...And Never Let HerGo

considerable cachet. He accepted it and became chief of staff of the mayor of Wilmington.
    In effect, Tom would be running the inner workings of the city. While Frawley set policy and did the public things that all mayors do, Tom was in charge of every department: public works, zoning, fire, police. “Every morning the chief of police had to call me,” he said, “and report on what incidents had occurred the night before.”
    Even though his position as chief of staff meant that he had tremendous power and respect in Wilmington and that his name appeared regularly in the media, Tom got less pay than he had received as a partner in a law firm. Still, he committed himself to Mayor Frawley and promised to stay two years as his chief of staff. Tom was more than just the man who saw that everything ran smoothly; Frawley had a tendency to shoot from the hip when he was riled or in his cups, and Tom was the soul of tact and control. In the calm, soft voice that reminded a number of women of Clint Eastwood’s, he could be counted on to defuse explosive situations.
    It was a time of two-fisted politics, when the good old boys met to debate how to run Wilmington amid clouds of cigar smoke and the smell of draft beer and Irish whiskey in the most popular bars in town. Buddy’s Bar was in, and there were Kid Shelleen’s and the Columbus Inn. Tom was at home in that world too. He seemed to have everyting—a wife, four daughters, a beautiful home in the Rockford Park section, a church where he was considered one of the staunchest supporters of the young, the elderly, and the poor,
and
arguably the most influential position in city government. During the St. Anthony’s festival, he could scarcely make his way through the crowd with his adorable daughters without being stopped every few feet by someone who admired him or who needed a favor. He had grown a modest beard that made him look almost professorial, and he wore glasses now.
    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 andLSD. 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