who had let it all happen to her. No one had ever stepped in for her either.
“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