Jill was unabashedly flirting with one of the coaches of the bicycling team from Spain. As she and Anne Marie walked out, Jill laughed and said, “He was pretty flirty, Annie. Maybe I should have kissed him. I’ve never kissed an older man before.”
Anne Marie stopped, turned around, and said slowly, “Well, I have.”
From the look on her face, Jill knew whom she meant. It had to be Tom Capano, and it sounded like more than the good-night kiss Anne Marie had described after she’d been to dinner with him six months earlier. She was apparently still seeing him, and that gave Jill a kind of sinking feeling. Annie could seem so together, but her good friends knew she wasn’t.
THERE were a lot of changes in store for Anne Marie that spring. Bronwyn was going back to New Zealand, and Jackie was getting married in July, so that meant the end of their sharing Jackie’s house. But it was more than that for Anne Marie; she was losing another home. She had no choice but to look for an apartment that she could afford on her own. She was saving her money, putting a little aside each month, for another reason, too. She and her brother Brian had decided that the best way to use their share of the inheritance from their grandmother’s estate would be to visit Ireland and walk through the places where Katherine McGettigan had lived when she was a girl. There was just enough for plane fare, but they needed to save so they could rent a car and pay for lodgings.
Annie and Seymour in Ireland—they both liked the concept and looked forward to the trip that summer of 1994. It was a positive goal for Anne Marie. She and Brian were so much alike and such good friends. If they could trace their roots in Ireland, they would not only honor Nan’s memory but also establish some continuity in their own lives. The two of them, who had been the last to leave the childhood home that had been sacrificed to debt and drink, would make new memories.
In the spring of 1994, Anne Marie was already trying to keep from being too dependent upon Tom Capano. He was offering her so many of the things she needed: a listening ear, the protectiveness of an older man—something she had never known—and the things that money could buy, also something she had never known. It was so tempting and so easy for her to love him. But she knew he could never offer her what she really wanted. He couldn’t give her marriage or babies or self-respect. She couldn’t take him to her family’s holiday celebrations; he had a whole other life that would always keep him away from her when she needed him.
It was very difficult for Anne Marie to turn away from anyone, so fearful was she that she might hurt their feelings. Tom was being very reasonable and very nice, but she felt the pull of invisible strings. He knew that she desperately wanted to make a side trip from Ireland while she was in Europe. She had always hoped to return for a visit to the family she had lived with in Spain, but that was financially impossible, even with Nan’s bequest. She couldn’t dream of going to Spain, too.
One night, when Jill went with her to look at an apartment, Anne Marie blurted, “I just have to tell you something. I got a card from Tom—and it had five hundred-dollar bills in it.”
Jill looked at her. “Why—?”
“The note said, ‘Use this to go to Spain.’ ”
The two of them discussed whether Anne Marie should accept it. How could she explain how she had suddenly come up with that much money and just go off to Spain? What would Brian think? They agreed that $500 was probably nothing to Tom, but it was so much money to them—too much for Anne Marie to accept.
As the summer approached, it would become clear that Anne Marie was seriously questioning her relationship with Tom. Her Catholic faith was very important to her, her family’s approval meant everything, and being with Tom went against those things. Still, she wasn’t confident to be just herself, alone. Her diary was full of entries about other men—men who were free to date her. Although she was twenty-seven, she sounded more like a teenager when she wrote about the men in her life. She had begun dating late and she needed approval more than most women. Mature in her career, Anne Marie was sixteen in her heart.
On June 11, 1994, her brother Robert arranged a double date: he and his wife, Susan, along with Anne Marie and Mike Hines, a man Robert worked with. Anne Marie felt the blind date had worked out very well; in a little over a week, she wrote, “I think I’m falling for him real fast! I see myself marrying him.”
Of course, it was much too soon. And the P.S. revealed more about how frightened she really was of not being good enough, of being alone, of being unloved: “P.S. My weight is 129. I have a serious problem, but right now I am not able to confront it.”
A week later, Anne Marie wrote of a wonderful evening with Mike at the beach, a Saturday night with a romantic stroll home. But—
He said he would talk to me tomorrow, and I never heard from him. . . . He never called me Sunday nor Monday. So of course I now think he’s blowing me off, and does not want to see me anymore. God, it is great to be young and insecure. I hope that’s not the case, but if it is, I better learn to deal with it quick. Actually, I am good at dealing with rejection, much better than dealing with compliments.
Almost every woman who ever went on a date knew that feeling. Men rarely called when they said they would, and they always said they would. But Anne Marie’s fear went deeper. She leapt to embrace rejection before it could sneak up and catch her unaware.
Mike Hines eventually called her and they went out again, but she questioned every comment, every phone call that didn’t come or came too late. She was sure he wanted to dump her but was afraid to because he worked with her brother. She set arbitrary time limits; if he didn’t call by Wednesday, that meant he was dumping her. Or by Friday. When he didn’t accept her invitation to a Fourth of July celebration, that meant “I am not pretty, smart, fun, exciting, enough.”
But she was. Only, she didn’t believe it. When Anne Marie forced a premature confrontation on what Mike’s feelings and intentions were after only a month of fairly casual dating, he was polite and sincere, and probably spooked. She did not mention another date with him in her diary.
ON July 20, 1994, Anne Marie and Brian arrived in Ireland. It was to be a respite from a frenetic eight months in which she had judged herself so very harshly. With the brother who loved her so dearly, folded into the country of her origins, Anne Marie blossomed. From Shannon to Limerick to Dublin to Ballinor to Cape Clear, her diary entries were full of joy and excitement about the trip, full of her tremendous appreciation for life.
As I sit on this rock elevated at a few hundred feet, below a sky blue ocean, I do not know that I have ever been to a more beautiful place (or ever will for that matter). As I look out all I can see is water, cliffs, and, last but not least, green pasture. There are a few homes scattered around the island. . . . I lay down for a bit, listening to the waves crash against the cliff with a fair hint of seagulls in the background. . . . I have never seen so many different shades of green, all representing this beautiful country. Everywhere I look (north, south, east, west) I am surrounded by the ocean. . . . I have my grandmother to thank for the relaxation I am experiencing right now. Without her this trip would not have been possible. Of course I would rather have her with me, but we all must die. I hope she knows I am here.
Their two weeks in Ireland closed an invisible circle for Anne Marie and Brian. Although they often stayed at hostels with few amenities and sometimes argued when they were tired or hungry or just sick of too much time together, they were connecting to the people who had gone before them.
Anne Marie fretted more than Brian did about the primitive or bizarre accommodations they were forced to choose because they had little money. And her journal entries were not all as poetic as her thoughts on the ocean. When they reached Dingle, she showed her well-developed irreverent side:
We dropped our belongings [at the hostel] in #10. I don’t think so, “Doggie!” It was another ten-person, five-bunk-bed room from the 1960’s. I realize I don’t recall the sixties due to the fact that I was born in 1966; however that room
was bullshit. Black walls with fluorescent psychedelic paint splatted all over. There was one side of the wall that had a big-ass toothbrush painted on it. How attractive! I told Seymour, “No way—get me the fuck out of this room!”
And in Dingle, the happy campers’ patience was wearing a little thin. “I think Seymour is bored with me,” Anne Marie wrote.
We had a “fight” at the bar because he said that my self-esteem is very low, and if he did not know me, he would think I was incapable of doing absolutely nothing. I was very sad and furious! I think that when two people go on a trip together for two weeks, one is bound to get on one another’s nerves. I don’t regret taking a trip with him, but sometimes I hope he likes a party and also would enjoy eating in a restaurant which is a little bit more expensive! Oh my God, shut your mouth, Ana Maria.
In close quarters for too long, Anne Marie began to think that Brian was ridiculously parsimonious, and he found her constant need to be doing something unreasonably hyper. But they pushed on, their verbal tangles typical of siblings. Anne Marie was so secure with Brian that she was actually asserting herself and speaking up, which, for her, was a significant accomplishment. They found the little hamlet on the way to Sligo that the Faheys were supposed to have come from and took a picture of Fahy Hardware. They were enjoying the very real sense of being in the place where they had roots.
And then they were in Kilmecrennan, the village where Nan and Grand Daddy had once lived. It was high summer and their time there could not have been more serendipitous. Brian and Anne Marie found the pub in Milford that Nan had owned; it was still called the White Heather Inn. And they met a cousin who looked just like Nan. Surrounded by relatives, Anne Marie felt totally at home, and it was like balm to her soul.
When she returned to Bob Conner’s office on August 9, Anne Marie was happier than he had ever known her to be. She was living in her own cozy little apartment on Washington Street, where she could afford the rent all by herself. Her trip to Ireland had allowed her to step out of her life for two weeks, and he could see that her image of herself was much more positive. She confided that she had been able to speak her mind and nothing terrible happened. Her fingers crossed, it looked as if Annie was beginning to emerge from a long lonely tunnel.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN NOTHING WORKED OUT with Mike Hines, Anne Marie had begun seeing Tom again. He often dropped by her desk in the governor’s office, and she remembered how nice it was to be with him. He was supportive and kind, and he challenged her to a continuing game of trivia. It was light, at first, and fun.
Anne Marie told some of her friends part of the truth about her relationship with Tom, others very little, but she confided completely in Kim Horstman. They lived together at the shore every summer, and they spoke on the phone at least twice a week during the rest of the year. Kim knew about Annie’s problem with eating, and she knew about the men in her life. That summer of 1994 in Sea Isle City, Annie told Kim she was involved with Tom Capano—not just for lunches and an occasional dinner date, but in a romantic affair. She had referred to him often before, and he had gone out of her life for a while, it seemed, when Annie dated Mike Hines. But now Kim realized that she and Tom were involved in a far more intense relationship than before.
Anne Marie told Kim that Tom treated her “like a princess,” that she could tell him all of her secrets, and that he bought her gifts and took her out to wonderful places. “I think she kind of thought of him maybe as a father figure,” Kim recalled; “that she could share a lot with him.”
If anyone needed a father figure, it was Anne Marie. But she was so torn. She told Kim about the guilt that was eating her up. “It was a very difficult situation for her because he was married with four children,” Kim said, “and Annie is a Catholic and committing adultery is something that is against our religion. It was a very difficult struggle for her.”
One day that summer, it became painfully clear to Anne Marie that Tom had another life totally separate from hers. She was shopping in Stone Harbor with her sister-in-law Linda when she bumped into him in front of one of the stores. He was waiting for one of his daughters to decide what she wanted to buy, and the three were chatting a little awkwardly when a coltishly pretty young girl came out of the store. It was Jenny, who was almost eleven.
“You look just like Natalie Wood,” Anne Marie finally said, noting the resemblance that so many people did. Inside, she was checking her own emotions upon seeing Tom with one of his children. After some small talk, she and Linda went one way and Tom and Jenny another.
Anne Marie told Kim that Tom Capano wanted to meet her, because he knew that she had confided in Kim. Kim was the only one who knew about their affair at that point, or at least Anne Marie thought so. “It was Capano’s idea,” Kim recalled, “because we were very close and he knew that Annie was telling me about their relationship—so he said he wanted to meet me.”
Kim was surprised and a little uncomfortable that Anne Marie’s lover wanted to meet her, but she finally agreed. The three of them went to DiLullo’s Restaurant in the center of Philadelphia, and Kim studied this man whom her friend was so taken with. He was a lot older than she and Annie were, but he seemed very nice and Annie was clearly nuts about the guy. “They acted very much like a couple,” Kim recalled. “They were holding hands and they kissed across the table.”
Anne Marie seemed so happy, but Kim knew how guilty she felt. Tom went out of his way to charm Kim. Why did he bother? It was Annie he wanted, and he certainly seemed to have her.
JILL MORRISON wouldn’t have been happy to hear that. She had hoped that Anne Marie was over her fascination with Tom, but she had her doubts. When Annie came back from Ireland, she barely mentioned Mike Hines any longer. She and Jill were shopping at Macy’s one day, and Anne Marie bought a phone for her new apartment. Jill saw her pay for it with a $100 bill. She had never known Annie to have a $100 bill, except for the time Tom sent her the five $100 bills to use for a trip to Spain. She hadn’t gone to Spain, but now Jill wondered if he had convinced Annie to keep the money. Anne Marie didn’t say anything about it, and Jill didn’t ask.
Like her other good friends, Jill was worried about Anne Marie. She didn’t look well. She hadn’t been at all heavy when Jill first met her, and by the autumn of 1994, she was distressingly thin. When they went out to lunch now, Jill would order a good-sized sandwich, while Anne Marie said she wasn’t hungry and nibbled on a pretzel and sipped ice water. In December, they were grocery shopping together in the Acme supermarket and Jill glanced from her cart to Anne Marie’s with a sinking feeling. “I had a big basket full of food and all she had was fruit. And I told her I was very worried about her weight.”
Anne Marie had deep smudgy circles under her eyes, and her arms and legs were so thin that her elbows and knees stuck out. “I told her I actually thought about calling Bob [Conner],” Jill recalled, “because I can’t understand how you can be seeing a psychologist and they don’t realize that you are as thin as you are, and that there is a problem here.”
(Of course, Bob Conner knew all about Anne Marie’s anorexia, although he was very careful about confronting her before she was ready. He knew she worked out too much, used laxatives to rid her body of food, and he was grateful that she was not bulimic.)
For once, when Jill brought it up, Anne Marie didn’t try to avoid a discussion about her weight. Jill couldn’t hold back her tears when she looked at Anne Marie in the bright store lights, and she touched her arm and said, “I can’t watch you kill yourself like this.”
Anne Marie had tears in her eyes, too, and promised, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll stick around for a long time.”
Once again, the fall had been a difficult time for Anne Marie. Her glorious weeks in Ireland seemed remote now, but it was more than the end of summer that made her feel so down. There was always the anniversary of Nan’s death to deal with, and then the holidays that evoked so many memories. She had put forth some ideas at work and felt
they weren’t taken seriously. She had asked for a raise, which was unbelievably difficult for her, and she was mortified when she didn’t get it, even though it was because of the state’s budget allocations and not because she wasn’t doing a good job.
In her next session she told Bob Conner, “Annie’s not going anywhere.” She was characteristically angry at herself as always, feeling it was her fault that she didn’t have enough confidence to explore other options.
Most of all, Anne Marie was still gripped by such a pervasive sense of loneliness. It was as if her whole life was spent on the outside looking in, and at any moment everyone she counted on could abandon her. When Conner asked her who might desert her, Anne Marie finally talked a little bit about a lawyer she was seeing, but she was very cautious about revealing much. She didn’t tell him the man was married. She was too ashamed.
Just being in the affair with Tom was destructive and frightening for Anne Marie. She was so afraid of disappointing her brothers, and of offending God. And then there was Christmas coming up. She told Bob Conner she was afraid of Christmas and what might go wrong if there was alcohol and her brother Mark was there. And she was afraid she couldn’t deal with Christmas dinner, so much food to resist, to push around her plate so no one would notice that she wasn’t eating if she did resist.
Anne Marie clung to Conner emotionally because she trusted him completely, and that was fine. He was a man she could trust, a kind soul as well as a skilled therapist. Conner saw that she needed to believe in someone enough so that she could pour her heart out. It was important that anyone she chose to confide in understood that this beautiful and vibrant woman was often only a child without defenses. When she did trust, she was like a turtle without a shell, so pervious to hurt. Still, Anne Marie and Conner were making progress. For every step back she took, she leapt ahead three. Yes, she was still afraid of losing control of her life, but she was finally able to voice her fears and confront them.