...And Never Let HerGo

body of food, and he was grateful that she was not bulimic.)
    For once, when Jill brought it up, Anne Marie didn’t try to avoid a discussion about her weight. Jill couldn’t hold back her tears when she looked at Anne Marie in the bright store lights, and she touched her arm and said, “I can’t watch you kill yourself like this.”
    Anne Marie had tears in her eyes, too, and promised, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll stick around for a long time.”
    Once again, the fall had been a difficult time for Anne Marie. Her glorious weeks in Ireland seemed remote now, but it was morethan the end of summer that made her feel so down. There was always the anniversary of Nan’s death to deal with, and then the holidays that evoked so many memories. She had put forth some ideas at work and felt they weren’t taken seriously. She had asked for a raise, which was unbelievably difficult for her, and she was mortified when she didn’t get it, even though it was because of the state’s budget allocations and not because she wasn’t doing a good job.
    In her next session she told Bob Conner, “Annie’s not going anywhere.” She was characteristically angry at herself as always, feeling it was
her
fault that she didn’t have enough confidence to explore other options.
    Most of all, Anne Marie was still gripped by such a pervasive sense of loneliness. It was as if her whole life was spent on the outside looking in, and at any moment everyone she counted on could abandon her. When Conner asked her
who
might desert her, Anne Marie finally talked a little bit about a lawyer she was seeing, but she was very cautious about revealing much. She didn’t tell him the man was married. She was too ashamed.
    Just being in the affair with Tom was destructive and frightening for Anne Marie. She was so afraid of disappointing her brothers, and of offending God. And then there was Christmas coming up. She told Bob Conner she was afraid of Christmas and what might go wrong if there was alcohol and her brother Mark was there. And she was afraid she couldn’t deal with Christmas dinner, so much food to resist, to push around her plate so no one would notice that she wasn’t eating if she
did
resist.
    Anne Marie clung to Conner emotionally because she trusted him completely, and that was fine. He was a man she
could
trust, a kind soul as well as a skilled therapist. Conner saw that she needed to believe in someone enough so that she could pour her heart out. It was important that anyone she chose to confide in understood that this beautiful and vibrant woman was often only a child without defenses. When she
did
trust, she was like a turtle without a shell, so pervious to hurt. Still, Anne Marie and Conner were making progress. For every step back she took, she leapt ahead three. Yes, she was still afraid of losing control of her life, but she was finally able to voice her fears and confront them.
    Despite her feelings of inadequacy on the job, Tom Carper was very happy with Anne Marie’s work. Her sister and brothers were proud of her, and she was always there to baby-sit when they needed her. The only real thing she could not control about her life was that Tom Capano had made himself indispensable. It was almost as if hehad some radar that picked up the places where he could insinuate himself into her psyche. He ferreted out every vulnerability in her careful armor and seemed to play on that, drawing her a little closer with each move. She had come to need him, but she knew that it was a mortal sin to want him, and an impossibility to have him. The more she cared about Tom, the less she was able to eat. And since he was so very good to her, she could not pull away from him; he reminded her often that she hurt his feelings when she rejected him. Causing anyone else pain was anathema to Anne Marie.
    D URING December of 1994, Anne Marie accepted intellectually that she could not have Tom, but emotionally she feared she could not leave him, either. She visited her sister’s and brothers’ homes with their Christmas decorations, their rosy babies, and she wanted that for herself; and then, of course, she felt guilty for her envy.
    But Anne Marie knew she could sand off the hurtful edges of her Christmas feelings—and the old memories that came rushing back—when she saw Bob Conner during their January sessions. Finally, she had come to understand that most people had their areas of anxiety and were frightened sometimes; she wasn’t a