If anything, maybe I was feeling guilty about spending less time with aging parents, and I had Mariah to help justify it. The bottom line was that while I may not have been the ideal mother figure, I did have an uncanny ability to surround Mariah with greatness from other sources. My family was more than welcoming to anyone who showed interest in being part of us. The confusing thing was that it was not evident that Mariah wanted a part. Other than our somewhat strange dealing with our dead, I see us as a shining example of a strong, loving, and perpetually optimistic and supportive unit. The island population as a whole was genuinely interested and active in my relationship with Mariah, and seemed to have a vested interest in what we all hoped would be our ultimate success. My neighbors and fellow community members were consistent in checking in with me and Mariah. When Mariah was home with me, we received dinner invitations that we enthusiastically accepted and always had great follow-up conversations afterward. Mariah was beginning to be sort of fun to be around. I think she was becoming more comfortable in our unorthodox unit. Although we had a vast distance to cover, I felt that we were gaining baby steps in the right direction.
Simon and Mariah seemed to be bonding quite nicely. And I couldn’t have been happier about Simon’s help with her, even though it confused the issue of my wanting to terminate our existing relationship and revamp. Simon had become the closest friend I could ever imagine having, and I wanted very much to retain that while moving forward with someone else on a romantic level. I had no idea who that someone else might be, but I wanted to be open to an opportunity if I should happen upon one. I suspected that Simon felt the same way but had no way of really knowing because we never talked about it. I couldn’t imagine anyone serving as a better father figure for Mariah. Simon is kind, generous, smart, hardworking—all of the things you want your children exposed to. And Simon has a stick-to-itiveness that I respected, especially in his not accommodating Mariah’s ongoing dog request, but at the same time, I was frustrated by it in other facets of life. I hoped that I wouldn’t take Mariah’s feelings into consideration to a degree that shaded my decisions on how to proceed with Simon. If we “divorced,” how would that affect the stability that I knew was paramount to Mariah’s well-being? Many couples stay together for the sake of children, but Simon and I weren’t married. And Mariah wasn’t really ours, was she? I could, I reasoned, always date a guy with a dog.
When my cluttered web of emotional confusion embodied jointly in Simon and Mariah sped away from the town dock headed for Vermont, I breathed a sigh of relief that signified deliverance from the burden of figuring things out. In the world of clichés, this was not “out of sight, out of mind,” but rather a “sweeping under the rug.” Items under the rug are still there. Know what I mean? But I felt that I could now postpone dealing with the mess I had created and stored in my psyche regarding my two most prominent relationships and concentrate on the easier and more fun ones linked to my sisters. There would always be time later to pull back the rug and get the broom out.
I think that sisterly love is one of those things that are impossible to articulate. So I won’t try. If you don’t have a sister, you wouldn’t get it anyway. And if you do have a sister, you don’t need an explanation. I am lucky to have two sisters, Bif and Rhonny, and was most fortunate at the time of the double burial to have both of them on the island with me. Rhonny, two years my senior, had moved (on a whim) to Florida and was now home for an extended, undefined visit that we had all come to expect of her. I recall stretching out in the middle of my large, sectional sofa, flanked by sisters, and just letting all guards down. Sisters can and do talk about everything. We laughed about the twofer, cried about the twofer, and sat silently contemplating the twofer. The silence was finally broken when Bif asked about Mariah.
I spoke openly and honestly about my perception of our relationship, my hopes for her future, and my fear that I was not doing a very good job as guardian. “It just doesn’t feel right. You know what I mean? I guess I was hoping to become more of a mother figure than just the person who provides basic needs until she’s a legal adult. I want the best for Mariah. She deserves opportunity, and I hope I’m providing that.”
Both sisters chimed in with verbal pats on my back for taking on such a project and congratulated me on hanging in there when things were rough. “Yeah, I remember thinking the same thing about Mattie when she was fifteen,” Rhonda confided about my niece, who was now out of college and holding down a job in graphic design. “Mariah will come around. She is a very lucky girl to have you.”
“She is lucky. I’ll agree with you there. She is most fortunate to have this entire community and Greenlaw family and network of friends to support and bolster both of us. But she’s just so stubborn! Sometimes I feel like choking her, at others I feel like hugging her, and once in a while I just feel like throwing my arms in the air and walking away,” I confessed. “But of course I’ll never do that. That would be admitting that I made a mistake. Not happening.”
“Linny,” Bif started, “you know that we will help in any way we can. Right, Rhon?” Rhonda nodded enthusiastically. “I assume you’ll need or want to go fishing next fall, and I’ll be available to get Mariah back to school for you and act as guardian until you get back ashore.”
“Yup. Want and need. I’ll need the income to continue to pay the bills around here, and I’ll want to get back to what I love and to live within my comfort zone for a while. This whole thing just feels so awkward. I always assumed that being a mother would come naturally. I was wrong.”
“When women give birth, the relationship is clearly defined as between mother and child. This is different. You can mother Mariah. But you can’t be her mother. What do you want your relationship to be?” Bif asked. The question had never been posed. And I realized at that instant that I needed to define what I wanted and stop pussyfooting around the issue of why, in my mind, our relationship wasn’t working. How could it work if I didn’t even know what it was?
I wasn’t willing to sacrifice what I loved most in the world for this kid, and had been torn about it. Now, in light of Bif’s suggestion to define the relationship in my own way, even if unorthodox, I could give myself permission to do my thing offshore knowing that it would be best for both Mariah and me. I wanted Mariah to be happy. I assumed that she would not be opposed to my being happy. I admitted to being happiest when I was home alone while Mariah was at school. My sisters said that it was okay for me to feel that way. Because they are my sisters, I believed them. Rhonny offered to host Mariah in Ft. Lauderdale for all or part of any winter breaks from school, or to stay at my place with her in the summer if I needed to be away on a book tour. We fell silent again.
Completely relaxed, I lounged on the sofa and thought, wow. Not only have I provided Mariah with her basic needs, a supportive community, an exclusive education, a wonderful father figure, and a devoted and close network of friends and family, but I’ve also provided two of the coolest aunts ever. This package deal was more than even the best mother could offer a child, I thought. Our collective silent reverie was shattered when Bif sprang from prone position to fully upright and then to her feet, shrieking, “Get it off me! Oh my God, get it off!”
Rhonny and I both bolted upright and chased the now running Bif around the house trying to see what was on her that she needed to get off. As Bif is very squeamish, I wasn’t really all that alarmed that she was freaking out. We finally caught her in the kitchen and I asked, “What?”
Her eyes showed real terror and she held her left elbow in her right hand as she screamed, “A tick! A fucking tick! Get the fucker off me!” (Bif doesn’t normally use foul language, which makes it hard to believe she is part of my family.) I squinted at the spot on Bif’s upper arm that she was now pointing at.
“I think it’s a pimple,” I said.
“It’s moving! It’s not a fucking pimple! Oh my God, it has legs! Get it ooooofffff!!” Rhonny and I agreed that neither of us could actually see we
ll enough without our reading glasses to determine what tiny spec stuck to Bif’s flesh was sending her through the roof. I hustled to find a pair of glasses, donned them, and saw clearly that the spec did indeed have legs that were moving. Rhonny inspected with my glasses and confirmed that it was a tick and that the tick was in the process of burrowing itself into Bif’s arm. Bif was now beyond panic and babbled endlessly about Lyme disease and the fact that she could not miss a minute of work for any reason. Rhonny had loads of experience removing ticks from the many dogs she had owned through the years, and suggested burning the tick with a cigarette to get it to back out of Bif’s arm or covering it with Vasoline to suffocate it into backing out. Bif was now getting pale and breathing way too hard. “Linny, just please get it off me. NOW!!!!” All we had ever heard about Lyme disease was that it is imperative to get treatment quickly. We knew that if untreated, the disease could be quite debilitating. We assumed that Bif had picked up the tick at the grave site the day before. I ran upstairs and grabbed a pair of tweezers. I squeezed the tick and pulled. It broke in half. I showed Bif the half tick that was now stuck to one end of the tweezers. “Are you fucking kidding? Come on! Let’s go to Kate and Steve’s. They’ll know what to do.”
The three of us marched over to the neighbors’ place, where they were busy getting the morning coffee and pastries together for early visitors to the café. We barged through their front door and explained Bif’s dilemma. Bif was somewhat quieter now, but had to divert her eyes from the end of the tweezers when I showed Kate and Steve what I had managed to extract. Kate and Steve began by telling me what I had done wrong. Apparently the proper technique was to twist while pulling, sort of like uncorking the embedded tick from flesh. Now that there was nothing of the tick exposed to grab for another try, an incision would be necessary. While we discussed how Bif should see a doctor for this—during which she adamantly refused, citing her need not to miss any work as she had a business to run—Bill and Brenda arrived. Bill likes to toss gasoline on a fire. He never misses an opportunity to tease. His thoughts on the situation added a sense of urgency even though I knew he was kidding. When he spoke of the possibility of tick eggs being laid in the arm, I fought back a laugh. Bif looked as if she might puke.
Before Bill was done talking about Lyme disease, its symptoms, and what Bif’s eventual prognosis would be, Bif was right back to screaming profanities. She now insisted that we get a scalpel and perform surgery on her arm immediately. Nancy Calvert, who is a trained nurse, was the logical choice for a surgeon because Simon had left with Mariah early that morning. Steve placed the call and Nancy and Bill Calvert arrived in short order, scalpel and magnifying glass ready. Nancy, Bill, and their dog had all suffered from Lyme disease, so their input was valuable. I’m not sure who suggested vodka shots, but Bif was more than happy to take a couple of belts before Nancy dug in. While she dug at the spot with the tip of the scalpel (after sterilizing it with a lit match), Rhonny and I each slugged down a shot of vodka. It was a sister thing (like shaving your head because someone you love lost hair in chemotherapy). Nancy was trying to be careful, not wanting to hurt Bif. When Bif screamed, “Just fucking do it!” Nancy plucked the remainder of the tick from her arm with a quick, deep thrust and a jerk. The three sisters toasted Nancy with yet another round of vodka that no longer burned going down.
We left Kate and Steve’s with two halves of a tick in a baby food jar and strict instructions for Bif to see a doctor when she got back home the next day and that she should send the tick to the state for toxicology. We all knew that neither would happen. But Bif clutched the jar like a prize she had won, placing it on my coffee table for all to see when we relayed the story, which we did several times that day. I had seen a member of my fishing crew with a mako shark latched onto his calf muscle react less than Bif did to the tiny tick. Now that her hysteria had subsided, we could chuckle. The three of us lollygagged on the sofa until bedtime that night, reliving old times and forecasting the future the way middle-aged sisters do. And it seemed we hadn’t a care. We were comfortable in our laziness, and didn’t mention that we would part ways the next morning not knowing when we’d share another laugh. The tick episode had taken center stage, but the issue of my relationship with Mariah was still waiting in the wings. But I had made a very conscious decision. I did not want to be merely Mariah’s guardian. I wanted and would mother her, though. Rhonny would go back to Florida, Bif would dive back into her workaholic frenzy in Portland, and I would stay here on the island with the knowledge that my sisters thought I was a good mom for Mariah and with the peace of mind that I would always have their help and support.
I waved good-bye to my sisters the next morning from the dock as they departed on the mail boat knowing how lucky I was to be one of the three of us. It was unusual that the three of us had shared time alone. Their visit bolstered my confidence that Mariah and I would be fine, and it fortified my resolve to figure out my relationships in general. I was lucky. And, more important, Mariah was lucky.
I arrived home to a new message on my answering machine. The caller ID indicated Evergreen Academy. I wondered what today’s ailment was and what pharmaceutical would be recommended. It wasn’t a nurse this time. It was an administrator. Mariah was in real trouble and in danger of expulsion.
CHAPTER 11
Fight for It
I prepared to return the call to Evergreen with an attitude. Really? What had Mariah done now that was so awful that it might cost her the privilege of a private school education? Had she had the gall once again to allow a boy to enter her dorm room? Had she been brazen enough to leave school without permission to walk to Dunkin’ Donuts? Had she slept through muster, or whatever they called the early morning attendance requirement? Had she hatefully eaten something that didn’t belong to her from the group refrigerator? Had she skipped class? Oh, it must be another dress code violation—Mariah liked to make a statement, not so much a fashion statement as a thumbing of her nose at the overly strict policy. For God’s sake, the kid is a kid, I thought as I prepared to refuse to go get her for such minor violations of what I had come to regard as militant rule. And so close to the end of the school year! They simply can’t kick her out. At times we mothers have to defend our children!
I had resisted, until now, any tendency to sympathize with Mariah when she complained of the strictness and pettiness of some of the school rules. I had been the total opposite at her age. I had loved school and everything about it. My mother had to fight me to stay home when I was sick because I hated to miss a day. I never thought that Evergreen had a conspiracy against Mariah and, of course, I understood that her attitude about it was absolutely typical of a kid her age who seemed a bit rebellious in a harmless way. But now that I had made a decision to be her mother figure, and had admitted to myself that mothering her would be best for us both, I knew the role included knowing when to fight for her rather than fighting her. Evergreen needed to cut my kid some slack. Home with me was not an option. She wanted and deserved this education, and I would fight for it.
But when I actually got on the phone with them, my wrath dissolved like lard in a skillet. I don’t think I would have been surprised to learn that Mariah had been caught sharing a can of beer with her girlfriends. But it was like a kick in the chest to hear that she had gotten a half gallon of whiskey in the mail. The package, which Mariah had apparently been looking for and asking about daily, was bobbled by the school’s mail clerk and smashed into reeking seriousness. The administration had a zero-tolerance policy, and Mariah was already on probation for violating the no-boys-in-girls’-rooms rule. (Her boyfriend, Liam, whom I liked in spite of my dislike of their status, had “accidentally” fallen asleep in Mariah’s bed.) The administration was trying to get to the bottom of the booze situation, with little help from my tight-lipped kid. She would take the rap rather than rat out any accomplice. Yeah, right. Bullshit, I thought. If Mariah was going down, I would ensure that it would not be alone. We mothers ha
ve a responsibility to seek justice for our kids. I agreed, at the insistence of the school administrator, that I would get to Evergreen as soon as possible. They would have her pack up her things. I would, of course, bring her kicking and screaming home, where she would have more supervision. I understood that hard alcohol was an activity well beyond what the school was willing to take responsibility for. Mariah would soon be officially back to being my problem.
My next and immediate call was to Mariah, who did not pick up. Probably busy packing—or mixing cocktails, I thought angrily. Mariah had told the school administrator only that the booze had been sent by a friend, and that she had no idea what the package contained. The “friend” had told Mariah to be looking for a present. The “friend” was obviously not too bright as she had included her name, Brianna Wilson, and a return address on the package, which she had sent via the U.S. Postal Service. I dialed again. And again. And I kept dialing until I wore her down. She repeated her party line without wavering through my interrogation. “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You were sent a bottle of whiskey by a friend of yours in Memphis. And you do not have a phone number for this friend?” This was met with some mumbling and sniffling. “Really? You have a friend who is close enough to send you a gift, but you have no way of getting in touch with her?” More mumbling, which I felt signified untruths. “You are a terrible liar, Mariah. I will find Brianna and thank her for what she has done for you. And I will be in your dorm room tomorrow at noon. Be there!” I hung up and realized that this was the first time in quite a while that I had had a conversation with Mariah in which she had not asked for anything, not a dog, not a prescription, not even forgiveness. I was fuming. I guess I never realized how much being lied to could hurt. Mariah’s future was on the line. That was upsetting. Mariah was at the very least contemplating drinking whiskey. That sickened me. Being a mother isn’t easy.
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