Last Dance, Last Chance

longest words possible in his almost archaic narrative. He sometimes referred to himself in the third person. The vast majority of his book was about his brilliance as a physician; only occasionally did he mention his family life.
    There were some situations that he didn’t mention at all. He included nothing that might cast a negative light on his prowess as a physician, although he was quick to blame the bad judgment of others.
    Anthony was less than three years out of medical school, and the young doctor didn’t have the experience that older physicians had. All doctors make mistakes once in a while; they are only human, but most of their slips or misdiagnoses are not life-threatening. However, Anthony made a really bad call. He allegedly failed to diagnose a patient who had a severe inflammation of the lining of the heart: bacterial endocarditis. Such an ailment can be mistaken for pleurisy or pneumonia, but it can also be fatal if not treated. This patient died, and a wrongful death suit was filed. Eventually the suit was dropped, but it was a scary thing for both Debbie and Anthony.
    Nevertheless, being back in Buffalo gave the young Pignataros a time of calm in their lives. Everyone fussed over baby Ralph, and it was good to be home again after years away. Even though it tore at Debbie’s heart to see her father so ill—any effort at all made him gasp for breath—he still had the strength of character that endeared him to everyone in his family. To his siblings and cousins, nieces and nephew, Frank Rago was “Uncle Junior,” a vital and integral part of a wide, extended family. His advice was always solid. Everyone called Uncle Junior for counsel or for comfort.
    Debbie followed his directive to forgive her husband once, but it was to be the last advice her father would ever give her. On November 16, 1987, Frank Rago slipped into severe congestive heart failure and was taken to the hospital to undergo diuresis in an effort to remove the fluid that was drowning his lungs. Caroline and Carmine were at the hospital with him, and Debbie was home with her infant son, waiting for word. But Anthony had gone deer hunting with his father at dawn. He assured Debbie he would carry his pager with him in case she needed him. Hunting was very important to Anthony—both hunting for deer in New York and later for big game in faraway countries.
     
    Debbie needed him that day, and needed him badly. Oddly, Anthony chose to immortalize that last day of Frank Rago’s life in his book by prefacing it with a description of his successful shot into the heart of a white-tail deer.
    “I was confident he was dead,” Anthony wrote of the buck he shot. “As I descended from my stand I knew that no animal could withstand such a violent penetrating chest wound. As I followed the trail, my pager began to beep. I canceled the signal and caught up with my trophy. Knowing my passion for this sport, neither my answering service, nor my wife, would risk the wrath of my response to the disturbance of a loud audible beeper in the silence of the forest. I had the deer gutted and field dressed as soon as possible, and began the half-mile drag back to our vehicle with the innate fear that the page was real…”
    Even so, when Anthony learned that his father-in-law’s condition had worsened, he stopped to shower and change. “But I neglected to shave,” he added. “Stepping off the elevator, we presented to the ICU, Carmine, my brother-in-law, greeted us with the most crestfallen expression of bereavement as he simply shook his head, ‘No.’
    “Deborah erupted with the most gut-wrenching expression of pain that I ever remember. Her best buddy was gone. I knew that nothing has hurt her as much as this…”
     
    Debbie Pignataro withstood several emotional losses that year. Her father was gone. Her husband had been unfaithful, and more and more he was often missing when she needed him. Still, she was made of steel as well as velvet, and she kept going. The Pignataros made Debbie welcome. The news of Anthony’s dalliance with another woman was apparently common knowledge in the family, because Lena took Debbie’s side, confiding to her that she understood how Debbie felt. “It happened to me, too—twice,” Lena said.
    That shocked Debbie, but it reassured her, too; Dr. Ralph and Lena certainly had a strong marriage now.
    “In many ways,” Debbie remembered, “we had a wonderful year. I was pregnant again. Anthony was always