...And Never Let HerGo

little more power over both of them.
    On another occasion, Tom urged Debby to have lunch with Keith and then bring him back to her house and seduce him so that he could watch. She did have lunch with Keith, but neither of them wanted to take it any further than that, although Keith went on being Tom’s friend—at least nominally.
    Tom’s sexual appetites had always been, at the least, unusual, and Debby had always tried to accommodate him. She had had little sexual experience before her years with Tom and wasn’t sure if he was asking for more than most men would. They were very open with each other, and she felt somewhat secure in believing that, for him, she was the female in his life, and that she pleased him.
    Both Debby and Keith Brady were mortified by their one intimate encounter, but there was no reason to think anyone would ever know about it. Keith went on to become the second in command in the Delaware Attorney General’s Office. He was married and had children. Debby wondered sometimes why Tom urged people out of their safe worlds and put them into positions where they were caught in horrible, unforgettable acts. Maybe it made him feel stronger. He often told Debby that she had no self-esteem, railed at her for being so deficient, and then set about tearing her down. When she protested, Tom backed off and insisted he was only trying to help her.
    After so many years, Tom and Debby still spoke on the phone a couple of times a day, and they were together on Wednesday nights. They had a favorite song, “Sailing,” by Christopher Cross. Maybe they liked it because it made love sound so easy, without any of the complications that it had in the real world. They couldn’t be seen together in Wilmington, but Tom took Debby to dinner in restaurants in Little Italy in Philadelphia. His favorite was a place called Villa d’ Roma. “We never ran into anyone we knew,” she recalled. “It was ‘our spot.’ It was very small, but the food was good, and I loved going there.”
    Tom was obsessed with hiding their relationship, and Debby thought it was because of his prominence in city government and because he wanted to protect Kay and his girls. Of course, it was unthinkable that they could go out to dinner in Wilmington. Every time they met accidentally in Wilmington, they had to pretend. As far as Debby knew, even Tom’s brothers had no idea that he was involved with her.
    Tom had never taken Debby on a real trip. When she traveled, she was alone with her children. She was surprised and delighted when he asked her if she would like to go to Montreal with him in April 1994. There was a law seminar he had to attend, but he assuredher he would have a lot of free time, too. Tom explained that she couldn’t actually go
with
him, of course, on the flight; they would have to travel separately. “He went up first,” Debby recalled, “and then I came up. I lied to my family as to where I was going, which I’m not proud of. But it was wonderful. I loved Montreal. We walked all over—we had a really good time.”
    In all of their years together, Debby had never been with Tom for two days in a row. Now they were in another country, another world, and she knew he wasn’t going to go away in a few hours. “It was so wonderful,” she said.
    Coming home, there was a reservations mix-up, which meant they had to fly back to Philadelphia on the same plane. But Tom was very concerned that they might be seen together on the flight. “He told me there was a woman lawyer there whom he knew,” Debby said, “and he didn’t want to chance her seeing us together, so I had to sit in another seat, far away from him. It made me feel like,
What am I doing here, anyway?”
    The flight from Montreal was so lonely that Debby had trouble hanging on to the blissful memories of their time together in Montreal. But when they got to Philadelphia, Tom asked her if she wanted to go out to dinner before they drove to Wilmington, and that made her feel better. He took her to a new place—the Panorama. It was an upscale Italian restaurant, very intimate, with the ceiling and walls draped in swaths of cloth so that it seemed as if patrons were dining in an elegant and sensuous boudoir. The maître d’ said there was just one table for two left, right near the kitchen, and led them ceremoniously to be seated.
    The food was delicious and their meal was very pleasant. Debby felt so much better about the trip; Tom wasn’t brushing her