...And Never Let HerGo

Wilmington in the late summer of 1995, a place where she could serve breakfast and lunch five days a week to the business community, and do a lot of catering, too. Jackie told Anne Marie that she wasn’t too comfortable dealing with the legal aspects and wasn’t sure how to incorporate. Anne Marie mentioned Jackie’s problems to Tom and he immediately offered to help her. He and Anne Marie met with Jackie over lunch and Tom gave Jackie advice on everything from her menu to leasing versus purchasing equipment. He told her the risks inherent in running a small business and did all the paperwork for incorporation without charge. He even promised to send catering business her way since his law firm was right next door to where Java Jack’s would be. Jackie realized he had given her thousands of dollars’ worth of legal help for free.
    She was grateful for Tom’s advice, but a little put off by the way he seemed to take over. “When I opened in August, he was adamant about it—he wanted to be the first customer,” Jackie said. “He wanted to come down and set up a time to go over my books, which I felt was a little odd—a little invasion of my privacy.”
    But then she remembered that he had been so nice about giving her legal help for nothing, and Jackie wasn’t as annoyed. He was being Tom; he didn’t seem to have the same sense of personal boundaries that most people had—especially with young women. One habit of Tom’s really bothered Jackie; he always kissed her on the mouth when he walked into Java Jack’s every morning at nine, and she hated that. She tried to be in the kitchen or wearing gloves to avoid the contact. But that was just the way he was; he was one ofthose people who seemed unaware that they were invading others’ personal space.
    I N July 1995, as Tom put more and more pressure on Anne Marie, she started seeing another counselor. Bob Conner had been dead for six months and she knew she needed help—although it wouldn’t be easy trying to bond with another therapist. She began seeing Gary Johnson every other Tuesday afternoon. She was starting all over, but it would be a long time before she would feel safe enough to discuss the married man who had taken over her life.
    Tom continued to maintain his links to Anne Marie’s girlfriends. If he couldn’t locate her or was worried about some aspect of their relationship, he was quick to call Jackie, Kim, Ginny, Jill, or any other of her friends to glean information. She was such a private person that it sometimes set Anne Marie’s teeth on edge to know that he was doing that.
    In July, Tom discovered a new way to keep in touch with Anne Marie. He began to send E-mail through the computer system at Saul, Ewing, Remick and Saul to her desk at the governor’s office. His first try took six days to draw a response, but finally Anne Marie sent back a short reply. It was another connection, one that would have been impossible a decade before. He sent her trivia questions and she answered, usually correctly. It was all very light on the surface, unless she failed to respond as quickly as he liked. Along with his calls, his surprise drop-ins at her apartment, and their dates, his E-mail helped Tom to keep track of Anne Marie. Tom had no idea that E-mail had any life beyond the immediate time it was sent and retrieved; he knew virtually nothing about computers.
    A T first, Anne Marie hadn’t realized that Tom was manipulating her emotions as if she were a puppet—but as much of a romantic as she was, she was also very bright. She had begun to see a frightening pattern. Tom had done so many nice things for her, but there always seemed to be a payback. The biggest payback was her loss of freedom and being aware that she could not make even a simple plan to do something with her friends without Tom’s entering into it. In the summer of 1995, she pondered more and more often about what her life would be like without Tom. But even as she did, she felt disloyal—torn between gratitude for all he had done for her and her own need not to be controlled.
    Even so, when Tom told Anne Marie he was taking her on a vacation in August of 1995, she tentatively agreed to go. He hadchosen a luxury resort in Virginia called the Homestead. “The Homestead is the kind of place I always wanted to go to,” Tom recalled. “But my kids are beach people. It’s in the mountains; therefore it’s cooler. It’s something I had wanted to do, but also to be with