Last Dance, Last Chance

family, doing the things he loved best.
    In Anthony’s view of an idyllic world, he had always planned to return to Buffalo as a physician and to work side by side with his father for decades. Now, he blamed a cruel fate that would rob him of his father only four years after his homecoming. He hadn’t let the imminent death of Debbie’s father disturb his first day of hunting season, but now he beat his breast and cried, “Why me?”
    And it was “Why me?” and not “Why my father?” In Anthony’s narcissistic world, every event was important only as it affected him. For Anthony saw himself as the center of the world, with other people spinning around him, ready to answer his needs. Any human consumed with such raging self-love is difficult to deal with; a physician who thinks only of himself is a disaster on the way to happen.
    A month after his father was diagnosed, Anthony inserted breast implants into a patient and told her she would need Demerol for postoperative pain. He wrote a prescription for a hundred 50-milligram tablets and sent her husband to a drugstore to get it filled. The worried husband rushed to get the painkiller and gave it to Anthony. But the patient never got any of the Demerol. Anthony kept it, apparently for his own use.
    Dr. Ralph Pignataro died on November 23, 1996. There was no Thanksgiving for the Pignataros that year. Dr. Ralph was only 62. He left behind his family and the patients he had served well over the preceding thirty-five years. Anthony announced that a piece of himself had died along with his father. But he added that his father had taught him to be strong and accept the reality of life, often advising him, “The dead are best left in the past. One can never forget, but one must move on.”
    Anthony moved on.
    After conducting a year-long campaign to convince Moira to go away with him, Anthony finally persuaded her to join him on a trip to Puerto Rico. He planned to set up a hair clinic there. The wealthy and the bald could get bolts and snaps in their heads or hair transplants in an exotic setting, combining recovery with a vacation. Labor would be cheaper for Anthony, too.
    The Friday night before he left, Anthony was an uncharacteristically attentive father. He took Debbie, Ralph, and Lauren to the Erie County Fair. They all had a good time. It was the kind of family occasion that Debbie had always longed for. They had so much fun that she wondered whether things could work out for them.
    The next morning, she drove Anthony to the airport and kissed him goodbye as he headed to New York City to catch his plane to Puerto Rico. He gave her the number of the hotel where he would be staying as he worked out the details on the new hair clinic. But Anthony wasn’t alone as he boarded the Puerto Rico flight. He and Moira flew south together.
    Debbie stayed home, unaware that her husband’s trip was anything more than a business venture.
    Debbie was faithful and supportive. She wasn’t particularly assertive, and she was long-suffering, living with a man who could be totally charming to his patients and potential patients and mean and critical at home. Now, he often compared her unfavorably with other women they saw.
    Long-suffering, yes, but Debbie was not saintly, and she certainly wasn’t stupid. She placed a call to the hotel in Puerto Rico where Anthony was staying to ask about his flight. She was startled when a woman’s voice came on the line.
    “Who is this?” Debbie asked.
    “Moira.”
    At first, Debbie thought she might have the wrong room, but she asked for Anthony anyway, and the woman didn’t think very fast.
    “He’s not here right now—”
    “Who are you and what are you doing in my husband’s room?” Debbie pressed.
    “I’m…er…a model. Dr. Pignataro did my breasts.”
    But Anthony wasn’t in Puerto Rico for a breast clinic; he was supposed to be there for a hair clinic. A familiar sick feeling rolled over Debbie. She remembered the woman who had left evidence in their car in Maryland. She reacted like a mother tiger whose young are threatened, shocking herself with her vehemence.
    Debbie’s voice had an edge of steel. “Well, tell him his wife called,” she began. “And I don’t know who you are, but if you ever come near him or my family, I’ll fucking kill you! Now get out of my husband’s room!”
    A long time later, Debbie recalled that Moira packed her suitcase and literally ran from the Puerto Rican hotel.
    “I went to