Last Dance, Last Chance

tell Debbie whether she might ever walk again. She still couldn’t feed herself, dress herself, bathe, curl her hair, put on makeup, or brush Lauren’s hair. “I couldn’t even turn over in bed. I couldn’t move my legs or my arms or my hands.”
    Her brother Carmine came to visit often and urged, “Fight hard, Deb! Keep trying to move your fingers, your toes, your arms, and your legs!”
    But days went by, and then weeks, and Debbie couldn’t make her limbs work at all. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes with the effort of trying to connect with nerves that wouldn’t work. “It was so odd,” she remembered. “Even though my arms and legs were numb, I always felt unbearable pain there. It was constant.”
    And then the worst thing of all happened. The Child Protective Service of Erie County served both Debbie and Anthony with a petition that said Ralph and Lauren were neglected children. “ADJUDGED that above named children are neglected children…”
    Debbie was humiliated and horrified. Even though so many events in her life had made her feel like a failure, the one thing Debbie had always known was that she was a good mother. That anyone would consider her a neglectful mother was more than she could bear. She was terrified to read the words at the top of one of the documents from Family Court of the State of New York:
    Notice: YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT IF ANY OF THE WITHIN-NAMED CHILDREN REMAIN IN FOSTER CARE FOR FIFTEEN OF THE MOST RECENT TWENTY-TWO MONTHS, THE AGENCY MAY BE REQUIRED BY LAW TO TERMINATE PARENTAL RIGHTS.
    That meant that the state could take her children away from her and give them to someone else. Debbie knew that even if she never got over being paralyzed, her children would need her. And she needed them. She read the terrible notice with tears running down her face.
    Fortunately for Debbie, her cousin Maria, who was Ralph’s godmother, was married to Denis A. Scinta, a well-respected local attorney who specialized in family law. Denis promised Debbie that it would be all right—that no one who heard the whole story, not even a judge, would ever conclude that she wasn’t a proper mother.
    There was nothing she could do about it at the moment. On her own, she couldn’t even move her little finger. And it would be a while before she could hope to return to rehab.
    Anthony continued to visit her, although as the arsenic leached from her system and her mind cleared, she found herself questioning why he came and why he wasn’t angrier that the state was trying to take their children away.
    Why wasn’t he raging and stomping his feet? He could move and shout, but he didn’t seem worried about what would happen to their children. Sometimes she thought he only needed to be sure that she would never suspect him of poisoning her. And those were the times when Debbie remembered how often he had lied to her.
    On September 14, 1999, Anthony sat beside her bed acting as he always did now—the perfect, concerned husband. Suddenly, Debbie’s cousin Denis walked into the room. She was happy to have Denis and his wife, Maria, back in her life. If anything good had come out of her illness, it was that Debbie’s extended family had returned to her life. Over the years, Anthony had discouraged her from seeing her relatives, preferring to celebrate holidays with his family.
    Denis strode in, and he seemed very angry when he saw Anthony. His voice was steely as he said, “Anthony, leave. Get out of here and don’t come back!”
    Anthony turned pale, but he stood up and hurried out. Debbie turned to Denis with a question on her lips. Before she could ask why her cousin was so angry, her mother, her cousin Maria, and her brother Carmine and his wife walked in. They were all there to show their support when Debbie heard devastating news.
    Denis, who was usually quite jovial, was deadly serious. “Deb, Tony sent his girlfriend a card while you were in the intensive care unit. While you were dying, he wrote to her, ‘If you knew how much I missed you, you would be with me.’”
    It may have seemed cruel, but Denis wanted desperately to convince Debbie that Anthony would destroy her if he could. “You have to choose. If you care about your kids, you’ve got to make up your mind. It’s either Tony or the kids. And you can’t trust Tony.”
    With tears in her eyes, Debbie looked at the serious faces of the people who loved her the most, and she knew Denis was right. There was no