many contrasts. There was something very wise and sad about her eyes, which fascinated him, but then again, being beaten within an inch of her life by the man she'd lived with couldn't have been easy. He asked about him a little bit and she didn't seem anxious to talk about him. One of the nurses had shown him the article in the paper, but he didn't mention it to Gabbie.
“So where did you grow up?” he asked easily, curious about her, as he sipped his coffee. She was nice to talk to.
“Here. In New York.” But she didn't mention the convent. They discovered that they were both only children, and he had gone to Columbia Medical School, which was what had brought him to New York originally, and something they had in common. But in many ways, they seemed very different. He was very easy and open, and had seen a lot of cruelty in his life, but he had never lived it. There was something about her that suggested to him that she had seen more than most people her age, or many far older. There were doors that he knew were closed to him, but he didn't know how to find the key to unlock them. She seemed to do a lot of thinking.
And then, purely by coincidence, he mentioned that one of his friends from school had become a priest, and they had stayed close. He seemed very fond of him, and Gabriella smiled as she listened. He thought she was making fun of him, and he tried convincing her that even priests were people. She couldn't resist telling him then that she'd been a postulant, and grew up in a convent. But she didn't tell him about Joe or any of what had happened the year before.
He was fascinated by her history, and the fact that she'd almost been a nun, and eventually he asked her what had changed her mind about it.
“That's a long story,” she said with a sigh, ignoring the question.
He had to go back to work and promised to see her the next day. But he came back later that night, and was sure she'd be asleep by then, it was after midnight, and he was surprised to find she wasn't. She was lying in bed quietly, with her eyes open. There was something very quiet and peaceful about her.
“Can I come in?” He'd been thinking about her all evening, and felt drawn toward her room when he was passing it, when he finished with his patients.
“Sure.” She smiled and propped herself up on her good elbow. There was a small light on in the corner of the room, but it was mostly dark and cozy. She'd been lying there, reflecting about her parents. She had been doing that a lot lately, particularly her father.
“You looked pretty serious for a minute there. Are you okay?”
She nodded. She was, actually, considering everything that had happened. Steve had disappeared from her life like a dream. It was almost as if he had never existed. In one way or another, all the people she had ever cared about had vanished, except lately she seemed to feel more peaceful about it.
“I was thinking about my parents,” she admitted, and he was sympathetic. Her chart said she had no next of kin, and he assumed they had died at some point, and he asked her when it happened. She hesitated before she answered. “They didn't. I think my father is in Boston, and my mother lives in California. I haven't seen him in fourteen years, and my mother in thirteen.” He looked startled.
“Were you a bad girl? Did you run away to join the circus?” he asked, and she laughed at the image.
“No, I ran away to join the convent,” but he already knew that. “It's a long story, but my father left when I was a kid, and then my mother dropped me off at the convent and never came back.” It sounded like a fairly simple story, but he suspected it wasn't.
“That's a little unusual. Why couldn't they keep you? Had you done anything to seriously annoy them?”
“They thought so. They weren't too keen on children.”
“They sound like lovely people,” he said, watching her, wishing he could move closer to her, but he was on duty, and she was his patient. He was already spending a lot of time with her, and he didn't want to cause any comment.