from the restaurant and thought he had never admired anyone so much in his entire life, and he wanted to say so, but for a moment, he was almost too moved to say it.

“You're a remarkable woman, Gabriella. And I'm proud to know you. What you did in there was beautiful. Most people just don't understand it.”

“They're too afraid to,” she said sadly, as they walked away, with his arm still around her shoulders. He wanted more than anything to protect her, from the past as much as the future. “It's so much easier to pretend you don't see it. That's what my father always did. He just let her do it.” It was the first time she had talked about her childhood to him, and he knew there was more there, much more, and he had a feeling she was going to tell him about it when she was ready.

“Was it like that for you?” he asked sadly. He had never had children, but he couldn't imagine anyone treating them that way. It was beyond his realm of comprehension.

“It was much worse,” Gabriella said honestly. “My mother beat me senseless, and my father let her. The only thing that saved me finally is that she left me. I'm almost deaf in one ear now, I've had most of my ribs broken, I have scars, I had stitches, I had bruises, I had concussions. She left me bleeding on the floor, and then beat me harder because I stained the carpet. She never stopped until she left me.”

“Oh my God.” Tears sprang to his eyes as he listened to her, and he felt suddenly very old. He couldn't imagine the nightmare that had been her childhood, but he believed her. It explained a lot of things to him, why she was so careful about people, and so shy, why she had wanted to stay in the refuge of the convent. But what he saw in her now was why people told her she was strong. She was more than strong. She had the power of a soul that had defied the devil, she had lived through worse nightmares than anyone could ever dream of. And with all her scars and the things she described to him now, she had survived intact. She was a whole person, and a very strong one. Despite all her efforts to destroy her, her mother had never been able to kill her spirit. And he said as much to Gabriella as they walked home to Mrs. Boslicki's.

“That's why she hated me so much,” Gabriella said, walking tall next to him. She was proud of what she had done for the child in Baum's Restaurant. It had cost her her job, but to Gabriella, it was worth it. “I always knew she wanted to kill me.”

“That's a terrible thing to say about one's mother, but I believe you.” And then, with a worried frown, “Where is she now?”

“I have no idea. I suppose San Francisco. I never heard from her again after she left me.”

“That's just as well. You should never contact her again. She's caused you enough pain for one lifetime.” And he could understand even less the father who had never stopped it. They sounded like animals, worse than that, to Professor Thomas.

They walked into the boardinghouse together, hand in hand, and Mrs. Rosenstein saw them as soon as they walked in. She knew it was too early for Gabriella to come home, and she looked instantly worried. She thought maybe something had happened to him, and Gabriella had brought him home, but it was Gabriella who had had the problem.

“Are you all right?” she asked both of them with anxious eyes, and they both nodded.

“I just got fired,” Gabriella said calmly. She wasn't shaking anymore. She was strangely calm, and Professor Thomas went to his room to pour both of them a brandy.

“How did that happen?” Mrs. Rosenstein asked, as he returned with a small glass for her too, but she declined it, and he volunteered to drink it for her. “I thought everything was going so well for you there.”

“It was.” Gabriella smiled, feeling suddenly very free and very powerful, as she took a sip of the brandy. It burned her tongue and her eyes and her nose, but after it had burned her throat as well she decided that she liked it. “Everything was going fine, until I shot my mouth off, and threatened to slap one of their customers tonight.” Gabriella suddenly smiled, it almost sounded funny to her, except she and the professor knew that it wasn't.

“Did someone get fresh with you?” She imagined it was a man, and she was outraged that someone would do that to Gabriella.

“I'll explain it to you later,” the professor said, as he downed the second shot glass, just as Mrs. Boslicki appeared, having heard the stir in her hallway.

“What's happening? Are you having a party out here, and did you forget to invite me?”

“We're celebrating,” Gabriella said, laughing. She was beginning to feel a little tipsy, and she didn't mind it. It had been a hard night for her, full of ugly memories, but she had come through it feeling stronger.

“What are you celebrating?” Mrs. Boslicki asked happily, anxious to share it.

“I just lost my job,” Gabriella said, and then giggled.

“Is she drunk?” she asked, with an accusing look at the professor.

“Believe me, she's earned it,” he said, and then remembered that they had real cause for celebration. It was why he had gone to the restaurant to see her. And looking at Gabriella, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her. It had only taken two weeks. He had thought it would take much longer. “If you're not too drunk,” he said to Gabriella lovingly, “read that.”

She opened the envelope, and then the letter carefully, with the exaggerated gestures of someone who'd been drinking a little. She had never before tasted brandy, but it had actually calmed her, as well as warmed her. But as she read the letter he handed to her, her eyes grew wide, and she was instantly sober. “Oh my God… oh my God! I don't believe this. How did you do it?” She turned to him with a look of amazement and then started jumping up and down like a child, holding the letter.

“What is it?” Mrs. Boslicki asked. They were all crazy tonight. Maybe they'd been drinking for a long time in the hallway. “Did she win the Irish Sweepstakes?”

“Better than that,” Gabriella said, throwing her arms around her, Mrs. Rosenstein, and then finally the professor.

He had sent her most recent story to The New Yorker without telling her, and they had agreed to publish it, in their March issue. They were informing her that they were going to send her a check, and wanted to know if she had a literary agent. They were going to pay her a thousand dollars. Overnight, thanks to the professor, she had become a published writer. He had taken a liberty with her work, but he knew, as she did, that on her own, she would never have done it.

“What can I ever do to thank you?” she asked him. It was proof of everything he had said to her, and Mother Gregoria before him. They were right. She was good. And she could do it. She couldn't believe it.

“The only thanks I want is for you to write more. I'll be your agent. Unless, of course, you want a real one.” But she didn't need one yet, although one day he was sure she would. She had the makings of a great writer, and he had seen that clearly the first time he had read one of her stories.

“You can be anything you want. This is the best Christmas present I've ever had.” Suddenly she didn't care at all that she'd lost her job. She was a writer now, and she could always find another job as a waitress.

They sat in the living room after the others went to bed, for long hours into the night, talking about what had happened in the restaurant, and what it meant to her, her own childhood, and her writing, and what she hoped to do with it one day. Professor Thomas said she could go far as a writer, if that was what she wanted and she was willing to work for it. And when she said she did, he believed her. But what's more, with the letter from The New Yorker clutched firmly in her hand, she now believed it.

She thanked him again profusely before she went up to bed that night, and as she stood in her small room, thinking about it, she thought of Joe, and how proud he would have been of her. If things had been different, they'd have been married by then, starving in a little apartment somewhere, but happy as two children. They would have been celebrating their first Christmas, and she would have been five months’ pregnant. But life hadn't worked out like that for them. He hadn't been willing to fight for it. He had been too afraid to cross the bridge into another life with her. And suddenly she knew what he had meant when he said how strong she was. Because therein lay the difference between them. •She was willing to cross the bridge, to fight for anyone, or anything. She had been willing to be there for him, but no matter how much she loved him, or he her, he just couldn't do it. She wondered if he could have stopped the scene in the restaurant, and she couldn't see him doing that either. He had been a gentle man, and she knew she would never again love anyone as she had loved him. But whatever he had been, and however much he had loved her, he hadn't loved her enough to fight for it. He had turned back at the last minute, he had given it all up, and they had lost everything. And now little by little, she had to start over. She didn't hate him for it, but she was still very sad, and thought she probably always would be, whenever she thought about him.

And as she looked out her window that night, she could see his face in her mind's eye so clearly, she could almost touch him. The big smile, the blue eyes, the way he had held her in his arms… the way he kissed her. It made her heart ache thinking about him. But as much as she loved him, she knew something else now. She was a survivor. He had abandoned her, and she didn't die. And for the first time in her life, she was excited about what life had in store for her, and she wasn't frightened.





Chapter 18




TWO DAYS BEFORE Christmas, less than a week after she'd been fired, Gabriella walked into a bookshop to buy a gift for Professor Thomas. She wanted to get something wonderful for him, something he'd really want, and didn't already have on the crowded shelves in his bedroom.

She had decided to wait until after Christmas to get another job. She had enough money saved to pay for her January rent. And the money from The New Yorker was going to be a real windfall. She wanted to buy something really nice for the professor from it. She had already bought little gifts for everyone in the boarding-house, she had something small and thoughtful for each of them, except for Steve Porter. She had decided that she didn't know him well enough to buy him a present.

And she had thought of buying something for Mother Gregoria too, but she knew that given her circumstances, the Mother Superior wouldn't be allowed to accept it. What she had decided to do instead was send her a copy of The New Yorker when her story was published. She knew how pleased she would be, and how proud of her. It would be gift enough just knowing how much she had helped her, and even if Mother Gregoria never answered her, Gabriella knew in her heart how much the Mother Superior still loved her. It was just very hard not being able to see her. It was the first Christmas she hadn't spent with her since she was a child. But that couldn't be helped now.