lost loved ones who were very dear to you. A husband, a child."
She stared at him, her dark brown eyes mirroring her confusion, her anxiety. "How can you possibly know that?"
He smiled faintly. "I have a talent for reading minds."
"I don't believe in that kind of thing."
"You lost your parents, too, and you feel guilty because they died and you didn't. You come here in the evening because your house is empty, and the nighttime hours are too long and too lonely."
He had frightened her now. He could see it in the sudden tensing of her shoulders, in the way she held herself, rigid and poised for flight.
"How can you know that?" she demanded, her anger overriding her fear.
"I told you, I have the ability to divine your thoughts."
"What am I thinking now?"
"You're wishing a policeman would come by."
Sarah laughed softly. "Not likely at this time of night. They're all at Winchell's having donuts and coffee."
He laughed with her, the first time he had laughed in years, and it felt good.
The smile transformed his face, and for the first time Sarah realized that he was quite a handsome man. Feeling as though she were being disloyal to David, she quickly put the thought from her mind.
"I'd better go," she said.
"I mean you no harm, Sarah."
"I know, but... I'm not... I can't..." She stood up, her arms crossed over her breasts. "Good night."
He watched her walk away, and then he dissolved into a dark mist and followed her home. He stood in the shadows outside her house until he was sure she was safely inside. Only then did he turn away, hoping desperately that he would see her again.
She went to the park the next night, and the next, and the next, not knowing what it was about this strange man that drew her back to him night after night. She only knew that he seemed familiar somehow, that his very presence soothed her in some indefinable way.
Their relationship was a strange one. They sat side by side, rarely speaking, yet each drawing comfort from the other's presence.
After two weeks, Gabriel had decided their nightly encounters were destined to go on that way indefinitely, with the two of them meeting and not speaking; more than strangers, less than friends. And yet, for him, for now, it was enough. Meeting Sarah each evening gave purpose to his life, gave him something to look forward to.
And then she showed up late one night, her face whiter than new-fallen snow, her eyes shadowed and red, her whole demeanor one of abject despair.
Gabriel rose to his feet as she walked toward him, alarmed by her appearance. "Sarah, what is it?"
She stared up at him, her arms hanging limply at her sides. "It's July first," she said, her voice ragged.
Gabriel nodded, not comprehending.
"It would have been our fourth anniversary." Tears welled in her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. "Natalie would have been two."
"Sarah..."
"Why?" She screamed the word at him. "Why did it happen?" Sobs shook her body as she pummeled his chest with her fists. "Why didn't we stay home that night? Why didn't I die, too?"
She hit him again and again, needing to vent her anger, to unleash the rage she had kept carefully bottled up for the past six months. And all the while she asked the same question over and over again: Why, why, why?
He had no answer, only stood there while her tightly clenched fists pounded against his chest and tears streamed down her cheeks, until she collapsed against him, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Murmuring her name, he swept her into his arms and cradled her against his chest, holding her effortlessly.
And still the tears came, with no sign of letting up.
Gabriel glanced around. There weren't many people wandering through the park at this time of night - a couple of kids pawing each other in the shadows, a vagrant snoring beneath a tree - yet Gabriel felt the need to get her inside, away from prying eyes.
Settling her more firmly in his arms, he started walking.
It took several minutes for Sarah to realize they were leaving the park. "Where are you going?"
"I'm taking you home."
"No! I can't go back there." She couldn't face that dark, empty house, couldn't face the memories that were waiting to engulf her. She shuddered, as though overcome with a chill. "Not tonight."
"All right."
She went limp in his arms, trusting him without knowing why, or maybe simply too emotionally wrung out to care