"There - there was this one man -" she choked on her words, and she started to cry, fighting back the tears she forced herself to continue. "Who used to come to the market, just to buy fish from me. He . . . he wore a mask because . . . well I caught a glimpse of him one day when his head was turned . . . the whole bottom of his face was gone . . . I could see his upper teeth, and below it this horrible, gaping hole -"
"Alannah, don't" Anya said softly, getting off the bed and putting her arms around the weeping girl.
Trembling with emotion, Alannah put her arms around her friend - but she didn't stop telling the story.
"The man . . . the part of his face that I could see . . . they tried to mold the mask after what his face would have looked like. He . . . I could tell that he was such a fine, handsome young man . . . and when he looked at me . . . oh, God! There was so much love and pain in his eyes, I felt so awful because I could barely stand the sight of him!
"He . . . he would stand there and stare at me…there was this desperate hope in his eyes . . . I could tell that all he wanted was for me, for anyone, to look beyond his disfigurement and give him love and care for him! But I couldn't, I just couldn't. I would lay in bed at night, telling myself that I would get up the next morning and talk to him, tell him that he was special and that he would find love. I felt that I had to, if only to atone in some small way for what my father had done. But by morning my resolve would disappear, and I would get up and go to work, as I did every day, and things would remain the same. My father did that to those poor people, my father is a monster as much as those men are in that asylum.
"I'm sorry!" she said contritely, pulling away from Anya and wiping the tears from her face. "I've left tear stains all over your dress…"
"Don't you worry about a thing, this is nothing compared to baby messes!" Anya replied. "Just wait until you have a baby of your own, and then you shall see what I am talking about." She gave Alannah a concerned look. "Is this why you have concerns about marrying Dominic?"
Alannah squirmed uncomfortably when Anya asked that question, she was silent for quite a while and then nodded and said, "I suppose it is, I never thought of it like that until now. When I look at him and the way he looks at me . . . oh, Anya, I can't help but remember the man from the asylum, and how he longed for me to love him. I feel so horrible for running away and I fell guilty for not even talking to him, not even saying hello just once. What if he could have been the one? What if he really was a sweet man underneath?"