was like coming home for her, and she was overwhelmed by a wave of grief and nostalgia. She stayed on her knees most of the time, and once when Steve looked at her, he saw that she was crying. He didn't want to bother her, but he put a gentle hand on her shoulder just to let her know he was there, and then took it away so she didn't feel he had intruded on her.
The hymns were particularly beautiful that night, and she knew all of them. The entire congregation sang “Silent Night,” and they both cried when the choir sang “Ave Maria.” They both had tender memories. He had lost his dad, and his mother was sick, and he couldn't be with her.
And afterward Gabriella went to one of the side altars, and lit three candles to the Blessed Virgin, one for Mother Gregoria, one for Joe, and the third one for their baby. She prayed for all three of their souls, and she was very quiet when they left St. Andrew's. Steve waited awhile to say anything to her, and then he commented on how hard it was to be far from home and lose people you loved. She took a deep breath, said nothing, and then nodded.
“I get the impression this may not have been an easy year for you either,” he said to her. It had been impossible to ignore the fact that she was crying, although he didn't say anything about it.
“It wasn't,” she admitted, as they walked home side by side.
He was careful not to touch her, although in church she had felt the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder while she was crying. “I lost two people I loved very much this year… and there's a third one I can't see anymore. It was a very hard time for me when I moved to Mrs. Boslicki's.” She was trying to tell him that she understood what a hard time he was having.
“She's been very nice to me,” Steve said gratefully. “The poor thing spends half her day taking my phone calls.”
“I'm sure she doesn't mind it,” Gabbie said. They were within a block of the house, and then, as though he'd just thought of it, he asked Gabbie if she'd like to stop for a cup of coffee. It was one o'clock by then, but the coffee shop on the corner was still open. “Sure. Why not?” she said easily. She knew that if she went home now, she would think about Joe and wind up crying. It was Christmas Eve, and it was impossible not to feel alone. Maybe they both needed company. He had his own griefs and worries to cry over.
He talked about growing up in Des Moines, and going to Yale and then Stanford, how much he'd loved. it in California, but he had thought New York would be a better place for him. He thought he'd find a better job here, and he was worried that he might have made the wrong decision.
“Give it time,” she said quietly, and then he told her he had heard that she had been in the convent, and she nodded. “I spent twelve years at a convent called St. Matthew's. I was a postulant. But I left for a lot of complicated reasons.”
“Most things are complicated in life, aren't they? It's a shame it has to be that way. Sometimes it seems like nothing can ever be easy.”
“Sometimes it's easier than we make it. I think we all complicate things for ourselves. Or at least, I'm beginning to see it that way. Things can be easier, if we let them.”
“I wish I believed that,” he said, as the waitress poured their third cups of coffee. They had switched to decaf. He told her then that he'd been engaged to a girl he'd met at Yale, and they'd been planning to be married last summer, on the Fourth of July. And two weeks before the wedding, she'd been killed in an accident, on the way to see him. He said it had changed his life forever. And then he decided to really take Gabriella into his confidence, and he had tears in his eyes when he told her that it was all the worse for him because she had been pregnant. They weren't getting married because of it, they'd been getting married anyway, they just moved up the wedding a few months, and he'd really been looking forward to having