“I need to do this,” she explained, and promised to call him from San Francisco.
“Take care of yourself, Gabbie.” And then unexpectedly, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she said softly. It was a prelude of better things to come between them, but not until she had resolved her past completely. She knew now, that without the answers, she had nothing to offer him, and he could never reach her. The pain of her childhood and knowing that she hadn't been loved would always stand between them. She would never believe him. And she would always believe that ultimately he would abandon her, just as they had. And the terror of waiting for it to happen would destroy them, or her, in the meantime.
“Call me when you get there,” he told her anxiously, and then he had to leave her to see patients.
She was very pensive as she walked upstairs to pack her suitcase, and as she had the night before, she found the room depressing. It was too full of Steve, and bad dreams, and ugly nightmares. She couldn't sleep all night thinking of the trip to San Francisco, but it was too far to go down four flights of stairs to call Peter, so she just lay there waiting for morning.
Everyone in the house was still asleep when she left, and she left a note for Mrs. Boslicki, telling her where she was going. “I've gone to San Francisco to see my mother.” It would have had a nice ring to it, she thought, if it had been a different mother.
The flight to San Francisco passed uneventfully, and she took a bus into the city, with her small overnight bag. She was surprised by how cold it was, although it was August. There was a brisk wind, it was a foggy day, and it was decidedly chilly, which everyone said was typical of a San Francisco summer.
She stopped and had a bite to eat, and then called the telephone number she'd been given, and then realized instantly how foolish she'd been not to call first. What if they were away on vacation? But instead of that, there was a recording saying that the phone had been disconnected. She didn't know what to do then. She got a cab and drove by the address, but when she rang the bell they said that no one by that name lived there. She was almost in tears by then, and the cabdriver suggested they stop at a phone booth and call Information. All she knew was that the name of the man her mother had married years before was Frank Waterford. She remembered him vaguely as a nice-looking man who never talked to her. But surely he would now. And she followed the cabbie's suggestion, and it proved fruitful. Frank Waterford was listed on Twenty-eighth Avenue, in an area the driver said was called Seacliff.
She dialed the number she'd gotten from Information. A woman answered, but it did not sound like her mother. She asked for Mrs. Waterford and was told they were out, and would be back at four-thirty. She only had an hour to kill then, and debated between calling and showing up, and she finally decided to just go there. They drove up in front of the house at exactly four-thirty, and there was a silver Bentley parked in the driveway.
Gabriella held her suitcase in one hand, and rang the doorbell with the other. It was the same battered cardboard bag she'd been given when she left the convent. But although her wardrobe had improved in the last year, her luggage hadn't. This was the first trip she'd ever taken.
“Yes?” A woman in a yellow cashmere sweater opened the door. She was wearing a string of pearls, and had blond hair that had been “assisted” in keeping its color, and she looked as though she was in her mid fifties. But she looked pleasantly at Gabriella. “May I help you?” Gabriella looked like a runaway with her blond hair tousled by the wind, her big blue eyes, and her suitcase, and she looked younger than her twenty-three years. The woman who opened the door had no idea who she was, as Gabriella asked politely for “Mrs. Waterford” and then looked stunned when the woman said she was. She had come to the wrong house after all, obviously a different Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waterford lived here. “I'm sorry,” the woman said pleasantly, when