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words, that it had been only a young widow's hysteria.

Connie Corleone easily found a new husband; in fact, she did not wait the year of

respect before filling her bed again with a fine young fellow who had come to work for

the Corleone Family as a male secretary. A boy from a reliable Italian family but

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graduated from the top business college in America. Naturally his marriage to the sister

of the Don made his future assured.

Kay Adams Corleone had delighted her in-laws by taking instruction in the Catholic

religion and joining that faith. Her two boys were also, naturally, being brought up in that

church, as was required. Michael himself had not been too pleased by this development.

He would have preferred the children to be Protestant, it was more American.

To her surprise, Kay came to love living in Nevada. She loved the scenery, the hills

and canyons of garishly red rock, the burning deserts, the unexpected and blessedly

refreshing lakes, even the heat. Her two boys rode their own ponies. She had real

servants, not bodyguards. And Michael lived a more normal life. He owned a

construction business; he joined the businessmen's clubs and civic committees; he had

a healthy interest in local politics without interfering publicly. It was a good life. Kay was

happy that they were closing down their New York house and that Las Vegas would be

truly their permanent home. She hated coming back to New York. And so on this last

trip she had arranged all the packing and shipping of goods with the utmost efficiency

and speed, and now on the final day she felt that same urgency to leave that longtime

patients feel when it is time to be discharged from the hospital.

On that final day, Kay Adams Corleone woke at dawn. She could hear the roar of the

truck motors outside on the mall. The trucks that would empty all the houses of furniture.

The Corleone Family would be flying back to Las Vegas in the afternoon, including

Mama Corleone.

When Kay came out of the bathroom, Michael was propped up on his pillow smoking

a cigarette. "Why the hell do you have to go to church every morning?" he said. "I don't

mind Sundays, but why the hell during the week? You're as bad as my mother." He

reached over in the darkness and switched on the tablelight.

Kay sat at the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings. "You know how converted

Catholics are," she said. "They take it more seriously."

Michael reached over to touch her thigh, on the warm skin where the top of her nylon

hose ended. "Don't," she said. "I'm taking Communion this morning."

He didn't try to hold her when she got up from the bed. He said, smiling slightly, "If

you're such a strict Catholic, how come you let the kids duck going to church so much?"

She felt uncomfortable and she was wary. He was studying her with what she thought

of privately as his "Don's" eye. "They have plenty of time," she said. "When we get back

home, I'll make them attend more."

She kissed him good-bye before she left. Outside the house the air was already

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getting warm. The summer sun rising in the east was red. Kay walked to where her car

was parked near the gates of the mall. Mama Corleone, dressed in her widow black,

was already sitting in it, waiting for her. It had become a set routine, early Mass, every

morning, together.

Kay kissed the old woman's wrinkled cheek, then got behind the wheel.

Mama Corleone asked suspiciously, "You eata breakfast?"

"No," Kay said.

The old woman nodded her head approvingly. Kay had once forgotten that it was

forbidden to take food from midnight on before receiving Holy Communion. That had

been a long time ago, but Mama Corleone never trusted her after that and always

checked. "You feel all right?" the old woman asked.

"Yes," Kay said.

The church was small and desolate in the early morning sunlight. Its stained-glass

windows shielded the interior from heat, it would be cool there, a place to rest. Kay

helped her mother-in-law up the white stone steps and then let her go before her. The

old woman preferred a pew up front, close to the altar. Kay waited on the steps for an

extra minute. She was always reluctant at this last moment, always a little fearful.

Finally she entered the cool darkness. She took the holy water on her fingertips and

made the sign of the cross, fleetingly touched her wet fingertips to her parched lips.

Candles flickered redly before the saints, the Christ on his cross. Kay genuflected

before entering her row and then knelt on the hard wooden rail of the pew to wait for her

call to Communion. She bowed her head as if she were praying, but she was not quite

ready for that.

It was only here in these dim, vaulted churches that she allowed herself to think about

her husband's other life. About that terrible night a year ago when he had deliberately

used all their trust and love in each other to make her believe his lie that he had not

killed his sister's husband.

She had left him because of that lie, not because of the deed. The next morning she

had taken the children away with her to her parents' house in New Hampshire. Without

a word to anyone, without really knowing what action she meant to take. Michael had

immediately understood. He had called her the first day and then left her alone. It was a

week before the limousine from New York pulled up in front of her house with Tom

Hagen.

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She had spent a long terrible afternoon with Tom Hagen, the most terrible afternoon

of her life. They had gone for a walk in the woods outside her little town and Hagen had

not been gentle.

Kay had made the mistake of trying to be cruelly flippant, a role to which she was not

suited. "Did Mike send you up here to threaten me?" she asked. "I expected to see

some of the 'boys' get out of the car with their machine guns to make me go back."

For the first time since she had known him, she saw Hagen angry. He said harshly,

"That's the worst kind of juvenile crap I've ever heard. I never expected that from a

woman like you. Come on, Kay."

"All right," she said.

They walked along the green country road. Hagen asked quietly, "Why did you run

away?"

Kay said, "Because Michael lied to me. Because he made a fool of me when he stood

Godfather to Connie's boy. He betrayed me. I can't love a man like that. I can't live with

it. I can't let him be father to my children."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hagen said.

She turned on him with now-justified rage. "I mean that he killed his sister's husband.

Do you understand that?" She paused for a moment. "And he lied to me."

They walked on for a long time in silence. Finally Hagen said, "You have no way of

really knowing that's all true. But just for the sake of argument let's assume that it's true.

I'm not saying it is, remember. But what if I gave you what might be some justification

for what he did. Or rather some possible justifications?"

Kay looked at him scornfully. "That's the first time I've seen the lawyer side of you,

Tom. It's not your best side."

Hagen grinned. "OK. Just hear me out. What if Carlo had put Sonny on the spot,

fingered him. What if Carlo beating up Connie that time was a deliberate plot to get

Sonny out in the open, that they knew he would take the route over the Jones Beach

Causeway? What if Carlo had been paid to help get Sonny killed? Then what?"

Kay didn't answer. Hagen went on. "And what if the Don, a great man, couldn't bring

himself to do what he had to do, avenge his son's death by killing his daughter's

husband? What if that, finally, was too much for him, and he made Michael his

successor, knowing that Michael would take that load off his shoulders, would take that

guilt?"

"It was all over with," Kay said, tears springing into her eyes. "Everybody was happy.

Why couldn't Carlo be forgiven? Why couldn't everything go on and everybody forget?"

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She had led across a meadow to a tree-shaded brook. Hagen sank down on the grass

and sighed. He looked around, sighed again and said, "In this world you could do it."

Kay said, "He's not the man I married."

Hagen laughed shortly. "If he were, he'd be dead now. You'd be a widow now. You'd

have no problem."

Kay blazed out at him. "What the hell does that mean? Come on, Tom, speak out

straight once in your life. I know Michael can't, but you're not Sicilian, you can tell a

woman the truth, you can treat her like an equal, a fellow human being."

There was another long silence. Hagen shook his head. "You've got Mike wrong.

You're mad because he lied to you. Well, he warned you never to ask him about

business. You're mad because he was Godfather to Carlo's boy. But you made him do

that. Actually it was the right move for him to make if he was going to take action

against Carlo. The classical tactical move to win the victim's trust." Hagen gave her a

grim smile. "Is that straight enough talk for you?" But Kay bowed her head.

Hagen went on. "I'll give you some more straight talk. After the Don died, Mike was

set up to be killed. Do you know who set him up? Tessio. So Tessio had to be killed.

Carlo had to be killed. Because treachery can't be forgiven. Michael could have forgiven

it, but people never forgive themselves and so they would always be dangerous.

Michael really liked Tessio. He loves his sister. But he would be shirking his duty to you

and his children, to his whole family, to me and my family, if he let Tessio and Carlo go

free. They would have been a danger to us all, all our lives."

Kay had been listening to this with tears running down her face. "Is that what Michael

sent you up here to tell me?"

Hagen looked at her in genuine surprise. "No," he said.

"He told me to tell you you could have everything you want and do everything you

want as long as you take good care of the kids." Hagen smiled. "He said to tell you that

you're his Don. That's just a joke."

Kay put her hand on Hagen's arm. "He didn't order you to tell me all the other things?"

Hagen hesitated a moment as if debating whether to tell her a final truth. "You still

don't understand," he said. "If you told Michael what I've told you today, I'm a dead

man." He paused again. "You and the children are the only people on this earth he

couldn't harm."

It was a long five minutes after that Kay rose from the grass and they started walking

back to the house. When they were almost there, Kay said to Hagen, "After supper, can

you drive me and the kids to New York in your car?"

"That's what I came for," Hagen said.

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A week after she returned to Michael she went to a priest for instruction to become a

Catholic.

From the innermost recess of the church the bell tolled for repentance. As she had

been taught to do, Kay struck her breast lightly with her clenched hand, the stroke of

repentance. The bell tolled again and there was the shuffling of feet as the

communicants left their seats to go to the altar rail. Kay rose to join them. She knelt at

the altar and from the depths of the church the bell tolled again. With her closed hand

she struck her heart once more. The priest was before her. She tilted back her head

and opened her mouth to receive the papery thin wafer. This was the most terrible

moment of all. Until it melted away and she could swallow and she could do what she

came to do.

Washed clean of sin, a favored supplicant, she bowed her head and folded her hands

over the altar rail. She shifted her body to make her weight less punishing to her knees.

She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all

rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to

be heard, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the

necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.