That night, she’d brought out her grandmother’s crucifix with the candles and the holy water. She had lit the candles, and opening the plastic bottle filled with holy water, had proceeded to methodically sprinkle the water, murmuring a blessing, on every single object in her bedroom. It took her about twenty minutes to accomplish this, during which time a small part of her stood apart and wondered at what she was doing.
Once it was done, she lay on her bed and presently fell into a deep slumber. The very next morning, she enrolled in an online catechism course. Before long, she had found an orthodox Catholic priest to be her spiritual director.
When she’d moved to be closer to Dyson, the priest had recommended a good Catholic parish in Dallas. There, in that unassuming church filled with families speaking with an unfamiliar Texas drawl, she had heard the first Latin Mass since her youth. Entranced, she became a regular figure in the pews, for devotions, for benedictions, for a constant 54 day novena to our Lady of Pompeii that she recited, begging for her husband’s early release and for protection for her family.
This was how Michelle survived Dyson’s imprisonment.
Now that the ordeal was over, Michelle’s tears had splashed onto her knees on the hard wooden kneeler in the confessional at St. Peter’s. The priest had responded with
deep sympathy. “Coraggio,
signora. Coraggio.”
Later, as she knelt saying her penance, Michelle basked in the emotional release -- a cleansing, really – that she’d experienced by opening her heart to a humble priest as an anonymous sinner.
She actually felt she could trust his judgment, unlike shrinks or friends or even family, for whom she was always the tycoon’s wife.
People were funny about rich people, she had learned long ago. Mostly, they told Michelle what they thought she wanted to hear.
It had a coruscating effect on her opinion of other human beings, leaving her wary of the motivations of basically everyone. Except Dyson and her children, of course.
In addition to Sister Mary Benedicta, there was their eldest daughter Stacey, married to a senior intelligence officer stationed in East Anglia.
Their youngest was Patrick Edward, who like his father had early on shown signs of a maverick’s distaste for boarding school education amid the privileged lives of America’s elite. Unfortunately, this phase of Patrick’s life had coincided with his father’ public humiliation at the hands of the Washington prosecutor.
Though most of his school friends were blissfully ignorant of the goings-on outside the confines of their co-ed school in verdant New England, a few were not. Of these, most remained staunchly supportive of Pat.
REGINA | 94