The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

Chapter Thirty-One





ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1931



MARIA could not bear sitting in the confessional again—not with Father Donnegal—so she waited in a pew four rows back from the altar. She knew he saw her, and that he waited for the church to empty. She’d chosen a slow time—two o’clock in the afternoon—to better her chances of speaking with him alone. Maria sat there for almost an hour, breathing in the stillness, listening to the cathedral settle beneath the weight of decades. As the sun shifted diagonally through the stained-glass windows and flooded the nave with pools of blue light, the last parishioner rose from one of the side altars. The old woman looked at her watch and seemed startled at the time. She blinked into the shadows and hurried from the church, jacket buttoned up to her neck. Once they were alone, Finn lurched his way toward Maria.

He dropped into the space beside her. Nodded. Waited for her to speak.

Maria wrapped her arms around her chest. She rocked back and forth in the pew. When the words finally came, she choked on them. “I can’t have children.”

Finn sat still for a long time, eyes on the altar, and Maria was afraid he would give her some religious platitude, that he would try to comfort her. But he didn’t.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was a whisper, and Maria heard the shared grief of a true friend. “I’ve always thought you would be a wonderful mother.”

“It’s a fitting punishment. For what I’ve done.”

Finn controlled his voice, dropped it lower. “What kind of God do you believe in? He didn’t give you cancer.”

She jerked her head to the side. “How do you know about that?”

“Jude told me.”

“He came to see you?”

“Many times.”

She snorted. “I thought you didn’t share what’s spoken in the confessional?”

“He wasn’t confessing.” Finn patted the smooth surface of the pew between them. “He was crying. Right here.”

Maria turned away. Blinked. Swallowed the hard lump of remorse that rose in her throat.

“A man’s sorrow is different than his sin, yes? My calling makes me privy to both.” Finn wrapped his hand around hers. It was cool, and the tips of his fingers were rough from worrying his rosary. “Cancer is not some divine currency, Maria, meted out as punishment.”

“I’ve done more than you know.”

“You’ve done nothing to earn this.”

Maria made herself small in the pew, lowered her shoulders, and hung her head. She was hollowed out, flesh and bone wrapped around emptiness. “I manipulated that promotion for Jude and never told him because I wanted him to think he’d earned it on his own. Then I found Mr. Crater in bed with a showgirl and I kept the truth from his wife. That money I stole from the Craters? I saw Jude plant it there—forced to do so because of my meddling—and I told no one about it. When his partner came to threaten me into silence, I kept that from Jude as well. And then”—Maria gave Father Donnegal a desperate look—“I used that money to bribe Mr. Crater’s mistress to let me have her baby. At this very moment, she’s hidden at my parents’ house until she gives birth. This too I have kept from Jude. I have lied. Stolen. Bribed. And manipulated my way for months. So please do not tell me that I have done nothing to deserve a barren womb. I deserve far worse.”

Finn laid his hand on top of her head. They sat long in the pew as he whispered prayers in Latin, fervent, desperate, and somehow more powerful in their foreignness, as though he spoke God’s own language. Maria rested beneath the weight of his hand, gathered the words into her heart. Believed them, though she did not understand them, because they were too abundant for her.

The front doors creaked open behind them, and Finn pulled away. Footsteps rang hollow down the side of the nave. Someone struck a match. Coughed. And then the murmur of divine supplication.

“What is my penance, Father?” she whispered.

“You have punished yourself enough already. God wants nothing but your repentance. And that you have freely given.”

“There is more,” she whispered. Maria picked her last secret from the darkest corner of her mind. She readied herself to speak it, to rid herself of its terrible weight. “But you will not believe me capable of such a thing.”

CLUB ABBEY, SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1930

Maria picked her way down the steps, her hand on the brick wall for balance. She shifted a little to the side, unsteady in the high heels and fitted black dress. Her small black hat had a netted veil that covered her eyes, good for anonymity but bad for vision in the dim stairwell. Her ankles wobbled as she descended, and her breath caught in her throat when she reached the bottom. In the shadows, next to the unmarked door, was a short man in a bowler hat, one leg propped on the wall behind him, chewing on a toothpick.


“Whatcha need, dollface?”

She nodded at the door. Nervously rubbed her lips together. The extra coat of ruby lipstick she’d applied in the cab felt like grease on her lips.

He looked her over, assessing the hand-me-down designer dress, her full lips, her bare calves. Rolled the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Gotta password?”

Maria kept her eyes averted. She repeated the password she’d learned earlier that day. “Gold digger.”

He grinned. Pushed the door open with one hand. Tipped his hat as she walked through.

Ten o’clock. She’d timed it carefully. Late enough for all the right people to be here but not so late that it was rowdy. She’d been warned. It got rowdy at midnight. Besides, Jude might be home from work by then. His hours had gotten erratic since the promotion. Sometimes home by dinner. Sometimes home in the middle of the night. Maria went out of her way not to make a fuss, to welcome him home regardless of the hour. She’d taken Mr. Crater’s warning to heart.

Maria didn’t have a purse to match the dress. No fancy beaded clutch or velvet shoulder bag. Only her old canvas purse, tucked against her side. She pulled the sealed envelope out as she approached the bar. Owney Madden was carefully printed on the front.

The bartender was redheaded and freckled and seemed far too young for the job. He lined up three glasses, dumped a handful of ice into each, and ran a bottle of liquor over the tops without so much as a slosh. With an experienced flick of the wrist, he sent them sliding down the bar to a group of men huddled at the end.

Maria laid the envelope flat on the bar. She didn’t sit.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Take this to your boss.” She pushed the envelope toward him.

He squinted at her face, trying to make out details.

Maria lowered her eyes.

“Take it yourself. He’s over there.”

She was careful not to look, showed nothing but her back. “I’d rather not.”

“You sure? He’s watching you anyway.”

“My only business with your employer is in that envelope. I’d be grateful if you would deliver it for me.”

“I’d be grateful to know your name. Seeing as how he’s gonna ask.”

“My name,” Maria said, taking a step backward, “is not important.”

Stan lifted the envelope from the varnished mahogany bar. Tapped it a couple of times. “Suit yourself. Just know Owney don’t like secrets. Has a way of figuring things out.”