"Is Nathaniel with you?"
"No." Gabriele was disappointed.
"You haven't contacted that boy in all this time?"
"No. I've tried so many times but it gets me nowhere. I was hoping he would contact me on his own. Obviously he is not there with you, but maybe he has given you Janet's number."
"Janet?"
"It's a long story." This call was another dead end.
"He set fire to the house. We sent him back two weeks after he came. We don't want to see him back here again. I don't know where he is at—Janet or whoever he is with. No wonder he hates everybody with a mother abandoning him."
"I didn't abandon him; but since when were you so worried about condemning abandonment. My parents just went on a working trip forever and to you they are remarkable people; I was shipped off to you, and your old fart of a husband."
"What did you call him?"
Gabriele laughed. "Let's forget the past. It shapes us but doesn't behead us, so to speak. You clothed me, sheltered me, and gave me food."