...And Never Let HerGo

referred to him often before, and he had gone out of her life for a while, it seemed, when Annie dated Mike Hines. But now Kim realized that she and Tom were involved in a far more intense relationship than before.
    Anne Marie told Kim that Tom treated her “like a princess,” that she could tell him all of her secrets, and that he bought her gifts and took her out to wonderful places. “I think she kind of thought of him maybe as a father figure,” Kim recalled; “that she could share a lot with him.”
    If anyone needed a father figure, it was Anne Marie. But she was so torn. She told Kim about the guilt that was eating her up. “It was a very difficult situation for her because he was married with four children,” Kim said, “and Annie is a Catholic and committing adultery is something that is against our religion. It was a very difficult struggle for her.”
    One day that summer, it became painfully clear to Anne Marie that Tom had another life totally separate from hers. She was shopping in Stone Harbor with her sister-in-law Linda when she bumped into him in front of one of the stores. He was waiting for one of his daughters to decide what she wanted to buy, and the three were chatting a little awkwardly when a coltishly pretty young girl came out of the store. It was Jenny, who was almost eleven.
    “You look just like Natalie Wood,” Anne Marie finally said, noting the resemblance that so many people did. Inside, she was checking her own emotions upon seeing Tom with one of his children. After some small talk, she and Linda went one way and Tom and Jenny another.
    Anne Marie told Kim that Tom Capano wanted to meet her, because he knew that she had confided in Kim. Kim was the only one who knew about their affair at that point, or at least Anne Marie thought so. “It was Capano’s idea,” Kim recalled, “because we were very close and he knew that Annie was telling me about their relationship—so he said he wanted to meet me.”
    Kim was surprised and a little uncomfortable that Anne Marie’s lover wanted to meet her, but she finally agreed. The three of them went to DiLullo’s Restaurant in the center of Philadelphia, and Kim studied this man whom her friend was so taken with. He
was
a lot older than she and Annie were, but he seemed very nice and Annie was clearly nuts about the guy. “They acted very much like a couple,” Kim recalled. “They were holding hands and they kissed across the table.”
    Anne Marie seemed so happy, but Kim knew how guilty she felt. Tom went out of his way to charm Kim. Why did he bother? It was Annie he wanted, and he certainly seemed to have her.
    J ILL M ORRISON wouldn’t have been happy to hear that. She had hoped that Anne Marie was over her fascination with Tom, but she had her doubts. When Annie came back from Ireland, she barely mentioned Mike Hines any longer. She and Jill were shopping at Macy’s one day, and Anne Marie bought a phone for her new apartment. Jill saw her pay for it with a $100 bill. She had never known Annie to have a $100 bill, except for the time Tom sent her the five $100 bills to use for a trip to Spain. She hadn’t gone to Spain, but now Jill wondered if he had convinced Annie to keep the money. Anne Marie didn’t say anything about it, and Jill didn’t ask.
    Like her other good friends, Jill was worried about Anne Marie. She didn’t look well. She hadn’t been at all heavy when Jill first met her, and by the autumn of 1994, she was distressingly thin. When they went out to lunch now, Jill would order a good-sized sandwich, while Anne Marie said she wasn’t hungry and nibbled on a pretzel and sipped ice water. In December, they were grocery shopping together in the Acme supermarket and Jill glanced from her cart to Anne Marie’s with a sinking feeling. “I had a big basket full of food and all she had was fruit. And I told her I was very worried about her weight.”
    Anne Marie had deep smudgy circles under her eyes, and her arms and legs were so thin that her elbows and knees stuck out. “I told her I actually thought about calling Bob [Conner],” Jill recalled, “because I can’t understand how you can be seeing a psychologist and they don’t realize that you are as thin as you are, and that there is a problem here.”
    (Of course, Bob Conner knew all about Anne Marie’s anorexia, although he was very careful about confronting her before
she
was ready. He knew she worked out too much, used laxatives to rid her