...And Never Let HerGo

cooked pots of spaghetti or
pasta e fagioli
in her modern yellow-and-white kitchen. They still drank the strong red wine that Lou and the boys made:
dago red.
They called it that, too.
    Lou Capano had come such a long way from the seven-year-old Calabrese immigrant in New Castle. Almost single-handedly he had built most of north Wilmington. He could drive down street after street and see the fine houses with his stamp on them. He had honored his family with short streets named for them. There were streets named Thomas, Louis, and Joseph, but there were also streets in Weldin Farms surely meant to commemorate the birth of his youngest son: one cul-de-sac called Gerard Circle, and the next, Capano Court. It was a small vanity for a man so down-to-earth.
    Lou had given his family a mansion in the city and a paradise on the Atlantic Ocean, but still he always felt humble next to someone who had a formal education. And he had dreams for his children; he had meant for them all to go to college, and he would be the proudest man in Wilmington. Louie had proven that he didn’t need a degree to carve the Capano name in Delaware real estate history. And Joey was in the business, too. But Thomas—Thomas was the scholar.
    Someday his boys would take over Louis Capano & Sons, Inc., and maybe he and Marguerite would retire and live on the beach, welcoming grandchildren and watching the sea roll in.
    T OM had graduated from Archmere in 1967 and been accepted at Boston College. There he met Kay Ryan, a pretty, half-Irish, half-Italiannursing student who was a year younger. She was a sweet-tempered, capable girl from Connecticut, who would graduate in 1973. Kay came from a family of five children, and she had a twin sister. Her dad was a classic Irishman, ruddy and hearty, and Tom was so different, quietly brilliant, capable, and thoughtful so much of the time. Even though he spoke in a gentle voice, there was something compelling about him. Kay was a good foil to Tom. While he was sometimes moody, she was steady and a natural caretaker. They dated all through college. “I decided to go to law school at Boston College because of Kay,” Tom remembered. “I had graduated, but she had another year to go.”
    Kay and Tom were married in Fairfield, Connecticut, at high noon on June 17, 1972. Tom always said it was easy to remember his wedding day because it was the same day as the Watergate burglary. When she graduated, Kay found a job as a public health nurse. Her work took her to some of the shabbier and more dangerous streets in Boston, but she enjoyed it. Kay didn’t have to work—Lou and Marguerite supported the young couple and paid Tom’s tuition—but she
wanted
to work and she loved her job.
    When Tom graduated from law school in 1974, his father was so proud that he cried. His oldest son was a lawyer! It was the realization of all of his dreams.
    Kay and Tom Capano moved back to Wilmington after he graduated, but he didn’t look for a job right away. He studied that summer of 1974 for the Delaware bar exam. The young couple lived in a town house near Newark, Delaware, one of the ninety-six similar units in the huge Cavalier Country Club complex that Louie, Joey, and their father had built while Tom was in college in Boston.
    Kay went to work immediately as a public health nurse, although Tom complained that he worried about her in the meaner neighborhoods of Philadelphia. He told people that he would have actually preferred that she not work at all. There was no need—his parents would take care of them until he was established.
    In the fall, Kay enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to work toward her master’s degree. She was a natural caregiver and saw no point in studying so long to be a nurse and then never practicing her profession. Kay hadn’t become pregnant in their more than two years of marriage and they were both a little disappointed about that, but not truly worried.
    Marguerite approved of Kay as a daughter-in-law. She had seen how all of her sons had their eyes out for women, and there were any number of females she would not have chosen to join the Capanofamily. Kay Ryan Capano was pretty, smart, and strong—but not at all pushy. She adored Tom and waited on him hand and foot, just as Marguerite had always done.
    July 4 was the official day for the Capanos to start the summer season at the shore. They always had a big party with fireworks. This year was no different, but now Tom and Kay were