Last Dance, Last Chance

sleeping with my husband?”
    Tami fled without answering.
    Debbie had the locks changed so Anthony couldn’t come sneaking back in with more vows of love and commitment. She also cleared out their joint checking account, leaving him $5,000. She didn’t talk to him when he called every day, but Ralph and Lauren did. She knew Anthony was back to his familiar pleading mode, telling them that he wanted to come home to be with his family.
    But Debbie didn’t relent. The locks stayed locked.
    Anthony used the money he had left to get his own apartment in West Seneca. Although he called every day, he wouldn’t give Debbie or their children his phone number. Debbie was sure that he was spending much of his time with Tami.
    After her outrage subsided, Debbie Pignataro sank into a depression that was far worse than any she had ever known. She had been through a great deal in the first forty years of her life, but she had always managed to come back from grief and despair. Now, she wondered if she could do it again, knowing that there was no hope any longer for her marriage. It was as if all her losses were stacked one atop another in a tower of misery that had no stability, wavering in the slightest breeze. Just one more stress would surely make the whole structure collapse and fall down—and take Debbie with it.
    Debbie was in recurring physical pain from her neck injury—pain that held her neck in a vise and shot down her arms to her hands. A solid night’s sleep became impossible for her, and she was always tired. She put on the best possible face for Ralph and Lauren’s sake, but it wasn’t easy.
    Debbie had been seeing a psychiatrist for a year—since a month after Anthony’s indictment for Sarah Smith’s death. And the therapist had told her what she already knew: she was suffering from anxiety and depression. She dreaded leaving her home and suffered from a mild case of agoraphobia, meaning “fear of the marketplace.” And why wouldn’t she, with cameras pointed at her and her husband’s faces, with their names in the headlines day after day? Staying at home with the curtains pulled seemed so much safer than venturing out.
    While Anthony was in prison, Debbie was alone during the darkness of night while the winter winds off Lake Erie screamed around the house. They had Polo to protect them, but she longed to have Anthony beside her. He had come home, and she had felt safe for only a week. Now she could never be sure where he was or who he was with.
    Debbie’s psychiatrist prescribed Xanax to quiet her anxiety and ease her depression. It took the edge off, but she still found it hard to sleep. Her exhaustion weighed on her.
    Two days after Debbie discovered that Anthony was seeing Tami, she took more Xanax than her prescription called for. Two pills didn’t quiet her anxiety, and she took two more. Then, her mind dulled by a double dose but still racing, she unwittingly took more. It was not a suicide attempt; she was far too protective a mother and too devout a Catholic to even consider such a thing. She was just so tired…
    The minute she swallowed the last tranquilizer, she realized she needed help. She called her mother and a friend.
    Debbie was hospitalized very briefly on March 1, 1999, until the excess Xanax washed out of her system. She was relieved to be home again with her children, but the problems were still there—and growing worse. She could always count on her mother and her brother, although Anthony had managed to distance her from most of her extended family over the years.
    And, somewhat surprisingly, Debbie could count on her mother-in-law. Lena Pignataro might be helping Anthony out financially, but she was furious with him for leaving his family. She had accepted Debbie as another daughter, and she doted on Ralph and Lauren. Lena thought it was disgraceful that her son was seeing some floozie, and she lectured him that he should go back to Debbie and the children.
    In truth, Anthony was under far more pressure from his mother than he was from his wife. Lena was absolutely furious with him for leaving Debbie and Lena’s beloved grandchildren. She sent him a scorching letter:
    “I’m not playing games with you now or ever,” she wrote. “You and your whore deserve each other. I hate you both.
    “If you think you can do this to your family and get away with it, you are NUTS!…I will not let you hurt or scar my grandchildren. I will get even with you both before I