Amazing Grace by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

by then. Most people had either gone to the shelter or decided to go home. He never saw Melanie again, but wasn't worried about her. The ambulances had left with the critically injured, and the firemen seemed to have things in good control. They could hear sirens in the distance, and Everett assumed fires had broken out, and water mains had broken, so they were going to have a tough time fighting the fires. He followed the little woman doggedly as he accompanied her home. They walked up California Street, then down Nob Hill, heading south. They passed Union Square, and eventually turned right and headed west on O'Farrell. They were both shocked to see that almost all the windows in the department stores on Union Square had popped out and broken on the street. And there was a similar scene outside the St. Francis Hotel to the one they had just left at the Ritz. The hotels had been emptied, and people had been directed to shelters. It took them half an hour to reach where she lived.
    People were standing around on the street, and looked markedly different here. They were shabbily dressed, some were still high on drugs, others looked scared. Store windows had shattered, drunks were lying in the street, and a cluster of prostitutes were huddling close together. Everett was intrigued to note that almost everyone seemed to know Maggie. She stopped and talked to them, inquiring how everyone was doing, if people had gotten hurt, if help had come, and how the neighborhood was faring. They chatted animatedly with her, and eventually she and Everett sat down in a doorway on a stoop. It was nearly five A.M. by then, and Maggie didn't even look tired.
    “Who are you?” he asked, fascinated by her. “I feel like I'm in some kind of strange movie, with an angel who came to earth, and maybe no one can see you but me.” She laughed at his description of her and reminded him that no one else was having a problem seeing her. She was real, human, and entirely visible, as any of the hookers on the street would have agreed.
    “Maybe the answer to your question is a what, not a who,” she said comfortably, wishing she could get out of her habit. It was just a plain, ugly black dress, but she was missing her jeans. From what she could see, her building had been shaken up but not damaged dangerously, and there was nothing to stop her from going in. Firemen and police were not directing people to shelters here.
    “What does that mean?” Everett asked, looking puzzled. He was tired. It had been a long night for both of them, but she looked fresh as a rose, and a lot livelier than she had at the benefit.
    “I'm a nun,” she said simply. “These are the people I work with and take care of. I do most of my work on the streets. All of it, in fact. I've lived here for nearly ten years.”
    “You're a nun ?” he asked her with a look of amazement. “Why didn't you tell me?”
    “I don't know.” She shrugged comfortably, perfectly at ease talking to him, particularly here on the street. This was the world she knew best, far better than any ballroom. “I didn't think about it. Does it make a difference?”
    “Hell, yes …I mean no,” he corrected himself, and then thought about it further. “I mean yes … of course it makes a difference. That's a really important detail about you. You're a very interesting person, particularly if you live here. Don't you live in a convent, or something?”
    “No, mine disbanded years ago. There weren't enough nuns here in my order to justify keeping the convent going. They turned it into a school. The diocese gives all of us an allowance, and we live in apartments. Some of the nuns live in twos or threes, but no one wanted to live here with me.” She grinned at him. “They wanted to live in better neighborhoods. My work is here. This is my mission.”
    “What's your real name?” he asked, totally intrigued now. “I mean your nun name.”
    “Sister Mary Magdalen,” she said gently.
    “I'm utterly