And Never Let Her Go (19 page)

Their two weeks in Ireland closed an invisible circle for Anne Marie and Brian. Although they often stayed at hostels with few amenities and sometimes argued when they were tired or hungry or just sick of too much time together, they were connecting to the people who had gone before them.

Anne Marie fretted more than Brian did about the primitive or bizarre accommodations they were forced to choose because they had little money. And her journal entries were not all as poetic as her thoughts on the ocean. When they reached Dingle, she showed her well-developed irreverent side:

We dropped our belongings [at the hostel] in #10. I don't
think
so, “Doggie!” It was another ten-person, five-bunk-bed room from the 1960's. I realize I don't recall the sixties due to the fact that I was born in 1966; however that room was bullshit. Black walls with fluorescent psychedelic paint splatted all over. There was one side of the wall that had a big-ass toothbrush painted on it. How attractive! I told Seymour, “No way—get me the fuck out of this room!”

And in Dingle, the happy campers' patience was wearing a little thin. “I think Seymour is bored with me,” Anne Marie wrote.

We had a “fight” at the bar because he said that my self-esteem is very low, and if he did not know me, he would think I was incapable of doing absolutely
nothing.
I was very sad and
furious!
I think that when two people go on a trip together for two weeks, one is bound to get on one another's nerves. I don't regret taking a trip with him, but
sometimes
I hope he likes a party and also would enjoy eating in a restaurant which is a little bit more expensive! Oh my God, shut your mouth, Ana Maria.

In close quarters for too long, Anne Marie began to think that Brian was ridiculously parsimonious, and he found her constant need to be doing something unreasonably hyper. But they pushed on, their verbal tangles typical of siblings. Anne Marie was so secure with Brian that she was actually asserting herself and speaking up, which, for her, was a significant accomplishment. They found the little hamlet on the way to Sligo that the Faheys were supposed to have come from and took a picture of Fahy Hardware. They were enjoying the very real sense of being in the place where they had roots.

And then they were in Kilmecrennan, the village where Nan and Grand Daddy had once lived. It was high summer and their time there could not have been more serendipitous. Brian and Anne Marie found the pub in Milford that Nan had owned; it was still called the White Heather Inn. And they met a cousin who looked just like Nan. Surrounded by relatives, Anne Marie felt totally at home, and it was like balm to her soul.

When she returned to Bob Conner's office on August 9, Anne Marie was happier than he had ever known her to be. She was living in her own cozy little apartment on Washington Street, where she could afford the rent all by herself. Her trip to Ireland had allowed her to step out of her life for two weeks, and he could see that her image of herself was much more positive. She confided that she had been able to speak her mind and nothing terrible happened. Her fingers crossed, it looked as if Annie was beginning to emerge from a long lonely tunnel.

W
HEN NOTHING WORKED OUT
with Mike Hines, Anne Marie had begun seeing Tom again. He often dropped by her desk in the governor's office, and she remembered how nice it was to be with him. He was supportive and kind, and he challenged her to a continuing game of trivia. It was light, at first, and fun.

Anne Marie told some of her friends part of the truth about her relationship with Tom, others very little, but she confided completely in Kim Horstman. They lived together at the shore every summer, and they spoke on the phone at least twice a week during the rest of the year. Kim knew about Annie's problem with eating, and she knew about the men in her life. That summer of 1994 in Sea Isle
City, Annie told Kim she was involved with Tom Capano—not just for lunches and an occasional dinner date, but in a romantic affair. She had referred to him often before, and he had gone out of her life for a while, it seemed, when Annie dated Mike Hines. But now Kim realized that she and Tom were involved in a far more intense relationship than before.

Anne Marie told Kim that Tom treated her “like a princess,” that she could tell him all of her secrets, and that he bought her gifts and took her out to wonderful places. “I think she kind of thought of him maybe as a father figure,” Kim recalled; “that she could share a lot with him.”

If anyone needed a father figure, it was Anne Marie. But she was so torn. She told Kim about the guilt that was eating her up. “It was a very difficult situation for her because he was married with four children,” Kim said, “and Annie is a Catholic and committing adultery is something that is against our religion. It was a very difficult struggle for her.”

One day that summer, it became painfully clear to Anne Marie that Tom had another life totally separate from hers. She was shopping in Stone Harbor with her sister-in-law Linda when she bumped into him in front of one of the stores. He was waiting for one of his daughters to decide what she wanted to buy, and the three were chatting a little awkwardly when a coltishly pretty young girl came out of the store. It was Jenny, who was almost eleven.

“You look just like Natalie Wood,” Anne Marie finally said, noting the resemblance that so many people did. Inside, she was checking her own emotions upon seeing Tom with one of his children. After some small talk, she and Linda went one way and Tom and Jenny another.

Anne Marie told Kim that Tom Capano wanted to meet her, because he knew that she had confided in Kim. Kim was the only one who knew about their affair at that point, or at least Anne Marie thought so. “It was Capano's idea,” Kim recalled, “because we were very close and he knew that Annie was telling me about their relationship—so he said he wanted to meet me.”

Kim was surprised and a little uncomfortable that Anne Marie's lover wanted to meet her, but she finally agreed. The three of them went to DiLullo's Restaurant in the center of Philadelphia, and Kim studied this man whom her friend was so taken with. He
was
a lot older than she and Annie were, but he seemed very nice and Annie was clearly nuts about the guy. “They acted very much like a couple,” Kim recalled. “They were holding hands and they kissed across the table.”

Anne Marie seemed so happy, but Kim knew how guilty she felt. Tom went out of his way to charm Kim. Why did he bother? It was Annie he wanted, and he certainly seemed to have her.

J
ILL
M
ORRISON
wouldn't have been happy to hear that. She had hoped that Anne Marie was over her fascination with Tom, but she had her doubts. When Annie came back from Ireland, she barely mentioned Mike Hines any longer. She and Jill were shopping at Macy's one day, and Anne Marie bought a phone for her new apartment. Jill saw her pay for it with a $100 bill. She had never known Annie to have a $100 bill, except for the time Tom sent her the five $100 bills to use for a trip to Spain. She hadn't gone to Spain, but now Jill wondered if he had convinced Annie to keep the money. Anne Marie didn't say anything about it, and Jill didn't ask.

Like her other good friends, Jill was worried about Anne Marie. She didn't look well. She hadn't been at all heavy when Jill first met her, and by the autumn of 1994, she was distressingly thin. When they went out to lunch now, Jill would order a good-sized sandwich, while Anne Marie said she wasn't hungry and nibbled on a pretzel and sipped ice water. In December, they were grocery shopping together in the Acme supermarket and Jill glanced from her cart to Anne Marie's with a sinking feeling. “I had a big basket full of food and all she had was fruit. And I told her I was very worried about her weight.”

Anne Marie had deep smudgy circles under her eyes, and her arms and legs were so thin that her elbows and knees stuck out. “I told her I actually thought about calling Bob [Conner],” Jill recalled, “because I can't understand how you can be seeing a psychologist and they don't realize that you are as thin as you are, and that there is a problem here.”

(Of course, Bob Conner knew all about Anne Marie's anorexia, although he was very careful about confronting her before
she
was ready. He knew she worked out too much, used laxatives to rid her body of food, and he was grateful that she was not bulimic.)

For once, when Jill brought it up, Anne Marie didn't try to avoid a discussion about her weight. Jill couldn't hold back her tears when she looked at Anne Marie in the bright store lights, and she touched her arm and said, “I can't watch you kill yourself like this.”

Anne Marie had tears in her eyes, too, and promised, “Don't worry about me. I'll stick around for a long time.”

Once again, the fall had been a difficult time for Anne Marie. Her glorious weeks in Ireland seemed remote now, but it was more
than the end of summer that made her feel so down. There was always the anniversary of Nan's death to deal with, and then the holidays that evoked so many memories. She had put forth some ideas at work and felt they weren't taken seriously. She had asked for a raise, which was unbelievably difficult for her, and she was mortified when she didn't get it, even though it was because of the state's budget allocations and not because she wasn't doing a good job.

In her next session she told Bob Conner, “Annie's not going anywhere.” She was characteristically angry at herself as always, feeling it was
her
fault that she didn't have enough confidence to explore other options.

Most of all, Anne Marie was still gripped by such a pervasive sense of loneliness. It was as if her whole life was spent on the outside looking in, and at any moment everyone she counted on could abandon her. When Conner asked her
who
might desert her, Anne Marie finally talked a little bit about a lawyer she was seeing, but she was very cautious about revealing much. She didn't tell him the man was married. She was too ashamed.

Just being in the affair with Tom was destructive and frightening for Anne Marie. She was so afraid of disappointing her brothers, and of offending God. And then there was Christmas coming up. She told Bob Conner she was afraid of Christmas and what might go wrong if there was alcohol and her brother Mark was there. And she was afraid she couldn't deal with Christmas dinner, so much food to resist, to push around her plate so no one would notice that she wasn't eating if she
did
resist.

Anne Marie clung to Conner emotionally because she trusted him completely, and that was fine. He was a man she
could
trust, a kind soul as well as a skilled therapist. Conner saw that she needed to believe in someone enough so that she could pour her heart out. It was important that anyone she chose to confide in understood that this beautiful and vibrant woman was often only a child without defenses. When she
did
trust, she was like a turtle without a shell, so pervious to hurt. Still, Anne Marie and Conner were making progress. For every step back she took, she leapt ahead three. Yes, she was still afraid of losing control of her life, but she was finally able to voice her fears and confront them.

Despite her feelings of inadequacy on the job, Tom Carper was very happy with Anne Marie's work. Her sister and brothers were proud of her, and she was always there to baby-sit when they needed her. The only real thing she could not control about her life was that Tom Capano had made himself indispensable. It was almost as if he
had some radar that picked up the places where he could insinuate himself into her psyche. He ferreted out every vulnerability in her careful armor and seemed to play on that, drawing her a little closer with each move. She had come to need him, but she knew that it was a mortal sin to want him, and an impossibility to have him. The more she cared about Tom, the less she was able to eat. And since he was so very good to her, she could not pull away from him; he reminded her often that she hurt his feelings when she rejected him. Causing anyone else pain was anathema to Anne Marie.

D
URING
December of 1994, Anne Marie accepted intellectually that she could not have Tom, but emotionally she feared she could not leave him, either. She visited her sister's and brothers' homes with their Christmas decorations, their rosy babies, and she wanted that for herself; and then, of course, she felt guilty for her envy.

But Anne Marie knew she could sand off the hurtful edges of her Christmas feelings—and the old memories that came rushing back—when she saw Bob Conner during their January sessions. Finally, she had come to understand that most people had their areas of anxiety and were frightened sometimes; she wasn't a freak and she wasn't a hopeless case. She believed she could find a way to be free and healthy and deserving of happiness.

Bob Conner used role-playing and cognitive therapy with Anne Marie. They could not change the past; there was no gain in harping on old hurts, and she understood that. But she could learn to shut off the thoughts that led back inevitably to her childhood and her feelings of helplessness. Going into 1995, Anne Marie was fighting as hard as she could.

U
NFORTUNATELY
Anne Marie and Bob Conner would have only two more sessions. On January 5, 1995, they talked about Christmas dinner and the rage (over her father's alcoholism) and sadness (about Nan and her mother) that Anne Marie felt. Twelve days later, on January 17, 1995, Conner's last scribbled entry in Anne Marie's case file read: “‘Road Less Traveled' issues with self love.” Only he knew exactly what that meant to him—and to her—and he would not be able to explain it.

They planned to meet again at 5
P.M.
on January 24, but Conner called Anne Marie earlier that afternoon and asked if he could reschedule for the next day. He had a patient who was in crisis and he wanted to give him Anne Marie's time slot. Of course, she said yes. There had been times when
she
was panicked and needed to talk.