Last Dance, Last Chance

wanted was to be a wife and mother and enjoy and share the love that this ‘should’ bring,” Sharon remembered. “I also knew that she was trying to hold on to something that didn’t exist—at least in that marriage.”
    Almost any woman who’s ever been married can identify with Debbie’s struggle to believe in her husband. Once she said out loud that he was probably the person who had given her deadly poison, she would have to let go of all of her dreams.
     
    Sharon rejoined Frank Sedita in the lobby, and she remembered telling him that she felt Debbie knew it was Tony who had given her the arsenic, but that too much had happened to her for her to take it all in. “She can’t accept it right now,” Sharon said. “Not yet. You can’t ask her to.”
    For her part, Sharon Simon was horrified to learn that Tony Pignataro hadn’t been totally reviled by the medical community. Some Buffalo area doctors had even sent him letters of support, adhering to the “good old boy” system whereby doctors stick together, no matter what. Sharon’s own physician complained to her: “Doctors shouldn’t be investigated by the D.A’s office. That’s wrong.”
    Sharon changed doctors.
    Anthony was still a regular hospital visitor, and he appeared to be as doting and supportive as ever. He searched Debbie’s face to be certain that they were still clinging tightly together, still strong in their trust in each other. She didn’t know yet that he was telling other people that she was suicidal and had probably taken the poison herself.
     
    Debbie remained in the hospital in September as school started, her children’s world so separate from her own. She had always been the kind of mother who made sure they had a good breakfast and clean clothes to wear to school. She’d waved goodbye to them in the morning and was waiting at the door for them when they came home. She’d made sure they had helmets on if they rode bikes, and worried if they had even a slight fever. She rarely left them overnight, preferring to take them along on vacations. Now all she could do was pray that they were safe.
    Anthony wasn’t looking after their children. He told Debbie he was too overwhelmed with emotion over what had happened to them all to take care of them. Ralph and Lauren were better off, he said, with Carmine and his wife.
    But he assured Debbie that he was going to Ralph’s football games. Ralph was still something of a football phenomenon. Anthony went out of his way to show everyone that he was a complete “football father,” proud of his son and right there to cheer for him.
    “He would run up and down the sidelines with Lauren on his shoulders,” their neighbor Shelly Palombaro remembered. “He made such a spectacle of himself that it didn’t ring true. He’d be shouting, ‘Look at Ralph, Lauren! We’ve got to call Mom and tell Mom!’
    “It was like watching some actor in a play. Several people commented about the way he seemed to know that every eye was on him, and he was showing them what a great husband and father he was.”
    As he had done before when Anthony went to Ralph’s games, he ignored the parking area for visitors. Then he drove his Lamborghini right up to where the coaches parked, despite signs that said he couldn’t park there. Every time he was told he couldn’t park where it said “Coaches Only,” he waved his hand and walked away, ignoring the rules. Now he parked his Cadillac there.
    “The rules never applied to him,” one of the other fathers said.
    Anthony didn’t live at home or oversee his children’s day-by-day activities. He lived with Lena in her big house a few miles away from his own duplex. Debbie had no more visits from Lena, and her mother-in-law’s complete reversal in attitude toward her disturbed her. Ordinarily, if Debbie was ill, she could depend on her mother-in-law for backup. Over the years, Lena had never had to work, as Caroline Rago had.
    Debbie had always been able to count on Lena Pignataro. Sometimes Lena was angry with Anthony, but her grandchildren or Debbie could call her for anything. “She used to say to me, ‘Debbie, I’m always here if you need me. It takes me seven minutes from my house to get there,’ and she was always there when I needed her—always in seven minutes.
    “Even when I found out about Tami, Lena was right there on my side. She was absolutely furious with Anthony.”
    Debbie’s mother, Caroline, agreed, but with just a little