Last Dance, Last Chance

be an asshole my whole life.’
    “He must have brought most of the pan of soup to me in this huge bowl, and I told him I couldn’t eat it, and he said, ‘No, eat it. Eat it. It’s good for you.’”
    Debbie tried. She ate some of the chicken noodle soup that he made for her, but she couldn’t keep it down long. Later, when Debbie came downstairs, she saw that Lauren was eating the soup that was left in the pan.
    Anthony had gone to play baseball, so Debbie drove Lauren to gymnastic practice. She could still do that if she drove slowly and very carefully.
    Debbie’s biggest concern was for her children, and she did remember that Lauren had dished up a little bowl of the same soup for herself. That was the only kind of soup Lauren liked. A few hours later, when she was at the gymnastic meet, Lauren got sick, too, and threw up. She had to come home. Debbie managed to drive there and pick her up.
    Later in July, there was no longer any question of Debbie looking after her family, driving, or visiting neighbors. She didn’t know what her family was eating. Debbie was upstairs in bed most of the time, or on the couch. She no longer ate with her family, or ate much of anything. Sometimes she had a few spoonfuls of soup or just a few crackers. Everything tasted peculiar to her.
    During Debbie’s hospital visit on July 21, when her stomach pains were so bad that she could barely sit up, she didn’t come home right away. She was admitted for tests and remained at South Buffalo Mercy Hospital until July 25. Her diagnosis of pancreatitis of “unknown etiology” meant that the doctors didn’t know what had caused her pancreas to become inflamed. There could be numerous causes, and one of them was drinking too much alcohol. But Debbie hadn’t touched liquor for months. If that was the cause, Anthony was the one who should have been in the hospital; he was drinking enough tequila to pass out most nights.
    Debbie was home from July 25 until August 10, but she had no memory of that time. Her neighbors did. Her mother did. Caroline Rago was worried sick about her daughter, but she was not a confrontational woman—she never had been. If she asked Anthony too many questions, he might tell her she couldn’t come into his home on the weekends, and she wanted to be there as often as she could to take care of Debbie and oversee the children.
    Anthony had a way of dismissing questions from other people. After all, he was the doctor. If he thought Debbie needed medical attention, he would certainly see to it.
    Debbie had a lot of friends along their street, although Anthony wasn’t very convivial with the neighbors. His personality grated on a lot of them, particularly after a neighborhood meeting to discuss the construction of a Wilson Farms Store. The 24-hour convenience store would change the ambience of the area, and the neighbors gathered to discuss the pros and cons.
    “Anthony got up and took over the meeting,” one resident recalled. “Yes, his dad built our street, but he acted so superior, and he actually accused the people who didn’t side with his views of being ‘hired actors.’ That didn’t sit well with a lot of people.”
    Another neighbor was annoyed when he came into her kitchen as she cooked dinner. “I was making souvlaki, and he reached into the pan with his bare fingers and started eating slices of beef. It was so rude, not to mention unsanitary.”
    One of Debbie’s close friends was a woman who had lived a few houses down the block for eight years: Rose Gardner * . Rose invited her to attend a Tupperware party on Friday, August 6. Debbie had promised Rose she would be there, but she didn’t show up. This was so unusual for Debbie that Rose came by to check on her the next day, concerned because Debbie had been sick for so long and seemed to be getting worse. She could see that her friend was very sick.
    When Debbie was hospitalized on July 21, Rose had asked Anthony how she was. “He was very nonchalant,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Oh, she’ll be all right—she just has a little virus.’ I didn’t question him because he was a doctor, but it seemed like he was always blaming Debbie’s illness on one virus or another.”
    Rose was a petite woman whose slender figure belied the fact that she had borne six children. She took care of her home and flower garden and homeschooled her children, too, while managing to look as spic and span as her home. Rose was a devout Catholic and a very