Trouble
In 1981 we moved to Boston where we spent a wretched and unhappy 9 months. Finally, in 1982, Spero Daltas asked Peter to return to Rome and so I packed up the condo that we had bought and rented it out to a couple of gay guys and we were off only this time I had a plan and that was to leave Peter as soon as I could.
I got a job with an international law firm handling all of the Iranian immigration cases that started pouring into Italy as a result of Khomeini closing the Iranian borders in 1979, soon after the revolution. Now finally I was able to make my move and I rented an apartment not far from ours and moved out. The Italian courts were about to award custody to me but in the meantime Peter pulled a fast one by trying to take Tobias back to his girlfriend in Lincoln, MA. The American Embassy called me at home and I prevented that from happening.
Unfortunately, the court never was able to make its ruling because in March 1985 the head of my international law firm, Richard Moffett Heller, was arrested and thrown into jail. I packed up our barest essentials following a 5AM dawn raid by the caribinieri and Peter bought Tobias and me one-way tickets to Boston.
As soon as we set foot on Massachusetts soil, Peter sued for custody of Tobias citing me as an unfit mother, homeless and destitute. Which was quite true and grounds for the juvenile court to award custody of Tobias to Peter. The bailiffs came and took Tobias away one afternoon. They had to peel his arms from around my neck. I suffered severe anxiety and panic attacks from then on but I found a job with a law firm, I found an apartment not far from where I live now and I found a loser boyfriend too.
I had been in Boston only a few months when my phone rang and this familiar voice said “This is Vincent Gambino from the Criminal Division of the IRS in Washington, D.C. We are inviting four magistrates here to interview various employees, clients etc. of Richard Heller and we suggest you get a lawyer.” So I did. None other than Harvey Silverglate. The hearing was held and came to no conclusion. Whatever Heller was up to was between him and his Maker. A few days later I received an invoice for $24,000 for services rendered from Mr. Silverglate. I paid off half of it but eventually, he had to write the remainder off as my firm went bankrupt and the economy tanked.
The Cambridge Juvenile Court revised its decision and awarded us joint custody with primary residence in Lincoln. Weekend visitation, vacations, etc. And for years that is how we carried on. Tobias got through elementary school, high school with this arrangement in place. And then while a junior in high school, he decided to apply to Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland. His theory is that it would be as far away from both of us as he could get!
I shed the loser boyfriend in 1995 and moved into the apartment I have now at the same time. I also joined the law firm I am with now at that time. And for these 15 years, I have led a stable and productive life. Tobias finished college in 2001 and moved to Burlington, VT where he got a very good job in marketing. Then he moved to Santa Cruz, CA, and met the woman he would marry. They went to live in Torino, Italy for two years and a year ago relocated to Portland, OR where they have bought a house and are soon expecting their first child, a boy, Desmond.
I am nearing my social security birthday. I am at a crossroads. I think my next move will be to Portland, OR. I have spent 26 years trying to go somewhere and now finally I think I might make it.