...And Never Let HerGo

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. Asidefrom 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