...And Never Let HerGo

made her peace with the way her life had turned out. “I finally came to some level of happiness,” she said, “thinking, Look at the good he’s brought me. Look at how he’s made me feel about myself. He’s always there for me.” If she and Tom were not meant to be together as a couple free to walk in the bright sunlight of public awareness, at least she knew she was
special
to him. And from the time she was a very little girl, all Debby had ever longed for was to be special to someone.
    One of the topics that raised Tom’s ire was Tatnall School. Debby had long since moved up into an administrative job. She ran the before- and after-school programs, and for five years the entire summer program. She was very efficient, worked long hours, and took pride in her work at Tatnall. But Tom often pointed out that she worked too much overtime and got too little pay and respect. He told her that she was always letting people walk all over her. “You are everybody’s doormat,” he said.
    “You’re right,” Debby would agree. “I
do
let people walk on me.”
    It became a self-fulfilling prophecy for her. Every time he told her she was too wishy-washy, she felt weaker and her achievements seemed less important. “And
he
treated me like a doormat,” Debby recalled. “He admitted it. He said, ‘Sometimes, I treat you like a doormat. I don’t mean to, Debby. You know that—but every once in a while, I do.’ ”
    In truth, he almost always treated her that way. As much as she loved him and depended on him, Debby often had the feeling she wasn’t smart enough, attractive enough, or worldly enough. Even though she did her best to anticipate his moods, she often irritated Tom because she had guessed wrong about what her response should be.
    Twelve years should have made her a little confident in their relationship—but she never was. Tom told Debby often that she shouldn’t be waiting around for him. She needed to have a life of herown and she should be seeing other men. He suggested that she go to bars and pick up men, and he seemed to have no jealousy about any physical relationship that might ensue. Rather, he told her he would love to hear about what she did with other men. When he talked like that, Debby felt sick. It was the ultimate rejection. He didn’t want her and was ready to palm her off on other men. Worse, he wanted the details. She tried to tell herself that he didn’t really mean it.
    But he did. There had been incidents that she tried never to think of. Sometime in the late eighties, after they had been together for several years, Tom encouraged Debby to accept a date with a former classmate who was in town from New England. “I would do what he wanted to compromise what was best for me lots of times,” she said ruefully.
    This was one of those times. At Tom’s instigation, Debby invited the man home and there was a sexual encounter, again following Tom’s instructions. Indeed, he was watching from the window. She didn’t understand why he would want to watch her with another man, or her own acquiescence in his voyeuristic fantasy. She tried to forget it had ever happened.
    About five years later, Tom set up another situation designed to end in a ménage à trois. Debby had been surprised when Tom showed up at her house with Keith Brady in tow one evening. Keith was the attorney who had replaced him as adviser to Governor Castle, four years younger than Tom and a tall, handsome man, with black hair. Tom had confided in Keith about his own extramarital affairs, telling him in particular about Debby and describing her as “a wonderful person I care very much about.”
    Tom and Keith had been golfing. They had had some drinks at the country club, and Tom poured several more at Debby’s house. It was an encounter orchestrated by Tom. At some point, he signaled to Debby and they moved to another room, where they made love. And then Tom asked her to approach Keith and do what was necessary to draw him into a sexual encounter. She didn’t want to do it, but like an automaton, Debby did as Tom asked. “I was afraid if I didn’t do it,” she said later, “he’d get angry and leave. Leave
me.”
    At Tom’s insistence, Debby performed oral sex on his friend, but Keith was as embarrassed as she was and failed to get an erection. It was a humiliating incident that would come back to haunt both of them. They tried to pretend nothing had ever happened between them. But Tom knew. It gave him a