...And Never Let HerGo

her siblings had come to fear their father’s sudden outbursts of temper. They learned to absorb his words without really listening or simply to block out his rages, but they didn’t want to have their friends know how bad things were.
    Sometimes their house was cold because the electricity had been turned off again when the bill wasn’t paid. Their father had used the social security checks to buy liquor instead. When there were no lights at home, they would study at friends’ homes or at the library. There was often no hot water, and sometimes no water at all, a situation that would last for many months at a time. Once, the Faheys’ telephone was cut off for an entire year. Anne Marie took her hot showers at school after gym class, and never told her friends that it was the only way she
could
take a shower. She went to tremendous lengths to appear to be just like the other girls her age. She could not bear to be pitied.
    Anne Marie had love—from her siblings, her grandmother Nan, and a few other relatives—but she had little else. Her clothes came through hand-me-downs and a few Christmas presents. Even putting food on their table was problematic for the Fahey children, but somehow they managed. After they were grown, they sometimes wondered how they had done it—but something or someone always came through with clothes or food or a little money.
    And they were all workers, just as their grandmother had taught them to be. Everybody but Annie worked at one time or another in the Freel’s tavern, O’Friel’s Irish Pub. On a busy Saturday night, Robert might be tending bar upstairs, and Brian was the bartender downstairs. Kathleen worked at O’Friel’s for nine years. Kevin, the tall redheaded Freel brother, used to tease AnneMarie, “We’ll get you one day, too, Annie. Don’t think you’ll get away from us!”
    She would laugh and say, “I don’t work for you, Kevvy.” She loved Kevin, and Bud and Ed and Beatrice. And they loved little Annie. She was too young to work then, only in school at Springer Junior High. Even so, she wanted a more exciting job than as a waitress. She had wonderful dreams for her future, and her dreams helped her make it through the present.
    When Anne Marie was in the seventh grade, Robert Fahey married again. His new wife, Sylvia Bachmurski, had a son and a daughter by an earlier marriage. And so, in 1980, Anne Marie had a stepmother, and far from resenting her, she was delighted. It was comforting to have a grown woman in the house looking after things, and Anne Marie was so happy when she saw their dining room table covered with a white tablecloth and set with nice dishes and candles. It had been so long since they had eaten at a pleasant table the way other people did.
    But her father’s second marriage lasted only a few months. Sylvia had believed that Robert Fahey was working, and it was a terrible jolt when she found out he had lied. Too late, she realized that he was a practicing alcoholic and that she had walked all unaware into the chaos and deprivation his children had known for the last few years. She really cared about Brian and Annie, but Sylvia knew she couldn’t stay once she found out how things really were. She pulled Annie and Brian aside one day and said, “I’m so sorry—but we’re leaving. We just can’t stay.”
    Anne Marie was so sad. Sylvia had assured her she could call to talk, and she did a few times. But she knew Sylvia wouldn’t be coming back. The house quickly reverted to the way it had been, with everyone eating wherever they felt like eating, and no more pretty tables or flowers or candles.
    In a vain attempt to change her father’s downward spiral, Anne Marie hid his bottles and poured his drinks down the drain. She dreaded the sight of him sitting on a chair in the kitchen, drinking the evenings away. She would hide in her room until she heard him stumble off to bed. Her friend Beth Barnes later summed up Anne Marie’s ordeal. “Annie’s had the shittiest life,” she said. “A lot of people who had what she had would fold, but she was strong.”
    A NNE M ARIE could talk to her grandmother and drew a great deal of comfort from that relationship. Later she would write, “She was the most reliable, stable, sober adult person in my life.”
    She had needed someone like that desperately. She had lost her mother, and her father underwent a complete personality change when he was drunk. Anne Marie was the one who bore the brunt