Lifesaving Lessons (14 page)

There was a string of lesser disturbances that further fouled the island, or at least my perception of it. Two of our longtime residents appeared to be trying to drink themselves to death. Not that this is in any way close to sexual abuse of children, but it was another boil that came to the surface within or about this same time frame. I'm not talking about getting drunk; I am talking about getting drunk and staying that way. I am talking about being so drunk that you are found in a ditch, unable to walk or talk. Then there was a rumor that the state was coming out with drug-sniffing dogs. I have friends who smoke a lot of pot—some of whom grow their own. Now I worried that marijuana farms would be discovered and we'd be all over the local news with yet another black mark. An island high school student got pregnant. Again, not the end of the world—it happens—but I also heard that she was not certain who the father was.

Once we all adjusted to the idea of a minor having a baby, most of us remembered that babies are happy occasions, and we welcomed the new resident with open arms. We sure needed something positive in the midst of all of the badness. I even hosted a baby shower at my place that was very well attended. It seemed that every time an individual or joint effort forced something fun and positive down our throats, something evil would induce vomiting. I've got news for those who believe that bad things come in threes: This crap just kept going, on and on. Every time I spoke with friends I heard another report that made me glad Mariah was away at school. When one of my pals remarked that “we are becoming Matinicus,” I couldn't muster any evidence to the contrary. Matinicus has always been the butt of jokes about incest, drunkenness, domestic violence, and drug abuse. Isle au Haut was above all of that. Or at least that's what I once believed. Disillusionment, when cast in the face of a believer as devout as I had been, hit hard.

Being an islander had always been something of a religion. And in my case, coupled with my identity as a fisherman, “islander” described what I valued most. The island had always been a sanctuary, a refuge from mainstream America. Reverent only in these two things, I longed for home while at sea as much as I longed for the sea while home. My beliefs as an islander had now been desecrated. My reverence for life at sea came to the forefront. Everywhere I looked was another sign pointing out that island life was real and hard, and not the idyllic playground I once believed it was. Some of these signs were quite literal. “For Sale” signs popped up on the lawns of summer places in what threatened to become a plaguelike scale. Were people bailing out of what they perceived as a sinking ship? Or was it just a bad economy? Some of our staunch year-rounders became seasonal residents, wintering in faraway, sunny, happy places. I couldn't pin that on economics. I thrive on hardscrabble, but minus romanticism, island life is plain old tough with no benefits.

Was this real life? I couldn't wait for an opportunity to get offshore, where it's Mother Nature you mostly have to deal with. Human nature isn't grand enough in the middle of the ocean to spoil breathtaking beauty or lessen the fear or dampen the excitement. Fishing had always been my escape from personal issues that seemed like nothing in comparison to what I had coped with lately. Until now my problems onshore had been too many men and too little money. I could cast the lines from the dock and return to home port three months down the road to no men and, I hoped, enough money to take care of what I had hastily left in payables. But I couldn't desert my problems now. A kid isn't like a utilities bill, something I could just shove in a drawer. She sure complicated things.

Friends on and off island—with and without children—told me that life with Mariah would get easier. And I actually believed them for a long time. Eventually I grew to know that my friends didn't have a clue. The second time I shut off her cell phone for not following the simple rules and for running up seven hundred dollars in overages in just one month, Mariah did seem remorseful. I just didn't understand how it was possible to send 3,200 texts in a single month while being a full-time student in a rigorous program. I got a hint when grades came out, though. To say that Mariah was not a student would be generous. She landed herself on probation at Evergreen by entertaining a young man in her dorm room—absolutely forbidden. Mariah was pretty pissed at the girl who “ratted her out,” which was symptomatic of the syndrome: Nothing was Mariah's fault. Her particularly poor grades were due to “stupid teachers.”

The next round of friendly advisers explained that Mariah was testing me. Testing? She'd better not make it too difficult, I thought. I might fail! And looking back, I suppose that some testing was warranted. She had no reason to trust adults. Her experience with people who had had guardianship of her, whether biological or legal, had been bleak. My opinion of her biological situation did not improve over time. Mariah did go to Memphis that Christmas, and she returned with quite a litany of horror stories, and an even worse attitude than what she had left Maine with. My first New Year's Eve with the kid was a joke. I was optimistic that December 31 would be the end of a bad year. Simon had been gracious enough to agree to celebrate with us and planned a fun night with entertaining Mariah in mind. Simon's hometown had a history of hosting quite a dazzling “First Night” gala, including a live music venue for teens. Mariah was unsure about joining total strangers at the teen event, and was unhappy about the prospect of spending her New Year's Eve with “old people.” After much debate, we decided to stick together and enjoy all the activities, including dinner, music, and fireworks. Just before leaving Simon's house, and after Mariah had polished herself up for the big night, Simon read in the local news that “First Night” had been canceled. Well, this did not go over well with the princess. She bit Simon's head off and flew into a rage. It was as if Simon had somehow canceled the night himself. And Mariah hadn't been overly excited about it in the first place. But now she was in a total snit.

Rather than remind Mariah that most adults celebrate on New Year's with other adults, leaving their children home to fend for themselves with frozen fish sticks and French fries, we attempted to tease her out of her pout with the option of dinner and a movie. Mariah reluctantly acquiesced to that, citing sheer boredom as her only motivation. Simon and I were really trying to show her a good time, but were at a loss of how to do so when she just seemed so impossible to please. It was as if she had made a decision not to have fun, no matter what. She didn't like her meal, and sort of pushed items around the plate with her fork while her upper lip appeared to be frozen in a curl. Conversation was dull. While Simon paid our bill, the waitress (who must have felt our suffering) told us of a “teen skate” at the local ice arena. Mariah had never ice-skated. She said, it sounded “lame.” But as we did have time to kill (and I do mean
kill,
as in put out of misery), I informed Mariah that we would at least check out the skating rink. She didn't have to skate. We would just take a look at what was going on.

Mariah reluctantly got out of the car. She followed us into the arena. We stood and watched two hundred teenage kids skate around and around to the beat of loud rap music under disco lights. Just when I was about to ask if she wanted me to rent her a pair of skates, she said, “We better go. We'll miss the movie.” We left and drove in total silence for about ten minutes before Mariah said, “I'll skate if you go with me.”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you. I'll skate if you'll skate with me. I've never done it. But I'll try.” Before I could answer in the negative, Simon was wheeling the car around in an illegal U-turn and offering to pay for the skate rentals. I couldn't possibly refuse. This was the first sign of a desire to do
anything
in so long! The next thing I knew, Mariah and I were creeping around the perimeter of the arena, arm in arm in men's hockey skates that were at least five sizes too large. She clung to me like any kid on skates for the first time, threatening to pull me down if she fell. In lap three, I found Simon watching us through the Plexiglas from the sidelines. Our eyes met. His twinkled with glee as I rolled mine in disbelief.

Mariah was a quick study on the ice, and was soon skating independent of the clutch she'd had on my left forearm. I skated beside her and enjoyed being on the ice. When Mariah sped up with confidence, I followed closely behind. When I dared take my eyes off my fledgling, I noticed kids staring at me. Some whispered and pointed. Oh yeah, I thought, I am thirty years older than everyone else here. I felt my face heat up and increased my speed to catch Mariah. I told her that I felt funny skating among teens and was going to join Simon in being a spectator while she continued. “Oh, come on! Skate a little more! Please?” When I suggested that I might be embarrassed and pointed out that too many eyes were on me, she laughed. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You have done nothing wrong.” My own words mocking me fell short of putting me at ease. Mariah's point was well taken. “Besides, these morons will never see you again.” It didn't matter. I left the ice, returned my skates, and searched for Simon.

I imagined that Simon must have grown dizzy from watching us in our endless loops. He must have retired to the car, where he could listen to some real music instead of that awful noise, I thought. I sat and waited for Mariah to tire, which it seemed she never would. Every time she whizzed past my perch on the stadium seating, she looked to see if I was watching her. I gave her a smile, a thumbs-up, or a clap at each lap. Her ankles finally caught up with mine, and she gave up. We found Simon in the car, where he told us that two security guards had asked him to leave the arena. “They thought I was a pervert!” Simon was clearly shaken by this, much to Mariah's delight. She cracked up in the backseat while I confessed to Simon that the young girls were going well out of their way to avoid a huge radius of ice surrounding wherever I was. “They probably thought we were working as a team,” Simon moaned in distress. This had to be very upsetting to Simon, who is known by all in the area as the very respected Dr. Holmes. Mariah's advice that I had nothing to be ashamed of reverberated in my head. But I didn't bother sharing it with Simon.

Mariah giggled all the way back to Simon's house. But her joy was short-lived. I refused to stay up and watch the ball drop on TV. So, although I had humiliated myself to please her by participating in “teen skate,” I was instantly back to “lame,” in Mariah's book.

Simon and I waited patiently the next morning for Mariah to get out of bed. We had promised to take her skiing. This would be another first for Mariah, and Simon and I were both hoping that she'd like it and take to it as quickly as she had the ice-skating. Simon and I are both avid skiers and wanted to share our love of the sport with Mariah. Fresh snow was falling. The conditions would be perfect! (And on the mountain Simon and I wouldn't appear as predators.) When the clock struck twelve, and Mariah had not surfaced, we agreed that a half day of skiing for the first time was more than enough.

When Mariah dragged herself to the kitchen, her eyes were still half shut. Simon greeted her pleasantly, to which he received a groan as Mariah pulled a box of cereal from a cupboard. Simon offered to make some of his special French toast for her. She shook her head and poured milk into the cereal bowl. Simon shrugged at me. I whispered that Mariah was not a morning person. He whispered back that it was one o'clock. I told Mariah that we were excited about going skiing and would leave as soon as she inhaled her breakfast. “But it's snowing,” Mariah said, clearly indicating that this was a problem. “And I'm tired. I stayed up until two. That was the lamest New Year's ever.”

“Happy New Year,” I said to Simon. We chuckled while Mariah snarled. “We'll get our stuff packed up and leave you alone. I have to get Mariah back to school tomorrow,” I said, trying not to sound too excited about the back-to-school part.

I did get her back to school. With no witnesses the parting hug was returned. And we fumbled through more holidays, long weekends, and parents' weekends at Evergreen in similar fashion—an odd threesome that observers grew used to seeing faster than we adjusted to being. Mariah seemed happiest at school. When Mariah referred to “home,” I never knew where she meant—Maine or Tennessee—and that might have had some bearing on why she liked to be at school.

Over the course of two visits west, and too many phone calls from her biological mother, Mariah shared a few things that at first astounded me. The mother and brothers were in and out of a homeless shelter. An uncle was hospitalized after being beaten nearly to death. A second uncle was in jail for attempted bank robbery. The grandmother was tragically killed in a car accident at the hands of an uncle who fell asleep at the wheel. (Mariah's mom felt compelled to share details of the accident over the long-distance phone line, such as the fact that Grandma's head had gone through the windshield and her hair was embedded in the glass. Quite a scene ensued at the funeral, according to Mariah, whom I could not deny permission and funding to attend.) A female cousin exactly Mariah's age was caught sneaking out of the house and beaten so severely by her father (yet another uncle) with an electrical cord that she “couldn't wear a bathing suit for two weeks.” Mariah's younger brother confessed to being sexually molested for years by an uncle who happened to be Ken's brother. Mariah was arrested along with a cousin for shoplifting during her last visit home. And this is all quite literally off the top of my head. If I thought about it, I could add to the list considerably. I would attribute all of this to white trash behavior, but I'm afraid of insulting the members of that group.

Obviously, I became hesitant to answer the phone when the caller ID indicated that Tennessee was on the other end. Mariah continued to communicate with her mother, which
did
bother me. Mariah was often upset after speaking with her mom. Although she rarely took her mother's calls in my presence, I occasionally heard their discussions through a wall or a floor. It seemed that Mariah was the mother of the two. Although I tried to convince her that she could not help her family and that she was still just a kid herself, Mariah had good intentions and a heart of gold where her immediate family was concerned. I had to admire and respect that, and I thought Mariah's gut instincts were spot on. But the question about nurture or nature loomed. I had endless discussions with myself about
terroir,
and whether people, like grapes and coffee beans, are products of the soil and environment in which they are raised. Are characteristics bestowed during early development overcome when there is a change in climate? When, if ever, is it too late? I tried not to lecture Mariah. I tried to set a good example and knew that my associations—both friends and family—set great examples. But in light of Isle au Haut's recent activities, I wondered whether this climate change was conducive to healthy change and growth, which I had always believed it to be.