...And Never Let HerGo

isn’t
my
fault. I tried to get Annie to take the job I set up with my brother, but she wouldn’t do it.”
    Siobhan knew about the job offer from Louie Capano, with the free apartment. Anne Marie told her that she had considered it—mostly because working in the governor’s office
was
very stressful, part of the job that Siobhan understood. “We had a lot of stress,” she said. “We probably had the most stress of anybody in the office. My stress would be safetywise, and Anne Marie’s stress level would be she had to make sure the schedule flowed correctly for the governor.”
    It was clear to Siobhan that Tom was checking up on Anne Marie, trying to find out where she was and who she was with. As it happened, Siobhan didn’t know. When she saw Anne Marie after the weekend, she mentioned that Tom had called her and paged her. “He was looking for you.”
    This was obviously not welcome news and Anne Marie’s cheeks flushed. Her usually cheerful voice was angry as she lookedat Siobhan. “He is a possessive, controlling maniac. I’m just getting tired of him!”
    Before Siobhan could say anything else, Anne Marie stormed out of her office and went back to her own desk.
    Anne Marie was the sunshine in the governor’s office, her laugh rising distinctively above all others. It was out of character for her to show her true feelings to anyone other than Siobhan, Ginny, or Jill, but occasionally others saw behind her mask.
    “I sometimes rode the elevator down with her,” a woman who knew her only by sight recalled. “There were times when she looked so forlorn, like a different woman. She didn’t know me, so maybe she let down her guard. I wondered what
she
could possibly have in her life to make her that sad.”

Chapter Fourteen
    T OM HAD , INDEED , left his wife. Kay and their four daughters had been living alone in the bishop’s residence on Seventeenth since September 1995. After twenty-three years of marriage, he had walked out. Since Kay
never
discussed problems in her marriage, friends could only speculate about why she and Tom had separated. Their split was shocking to a number of people in Wilmington. Tom had always been the steady, dependable Capano brother, and there were precious few people who knew about his affair with Anne Marie or even his fourteen-year relationship with Debby MacIntyre. Anne Marie and Debby still did not know about each other, and Kay appeared to be unaware of Tom’s infidelities. He was so meticulous about his secret lives that, even in a town where gossip spread like wildfire, Tom had maintained his reputation as a man who always smoothed things over for
other
people when they made mistakes.
    While he looked for a house to rent, Tom lived for a month in a wing of Louie’s mansion in Greenville. He still visited his daughters, and if Tom and Kay had any angry discussions, they had them in private. Tom’s world went on as it always had, only he had more freedom to come and go. He still saw Anne Marie, and he still saw Debby.
    It had been many years since Debby had any hope that she and Tom might be together as man and wife. He hadn’t told her that hewas leaving Kay—not until a few days before he actually left—and she was amazed and happy when he did. Their relationship had continued since 1982 with daily phone calls and physical intimacy at least one night a week and sometimes more often. Debby loved Tom; she had loved him for a very long time. She was in her mid-forties in 1995, although she hardly looked it. She was still trim and athletic and very attractive. She and Anne Marie—and Kay, too, for that matter—were physically three completely different types. Debby had short blond hair and was tiny, Anne Marie had long brown hair and stood close to six feet tall, and Kay was somewhere in between them in height, with olive skin and dark eyes and hair.
    All three were pretty, intelligent, and had good figures. They were all Catholic. But though they looked nothing alike, they all had something very important in common. Each was principally concerned with making other people happy before she thought of herself. The three women whom Tom encircled had all grown up in homes where alcohol caused problems that made children walk softly and try, at great lengths, to please and to appease.
    Had Tom known that, or had he just accidentally homed in on women who would sacrifice themselves to make him happy?
    D EBBY had never remarried. How could she when she was in