The long road home - By Danielle Steel Page 0,103

you. Please always know that, please forgive me for what I've done, and for what I'm about to do now. May God protect you both… pray for me, Gabbie… I love you… may God forgive me…” The writing seemed to go off the page then, and he had signed it simply “Joe.” She sat and stared at it for a long time, sobbing softly. It was all so clear to her now, it was all right there. He thought he had failed them all, he thought she was so strong, but only because he was so afraid to do what he wanted. He had been so much more frightened than she was. And the baby he talked about was already gone. If only he had had the courage to leave St. Stephen's, if only they could have tried to have a life together she could have shown him how wrong he was, that he had not failed anyone until now… when he failed them all, and abandoned her, while telling her to be strong because he wasn't. In so many ways, he reminded her of her father, and he had left her now, all alone, with nothing but a letter to hold on to. She wanted to scream as she read it, but all she did was cry. She sat on her bed for a long time, and read it over several times. It was all there, all his anguish, all his fears, all the guilt he felt for things he had never been responsible for, like his brother's death, and his mothers suicide.

And who was responsible now? Whose fault was it”? She knew that it was her own, because she had led him to a place where he could not exist, she had led him right into the arms of yet another failure. She had done that to him, just by loving him. She had led him to the edge of a cliff he didn't know how to escape from, so he had jumped off, into the abyss, and taken her with him. But she had lived and he had died. He had condemned her to this now, a room in a boarding-house far from anything comforting or familiar. He had left her all alone, with nothing but memories and a letter that told her how strong she was, and had to be new, because he had opted for weakness. And as she read it for the tenth time, she was suddenly angry at him for what he hadn't dared, hadn't tried, hadn't cared enough to live for. He had run away, to be with his mother and Jimmy. He had done the same thing his mother did. He had chosen to die rather than to fight and take the chance that they might win this time, that it would be right, and they might even be happy. He had left her no choice, no options. He had taken the only way out he saw, and left Gabbie to fend for herself without him. She wanted to scream at him, to shout, and shake him… if only she had known what he was thinking. She could have talked to him, argued with him, even left him if it would have meant his staying alive. But he had shared none of it with her. He had simply left, at the end of a piece of rope in a dark closet.

It was a cowards way out, and part of her hated him for it, yet, she also knew that part of her would always love him. And as darkness fell, and she sat staring out the window long after dinnertime, she remembered Mother Gregoria's words about him, reminding her that his mother had done the same thing, that there was some fatal flaw Gabriella had nothing to do with. But even knowing that, she felt intolerably guilty. She knew in her heart of hearts that she was responsible for this, just as he knew it about Jimmy. And as she lay down on her bed in the darkness again, thinking about him, she knew that no matter how much she had loved him, and he her, she had killed him. She had paid a high price for it, but she also knew with utter certainty that whatever happened now, God would never forgive her.

Chapter 16

FOR AN ENTIRE week after she rented the room at Mrs. Boslicki's, Gabriella pounded the pavements. She looked for jobs everywhere she could think of. She tried

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