then decided she had nothing to hide from him. She felt strangely safe talking to him. And it was their dark secret as much as her own. She had always felt so ashamed about it, but now she didn't. “They were the car accident you asked me about. Or actually, she was. He was just the casual observer.”
“I'm not sure I understand.” He looked troubled as he said it. He didn't want to understand, couldn't conceive of what she was saying.
“The broken ribs. A Christmas present from my mother, several years in a row. It was her favorite gift, actually. She gave it to me often.” She tried to put a little levity into it, but it was a tough subject to lighten.
“She beat you?” He looked stunned. “That's what I saw on the X rays?”
“Probably. I never broke anything any other way. She spent ten years beating me up constantly before she left me.” Her eyes were big and sad and he reached out and touched her. He held her hand in his own, as his heart went out to her. He couldn't imagine what she'd been through.
“Gabbie… how awful… didn't anybody help you, or stop her?” That was even more inconceivable to him, that she had been a child with no allies.
“No, my father used to watch, but he never said anything. He was afraid of her, I think. And finally, he just couldn't take it anymore, so he left her.”
“Why didn't he take you with him?” It was a question she had never dared ask herself, but she wondered now, and shrugged as she looked up at Peter.
“I don't know the answer to that. There are a lot of answers I don't have about them. I've been thinking about it since all this happened. I know why Steve did it. It was right out front. I made him angry. He wanted money and I wouldn't give it to him. At least it was direct. But I never knew why they hated me, what made them hate me so much, I never understood it. They always said I was so bad… so terrible… that if I hadn't been so bad they wouldn't have had to do it. But how bad can a kid be?” It was a question that had begun to haunt her lately.
“Not bad enough to break bones about. I don't understand it either. Have you ever asked them?”
“I've never seen either of them again. I called my father once, a year ago, or tried to. But I couldn't find any listing for him in Boston.”
“What about your mother? She sounds like a good person to stay away from.”
“She was then,” Gabbie said honestly, the chords of memory still trembling deep within her. Steve's nearly killing her had awakened a lot of old feelings, and they were hard to still now. “I keep wondering if she'd be different now, if she changed, if she could explain it to me, if she's sorry now that so many years have passed. It nearly ruined my life, it must have nearly ruined hers too.” Her eyes met his so squarely that it took his breath way, she was so open and so honest and so fearless. “I keep wanting to know why she hated me so much. What was it about me that made her hate me?” It was important to her to know that.
“Some sickness in her own soul, I would guess,” he said thoughtfully. “It couldn't have been you, Gabbie.” He had seen victims of child abuse in the trauma unit before, and they always broke his heart, those terrified eyes and broken little bodies, telling you it was no one's fault, no one had done it, and protecting their parents. They were so helpless and such victims of vicious, sick people. He had lost a child on the unit only two months ago, beaten until she was brain-dead, by her mother. It was not something he could ever accept, and all he wanted to do the night the child died was run out of the room and kill the mother. She was currently in jail, awaiting trial, and her lawyers were asking for probation.
“I don't know how you survived it,” he said gently. “Did no one help you?”
“Never. Not till I got to the convent.”
“Were they good to you there?” He hoped so, he couldn't bear the thought of what her life must have been like before that. Although he scarcely knew her, it made him