Danielle Steel - The long road home

“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 want to protect her. But all he could do now was listen.

“They were very good to me. I loved it, and I was very happy.”

“Then why did you leave?” There was so much to learn about her. And he wanted to know so much more about her.

“I had to leave. I did a terrible thing, and they couldn't let me stay.” In the past year, she had come to accept that, although she knew she would never be able to forgive herself completely.

“How terrible could it have been?” he said lightly. “What did you do? Steal another nun's habit?”

“A man died because of me. I cost him his life. It's something I will have to live with. Always.”

He didn't know what to say to her for a moment. “Was it an accident?” It must have been. She would never have killed anyone. As little as he knew her, he knew she couldn't. But she was looking long and hard at him, wondering just how much she could trust him. And for some odd reason, she knew she could trust him completely. She could feel it in him, and see it in his eyes as he watched her.

“He committed suicide because of me. He was a priest, and we were in love with each other. I was having his baby.” Peter looked at her in silent amazement. She had been to hell and back, and then some.

“How long ago was that?” Although he was not sure it really mattered.

“A year ago. Eleven months, actually. I don't know how it happened. I'd never looked at a man before. I don't think either of us understood what we were doing, until too late. It went on for three months. We were going to leave together. But he couldn't. He couldn't leave. It was the only life he'd ever known, and he had his own demons to live with. He couldn't bring himself to leave, and he couldn't leave me. So he killed himself, and left me a letter to explain it.”

“And the baby?” he asked, holding her hand tightly in his own, and desperately wanting to put his arms around her.

“I lost it.” It was all a blur now, a surrealistic impression of tragedy that always made her heart feel as though someone had just squeezed it. “It was last September.”

“And now this. This hasn't been much of a year for you, Gabbie, has it?” It hadn't been much of a life for her before that either, parents who beat her, abandoned her in a convent, and a man who committed suicide rather than stand by her and her baby. It was a lot to live with. He was amazed that she had survived it.

“This was different,” she said about Steve. “In a funny way, it was more straightforward. I felt used by him, and betrayed, and it hurt terribly when I first found out, but I don't think I ever really loved him. I was just in a very awkward situation. Looking back, I realize he set me up right from the beginning.”

“You were easy prey for him,” Peter said sensibly, looking at her, appreciating who she was and what she had been through. “I hope he gets a hell of a long sentence.” He was relieved to know that the police seemed to think that was more than likely. “What are you going to do now?” he asked her, thinking about her.

“I don't know… write… work… start over… be smarter… I had a lot to learn when I came out of the convent. I had never been out in the world before, it's such an unreal life in there, so sheltered and protected. I think that's what frightened Joe. He didn't know how to survive without that.” But as far as Peter was concerned, suicide was not an option. Joe had left her alone to face the music herself, and be blamed for his death. It was only a solution for a weak, selfish man, and Peter didn't admire him for it, though he said nothing to Gabbie.

“You need time to heal,” he said quietly, “not just from this. But from all of it. You've already been through ten lifetimes,” and none of them had been easy.

“Writing does that for me. It's been wonderful for me. The professor I told you about really helped me, he opened doors for me I never knew were there, into my heart and my mind, into the places I need to speak from, especially for my writing.”

“I'm not sure someone else can do that for you. I think it's within you, Gabbie, and probably always was. Maybe he just showed you where the key was.”

“Maybe,” she said, and a few minutes later one of the nurses came in. A four-year-old had been in a car accident without a seat belt.

“Oh God, I hate these,” he said, looking at her longingly. He would have liked to talk to her forever. He left her and told her he would see her in the morning.

And after he left, she lay in bed, thinking about him, surprised at the things she had told him. He knew it all now. And he had been so easy to talk to.

He came by later that night, and glanced into her room, and she was fast asleep. He stood looking at her for a long time, and then went back to the supply room to lie on the gurney. But the things she had told him kept him from sleeping. He wondered how any one human being could endure so much pain and disappointment, and why they would ever have to. It was a question she had often asked herself, and to which neither of them had an answer.