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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.

249

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.