The Reverend Thomas McManus, former auxiliary bishop of the Arch Diocese of Brooklyn, was dying of the pancreatic cancer that had eaten from that organ into the rest of his pain-racked body. Every twenty minutes, the little drug-dispensing machine would whirl a revolution and dispense a drop of morphine into his IV drip. Morphine and the small female hand laid over his were his only pain relief.
The hand belonged to Maryann, who had been, in every physical sense, Mrs. McManus for the last thirty years. She had even legally changed her last name so that the two sons and a daughter she bore the bishop would carry their father's name. Thomas was 73 years old and had retired a year before his cancer was discovered; Maryanne was only just fifty. As a mere girl of nineteen, she had fallen under the spell of the worldly priest.
As was the custom in North America, she carried the title of housekeeper. Thomas was a bishop under the Diocesan Cardinal. Thomas, a man of considerable wealth, maintained a house on Congress Street in Brooklyn's fashionable Cobble Hill neighborhood. His woman and their children ostensibly resided in their own apartment, but this was a mere show.
Maryann McManus was in constant attendance at the hospital bed of the man she considered her husband. He was a good man who had provided for his children. A man's man who was better for having a family to love and care for—and to love and care for him in return. A part of Maryann's soul was dying in the bed she sat beside, but her fifty-year-old body was in good health and potentially had many long years of widowhood ahead of it.
Most women in Maryann's situation were a bit naive. It is hard not to be. It takes a romantic woman, deeply in love, to live in the shadows for her man.
"You live," as one cardinal's wife told Maryann "as the other woman in a one-woman relationship."
Women like Maryann are an inconvenient necessity to the Holy Church. They are lovers who give without restriction or expectation. Easy victims for a ruthless and hypocritical Church hierarchy. But, in her case, Maryann had traveled extensively. She was the kind of woman you could take anywhere. She was beautiful, in a natural, American girl way, with a social sophistication which was only surprising if you did not know that she was a prodigy who had entered Vassar College at sixteen and graduated early and with honors at 19.
Bishop McManus had taken his Maryann to Rome six times. One stay had lasted more than a year. Maryann had mingled with other women like herself, hidden women, bound to priests. But European women are not so reticent or embarrassed as to not speak of their situations, especially amongst themselves.
She had heard stories from her European sisters. Unpleasant tales of inheritances lost, children abandoned, and women left in destitution. She knew the fate the Church had in mind for her, and she had taken precautions. Thomas McManus was rich, even by American standards. The son of a prominent Irish-American family, he had never been in want. His lifestyle was never less than comfortable. Maryann had no intention of being turned out on the street or trading her lavish Cobble Hill residence for a public assistance apartment in Yonkers.
Maryann had suffered a life of being a housemaid in her own home, but she had taken steps to protect the Bishop's wealth from the avarice of the Church. She made safe his valuable papers. She documented her children's paternity indisputably, as only a modern woman can. But most importantly, she had the file. That surprising file she found in her husband's hidden wall safe on the day he entered the King's County Medical Center for the last time.
On that day, she had burgled Tom McManus's home office safe. It was a preemptive strike on her part, a step taken before she called the ambulance. She was not supposed to have the combination or know the safe existed, but she had cracked those problems sometime before. Following the script from a movie, she dusted the number keys with fingerprint powder. Given a set of four numbers, it was easy to recognize her daughter's birthday. It was, in fact, a six-digit code—but two numbers repeat in 12/15/92.
The legal-sized file appeared at once out of place, its content confusing until the names began to fall into place, and she recognized it for the powerful and dangerous object it was. Why Thomas should have it was a mystery; until she realized that his safe was merely acting as the priest hole. The hiding place for a document too valuable to destroy and too risky to keep anywhere you might expect to find it. A document that could destroy the holder as easily and surely as its intended target. A distressing catalog of malfeasance set aside for a time of extreme need.
With her secret file, Maryann McManus felt she could weather any storm that came, no matter how high the wind blew. But she also felt guilt for holding a record that had only one, immoral use. She was a good woman in a difficult circumstance. Caught between protecting herself and her family and her conscience; a choice clouded by the very nature of what she held. What the file contained was at once powerful and evil. To hold it was somehow to accept the sins it documented. To destroy the file was to conceal the sins it contained, and yet, to give it to anyone was unthinkable.
****
Susan Fitzgerald Singleton arrived at the Governor's Ball on the arm of the tall, handsome Anthony Greco. The black, backless Dior dress, with its plunging V-neckline, announced that the best-looking woman in the room had arrived. The emeralds she wore, borrowed from her mother, said she was also one of the richest.
Tony was as proud as a peacock as he ushered the object of every pair of eyes toward the ostensible center of attention, the Governor of New York.
Edward Kincade, the governor, smiled as he greeted his new personal press secretary and whispered, "Is this how you intend to get me attention? Just stand next to me?"
"Why, Governor, I'm merely reflecting your glory," Susan replied.
"No, I assure you, the moon is forgotten when the sun rises," and, then, in a louder voice, "Tony, so good of you to fill in for Mrs. Fitzgerald's husband. We would have been truly deprived without her attendance."
The governor noted the brief flicker of displeasure that crossed Tony Greco's face at the mention of his rival. Steven Fitzgerald didn't rate an invitation to such an exclusive gathering of the rich, powerful, and famous. Steven had, in most people's view, had his fifteen minutes of fame the month before, with his surprise win in the Hamilton murder trial. But he remained the woman's husband. It just would not do to blatantly throw her affair with Greco in people's faces. Known it might be, but a line of deniability needed to be maintained.
