...And Never Let HerGo

there, and she thought Debby had the skills to help her do it.
    “I said, ‘Sure!’ ” Debby recalled. “I could take my children with me because they would be in school there, and the job was for school days only. It was a really easy job going in, and I got paid $5 an hour, but it was a
job,
and it worked for me.”
    Even so, Debby was going through a very difficult time. She was always aware of being a single parent when she was surrounded by couples who shared the responsibility of raising their children. If time conflicts came up, she always compromised herself in favor of her children. “I think most mothers do,” she commented. “And I was very guilt ridden because I continued to have this relationship with Tom Capano, whom I had fallen in love with.”
    She hadn’t expected that to happen, but she had never had an affair before, and she had fallen into the same emotional trap as legions of women before her. She had gone into one of the most intense transactions a woman can have, without any protection. And she was too unschooled in the art of the affair to know how total her commitment might become.
    Even though her marriage had ended, Debby and Tom continued to be very discreet; she lived alone with her children, but she had never allowed him to come to her home when they were there—only on Wednesday nights. She spent most of her evenings alone. Still, their daily phone calls made her feel part of Tom’s life. It seemed to her that they shared confidences about all the important parts of their lives. He knew all of her secrets, and she believed she knew all of his.
    “And we saw each other at parties,” she said. “We couldn’t be together, of course, but it was OK. We had a secret. I knew that, other than Kay, I was the only one he cared about. That meant a lot.”
    Tom was a moody man, Debby had discovered, and she had always tried to be accommodating to him—to avoid upsetting him in any way. That was how she had dealt with every man who had ever been important to her. “I never rocked the boat,” she said. “I wanted to please him, because I wanted his praise and I wanted him to love me. I thought that was the way it was. I was so afraid if I angered him, he would leave.”
    His pleading and persuasive courtship were far behind them now. And once Debby had capitulated, Tom was very sure that shewould always be there waiting for him. He could be very judgmental, and when Debby said something that displeased him, he would shoot her a withering look and say, “That’s a stupid statement. Why would you say something like that?”
    “When that happened,” she said, “I would make a mental note of what I shouldn’t say, tell myself: God, don’t talk about that—or don’t talk like that
anymore,
at least in front of him.”
    There were so many things, it seemed, that annoyed Tom or upset him, so many forbidden subjects.
    Tom and Debby had some common interests, but they were very different in other ways. She was old money and accepted by society; he was the son of an immigrant who had made good. He aspired to what had come so easily to the MacIntyres, which she knew didn’t necessarily bring happiness.
    Debby had always been athletic, and Tom was basically sedentary. She tried to get him to swim with her, and he grudgingly agreed to try it. “He actually went out and got goggles and earplugs and everything, and he went two laps when his earplugs fell out and his goggles fogged up, and he quit.”
    Debby loved working in the yard, and he “absolutely abhorred it.”
    She bought him presents that were not particularly expensive, but she had spent time picking them out because they just suited him, a music tape or a book. He bought her household gadgets like pasta makers and mixers, claiming that she had
everything,
and what could he really give her that she didn’t already have?
    But however they differed in tastes, hobbies, and recreation, they had a tremendously powerful sex life. In this, too, Debby always tried to please Tom. If she didn’t, she was terrified that he would go away. She agreed to install a massive mirror opposite her bed and found a secure hiding place for the sex toys and gadgets, and the videos, that seemed to stimulate him. And she managed to repress his depiction of lovemaking as mere sport. He was too tender and too kind for her ever to believe that she meant nothing to him but a game won once again.
    T HERE were times when Tom was there for Debby when