And Never Let Her Go (13 page)

Kay worked as a nurse-practitioner for a group of pediatricians, and Tom frowned on that. Their house wasn't as organized as he would have liked, and he hated the clutter of their busy lives. His mother had always stayed home and confined herself to taking care of her family, and that was the way it should be, at least in Tom's opinion.

As the girls grew older and were enrolled in Catholic school, there was always so much to do and so many places to go. The younger three were natural athletes, and Tom made a point of dropping in on their games, if only briefly. He had so many demands on his time, and yet as the pressures grew, he seemed only to become more adept at his personal balancing act. Marguerite still counted on him for all of her business affairs, and there had been innumerable problems with his youngest brother, Gerry.

Gerry Capano might as well have been born twenty years after his brothers; he was in a different generation, starting junior high in the seventies. Where his brothers had drunk beer as they cruised in Brandywine Hundred and at the shore, Gerry and his friends were experimenting with marijuana and numerous other drugs. His father had died when Gerry was at the height of adolescence, and his mother hadn't the faintest idea of how to deal with a teenage boy on her own.

Looking back, Tom figured that Gerry had begun using marijuana when he was attending St. Edmond's Academy, the private school for boys. He was only in the seventh or eighth grade then; Gerry himself admitted to drug use in high school, but none of the family really knew that his consumption of illegal and bizarre substances included everything from cocaine to methamphetamines and
LSD. Gerry was also an excitement junkie. The little kid with the long blond curls who everyone thought was so adorable was on the verge of running wild.

Gerry was no student, but his brothers pulled strings and persuaded the priests at Archmere Academy to admit him. It was a bad idea, according to Tom; the curriculum was too tough for him. “He was expelled for a drug-related matter,” Tom said, “before the end of his sophomore year, and I remember it was like a wake at our house—the priests who delivered the news actually came to the house to deliver it personally.”

Gerry transferred to Brandywine High but he was expelled from there, too, allegedly for dealing drugs. “And so I had to step in and handle it,” Tom said. “I hired who I thought was the best criminal defense attorney in town . . . and we went to Family Court expecting it to be a first offense . . . but they didn't fool around with it. And much to everybody's shock, we had a very strange judge. He was sentenced to Ferris School.”

Tom had hired Jack O'Donnell, an old friend, but it hadn't done much good in saving Gerry from being locked up. Marguerite was horrified at the thought of her baby going to such a place and she begged Tom to intervene. He managed to get his brother out of what was basically a reform school by agreeing to intensive psychological counseling for Gerry. Tom himself would have to drive his little brother to the appointments, although it “took a big chunk out of my days.”

They all pulled together. Louie went to New England to check out boarding schools for problem adolescents, but Gerry refused to go to any he recommended. Finally, with Tom, Louie, and Joey putting their heads together, they found a college near Boca Raton that had remarkably low entrance requirements. Gerry went there for almost two years, but he actually had minimal interest in studying.

Despite frequent visits from Joey, whose sheer physical strength awed Gerry into paying attention, he dropped out of college. Louie and Joey made a place for him in Capano & Sons, hoping that he would mature and show some interest in the business their father had begun. It was an iffy experiment at best. They soon saw that it probably wasn't going to work, but they hung in there, anyway. Gerry was family.

T
OM
'
S
plate got fuller and fuller through the eighties. His career was demanding, his family was growing, and he was on so many boards and steering committees. And of course, there was Debby. Aside
from their intense physical bond, he felt that she needed him to advise her on her problems at work and with her family. He always got along with women, and he prided himself on understanding their vulnerabilities and their frailties. First his mother had needed him, and then his wife and daughters. And he liked to think that he was unfailingly considerate to the young women he met through his work, giving them an ear or a shoulder when they had problems. Tom had an unerring instinct about him: he could see beyond the bright smiles that some pretty women affected, looking deep into the sorrows and lonely places of their hearts.

He worked the same magic with Debby. She and her sister both lived in the Wilmington area, but they had a poor relationship and Tom tried to bolster her about that, loyally telling her that
she
was the one who was in the right. She got along fine with her brothers, but they lived far away. Gradually, Tom had made himself indispensable to Debby's well-being, although she might have been startled to realize that.

I
N
September of 1985, Debby found a wonderful old house on Delaware Avenue, a three-story white stucco that had once been the farmhouse on considerable acreage in the early days of Wilmington. It was known as the Little White House, even though it was anything but small. Debby bought it and moved in with her daughter and son, one six and the other only two and a half. She had always had a real talent for decorating, and now she worked with the fine old things her grandparents had left her. Her new house was cozy and tasteful. The children slept on the third floor high up under the eaves, and she took the second floor for her bedroom.

Her house was within a few blocks of Tom and Kay's house, as well as those of several of their mutual friends, but it was surrounded by high bushes and tall trees. As outrageously dangerous as it seemed, Tom was able to visit her without being observed. Debby's house was a haven for him, he told her, amid the many voices that needed something from him, the many hands tugging on his sleeve.

In this first home that was totally hers, Debby set about making a life for herself. Her trust fund meant that she didn't have to work, but she couldn't picture herself sitting around the house or filling up her days with empty activities. She plunged into volunteer work for the moment. She wasn't sure where she could actually find a real job; it had been several years since her days as a secretary, and she had never completed the work for a four-year degree.

When her son, Steve, was three and a half years old, a friend of Debby's asked her if she would like to work at Tatnall, the private school where she had spent most of her own school years. Her friend was developing an extended day care program there, and she thought Debby had the skills to help her do it.

“I said, ‘Sure!' ” Debby recalled. “I could take my children with me because they would be in school there, and the job was for school days only. It was a really easy job going in, and I got paid $5 an hour, but it was a
job,
and it worked for me.”

Even so, Debby was going through a very difficult time. She was always aware of being a single parent when she was surrounded by couples who shared the responsibility of raising their children. If time conflicts came up, she always compromised herself in favor of her children. “I think most mothers do,” she commented. “And I was very guilt ridden because I continued to have this relationship with Tom Capano, whom I had fallen in love with.”

She hadn't expected that to happen, but she had never had an affair before, and she had fallen into the same emotional trap as legions of women before her. She had gone into one of the most intense transactions a woman can have, without any protection. And she was too unschooled in the art of the affair to know how total her commitment might become.

Even though her marriage had ended, Debby and Tom continued to be very discreet; she lived alone with her children, but she had never allowed him to come to her home when they were there—only on Wednesday nights. She spent most of her evenings alone. Still, their daily phone calls made her feel part of Tom's life. It seemed to her that they shared confidences about all the important parts of their lives. He knew all of her secrets, and she believed she knew all of his.

“And we saw each other at parties,” she said. “We couldn't be together, of course, but it was OK. We had a secret. I knew that, other than Kay, I was the only one he cared about. That meant a lot.”

Tom was a moody man, Debby had discovered, and she had always tried to be accommodating to him—to avoid upsetting him in any way. That was how she had dealt with every man who had ever been important to her. “I never rocked the boat,” she said. “I wanted to please him, because I wanted his praise and I wanted him to love me. I thought that was the way it was. I was so afraid if I angered him, he would leave.”

His pleading and persuasive courtship were far behind them now. And once Debby had capitulated, Tom was very sure that she
would always be there waiting for him. He could be very judgmental, and when Debby said something that displeased him, he would shoot her a withering look and say, “That's a stupid statement. Why would you say something like that?”

“When that happened,” she said, “I would make a mental note of what I shouldn't say, tell myself: God, don't talk about that—or don't talk like that
anymore,
at least in front of him.”

There were so many things, it seemed, that annoyed Tom or upset him, so many forbidden subjects.

Tom and Debby had some common interests, but they were very different in other ways. She was old money and accepted by society; he was the son of an immigrant who had made good. He aspired to what had come so easily to the MacIntyres, which she knew didn't necessarily bring happiness.

Debby had always been athletic, and Tom was basically sedentary. She tried to get him to swim with her, and he grudgingly agreed to try it. “He actually went out and got goggles and earplugs and everything, and he went two laps when his earplugs fell out and his goggles fogged up, and he quit.”

Debby loved working in the yard, and he “absolutely abhorred it.”

She bought him presents that were not particularly expensive, but she had spent time picking them out because they just suited him, a music tape or a book. He bought her household gadgets like pasta makers and mixers, claiming that she had
everything,
and what could he really give her that she didn't already have?

But however they differed in tastes, hobbies, and recreation, they had a tremendously powerful sex life. In this, too, Debby always tried to please Tom. If she didn't, she was terrified that he would go away. She agreed to install a massive mirror opposite her bed and found a secure hiding place for the sex toys and gadgets, and the videos, that seemed to stimulate him. And she managed to repress his depiction of lovemaking as mere sport. He was too tender and too kind for her ever to believe that she meant nothing to him but a game won once again.

T
HERE
were times when Tom was there for Debby when she truly needed someone. Gradually, she lost the people she counted on. Both of her grandparents died in 1984. It was more like losing parents than grandparents—she and her brothers and sister had found refuge with the elder MacIntyres many times.

It was Debby's greatest fear that her mother would survive her
father. Sheila Miller MacIntyre, for all her neuroses and addictions, was in her sixties and still dependent upon her husband. With his children grown, Bill MacIntyre was able to focus most of his attention on Sheila, and she needed a great deal of care.

But as so often happens, it was the strong spouse who died first. Bill MacIntyre succumbed to a heart attack on September 7, 1987. He was only sixty-four. He had been a wonderful grandfather to Victoria and Steve, and he and Debby had long ago come to an understanding about his sense of duty toward the wife he loved but could not live with. Now, with their brothers living several states away, it was up to Debby and her sister to care for their mother.

They moved her into an apartment in Wilmington and arranged to have nurses stay with her most of the time. It was difficult sometimes for them to care for a mother who had never cared for them. But Debby, at least, made her peace with her mother, accepting finally that Sheila had never been capable of loving her children or even of living in the same house with them. Ironically, Sheila seemed to enjoy her grandchildren, and Victoria and Steve looked forward to visits at her apartment.

On the Saturday night before Mother's Day 1988, Debby called her mother several times; she knew that the nurse-companion who usually stayed evenings with Sheila had taken the night off so she could visit
her
mother. When she didn't get an answer, she assumed her mother had gone to bed early and couldn't hear the phone.

The next day, she bought a bouquet of flowers and headed to Sheila's apartment with Victoria and Steve. It was Debby's sister's birthday and she wouldn't be going over to Sheila's. “The kids were so excited,” Debby said. “They ran in ahead of me and pounded up the stairs. They were too young to know why she wouldn't talk to them.”

Debby found her mother, fully clothed, lying across her bed. Her eyes were open, but there was something so ineffably still about her body that she knew her mother was dead. And she had never felt so alone.

Debby called Tom at home, grateful that he answered the phone. She had no idea what excuse he gave for leaving in the midst of Mother's Day celebrations, but he did. “He came over as soon as he could,” she said. “He went upstairs and checked my mother and he came back down and told me she was gone. And he closed my mother's eyes.”

Tom made arrangements for someone from the police to come and verify that Sheila MacIntyre was dead, and then he called for a
funeral director to take her body away. It took hours but he stayed with Debby. And for her it was a tremendously bonding experience, sitting there together in the silent house while her poor, lost mother lay upstairs. She had no idea what she would have done without Tom.