Glass Eels, Shattered Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

“So what happened?”

  “Your dad had an attractive lab assistant who had a crush on him. Being Carlos, he was oblivious. But Bridget certainly noticed, and I guessed she realized she couldn’t take him for granted. After all, Carlos was an attractive, smart man.”

  I loved hearing vignettes like these about the parents I held dear but hardly knew. “Then what happened?”

  “Whatever Bridget did, it was fast. They were married a couple of months later. Le cose che date per scontate vengono prese.”

  “And that means?”

  “Things you take for granted get taken.”

  That night the dream that woke me up must have been a wild one, because the bedclothes were a mess when I rolled over and nearly ended up on the floor. Fully awake, I padded to the window and looked out as flashes of the dream came back to me—Ted walking hand in hand with a stunning young blond, Ted grinning as a faceless girl kissed him, Ted snorkeling in the Sargasso with a woman who wasn’t me.

  I rubbed my eyes and studied the moon. Waning, it cast its mirrored light across a calm sea. Lovely and peaceful, but none of that helped.

  I whispered, “For god’s sake. What is wrong with you?” But of course I knew. It was Angelo’s warning that “things you take for granted get taken.” I had been avoiding a difficult decision, and it was past time that I dealt with it.

  By the time I had downed my third cup of coffee the next morning, the plan was concrete. After parking my car at MOI, I would walk right up to Ted’s office so we could talk. One foot on the back stairs of the biology building, I allowed myself a diversion. Whenever I needed to work something out, Homer was always so helpful. So instead of walking up, I turned and headed down the stairs to the basement.

  Dozens of aquaria in the bowels of the biology building held all sorts of marine creatures—horseshoe crabs, starfish, periwinkle snails, sea urchins, mussels, squid, and an array of fish. I guessed Homer had the biggest aquarium to himself because lobsters were prone to eating any living creature they could get their claws on, including other lobsters.

  My crustacean friend appeared to be asleep behind a bottle in the back of his aquarium. Since sound is louder underwater than in air, I tapped gently on the glass. Lobsters don’t have ears, of course, but I always tried to be considerate of Homer’s space.

  He raised an antenna which I took as, “Just a second,” or the equivalent. Then he backed up, turned, and tiptoed toward me on his eight skinny walking legs. When he reached the front of the aquarium, I touched the glass with my forefinger. Homer gently tapped his side of the glass with an antenna, backed up, and settled down to listen.

  “Hi there, buddy,” I said. “I need to talk to you about Ted.”

  Homer rolled an eyestalk.

  “Yes,” I responded. “Again.”

  The lobster didn’t move, which I took as, “Go ahead.”

  “So, as you know, Ted and I were thinking about living together. It’d be great to have all that downtime together, but lately I’ve had, um—” I was about to say “cold feet” but thought better of it, considering my friend’s anatomy. “That is, I got nervous. Now this thing we haven’t talked about is hanging over us, and I’m not sure what to do.”

  Homer’s response was immediate. He rolled one eyestalk, the other, the first, the second, and the first again. Then, without a backward glance, he turned around, slipped behind his bottle, and didn’t move again.

  All this was unusual behavior for my marine friend. Usually, he was patience itself, and I could only interpret his reaction one way. It was time I walked up the stairs, strode down the hallway to Ted’s office, and knocked on his door.

  He acknowledged my gentle tap with, “It’s open, so come on in.” I pulled the door open and waited just inside.

  Ted wore the birthday present I had given him the previous year—a navy-blue shirt that perfectly matched the color of his eyes. A lock of hair fell onto his forehead and I wanted to walk over, push it back in place, and kiss him.

  “Hey, Mara,” he said. “I’ve been working up some of our preliminary data from the trip. Want to take a look?”

  It would have been an easy excuse, but I didn’t give in. “Yes—no—not yet. Actually, I came to talk with you about something else.”

  He pointed to the chair next to his desk. “Sure. Have a seat.”

  Settling in, I cleared my throat and said, “Ted, we really need to talk about whether we’re going to live together and, if we are, how that’s going to work.”

  “That would be great. Since you didn’t bring it up on the cruise, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”

  I shook my head. “No, I haven’t. But I do feel, I don’t know. Um—”

  “Like you’re going to lose something,” he stated.

  My hands were on my lap. Studying them, I said, “Well, yes. It feels like a big step for me.”

  “I do have an idea,” he said.

  I looked up. Smiling, he was so very attractive. What in heaven’s name was I afraid of?

  32

  “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “How about we do one week at your house, a week at mine, and the third week on our own? Then we take it from there.”

  So simple and so obvious. Blinking back tears, I said, “That sounds great. Um, when do we start?”

  He winked. “Next week at your house. And I cook the first dinner?”

  “Only if it’s pasta,” I said. “You make a killer lasagna.”

  At dusk after dinner, I sat out on my deck and called Angelo.

  “Good evening,” he said. “And how are you?”

  It came out in a tumble. “I spoke with Ted. It was a good talk. We’re living together a week at a time, starting next week. At my house.”

  Angelo chuckled. “I’m happy to hear that. I bet it all goes just fine.”

  “Ted said he’d cook dinner the first night. Lasagna.”

  “Eccellente, Mara. Eccellente.”

  The rest of the week was insanely busy. During the day, the usual work—papers to write and read, grant proposals to review, and meetings—kept me occupied. I needed most of that behind me when Intrepid eventually steamed into Spruce Harbor with all our specimens aboard. Sorting through them was going to take a long, long time. Each afternoon, as the sun slipped down toward the horizon, I left MOI to do errands, go grocery shopping, and clean house. As a result, the weekend and my scheduled trip to Little Moose Island with Connor arrived before I had much time to think about it.

  Connor called Friday night. “Still want that ride out to Little Moose?”

  “Maybe, but I haven’t even checked on the weather. How does it look for tomorrow?”

  “Perfect. Sunny. No wind to speak of. Couldn’t ask for better this time of year up here in Maine.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  “You want me to pick you up at the MOI pier, right?”

  “Yes. I’ll leave my car in the lot.”

  “Sounds good, Mara. Look for me around ten. And bring snacks for both of us, will you?”

  Connor’s new craft turned out to be a forty-foot Downeast powerboat. With a shiny red hull and white wheelhouse kitted out with the latest electronics, it was in terrific shape. From the pier, I tossed my backpack onto the deck, stepped on the gunwale, and hopped aboard. Standing in the wheelhouse, Connor brought the motor to life and we took off.

  To get out of the wind, I stood next to Connor. Raising my voice above the sound of the engine, I said, “She’s a sleek boat. But she seems, um, a little above your pay grade.”

  Pulling his baseball cap farther down over his forehead, he chuckled. “That it is. I got her, you know, the usual way.”

  Connor’s “usual way” to acquire boats he couldn’t afford was via card games, specifically poker. In addition to playing a good hand of poker, he seemed to be skilled at finding wealthy boaters who were lousy at cards but played anyway.

  Patting the gunwale, I asked, “Does your boat
have a name?”

  “I’m thinking Lucky Lady. Seems fitting, don’t you think?”

  Little Moose Island lived up to the first half of its name. As Connor’s craft slapped up and down on the waves, a tiny speck of land appeared on the horizon halfway into our trip. I wanted to take a look from the deck, so I pulled my new rain jacket from my bag and slipped it on.

  “New raincoat, eh?” Connor said.

  Since he wasn’t one to notice clothing, I figured the color had caught his attention. “I know it’s super bright, but it’s great for rain and I got it on sale.”

  “What color do they call that? Cherry?”

  “Actually, it’s hot pink. But let’s keep that to ourselves,” I said.

  Connor switched to a thick Irish brogue. “Between two, it’s a secret. More, it’s not.”

  A few minutes later, he pointed straight ahead. “That’s where we’re going.”

  Squinting, I barely made out a smudge in the distance that didn’t rise and fall with the sea surface. “Really? It looks teeny.”

  “It’s a small island, to be sure. There’s, what, thirty-odd who live permanently out there?”

  “Huh. So everyone knows who comes and goes.”

  “For sure. Out here you come by boat or you swim, and everyone has their eyes on the water.”

  “Sounds like a good place to hide out,” I said.

  “It would be that, unless whoever is chasing you was out there as well.”

  As we approached the south end of the island, I spotted something big that looked half-animal, half-alien on a dune above the pebble beach.

  Pointing, I said, “Connor, what the heck is that up on the dunes?”

  He handed me his binoculars. “Use these to check it out. The water’s pretty treacherous here, and I’ve got to pay attention to where we’re going. Otherwise, we’ll end up on the beach with whatever that is.”

  Scanning the thing through the binocs, I tried to describe what I was seeing. “Um, it’s some kind of animal with a big body and four legs. Looks like a horse but bigger. Wait, I think it’s a moose.”

  “It is Little Moose Island,” Connor said.

  “I guess. But this is no welcome-to-our-island moose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The thing looks half-dead. There’s an empty socket where one of the eyes should be and green stuff dripping from its mouth. And it’s skinny. Someone nailed ribs from an old boat on its sides.”

  “A moose instead of a horse, and a sick moose at that,” Connor said.

  “What?”

  “One of heroin’s nicknames is horse.”

  “Connor, what are you talking about?”

  “Mara, you must’ve read in the newspaper about drug and alcohol problems on Maine’s islands.”

  “Sure. Lobstermen make good money, but there’s not much they can do with it where they are. So some of them buy dope and booze.”

  “That’s right,” he answered. “And heroin is a drug they can easily get.”

  “Heroin, really? I assumed it was, um, less serious stuff like marijuana.”

  Connor shook his head. “Too many are way past that. Guys who make sixty thousand for six months’ work spend it all on heroin and end up broke. Hauling traps from dawn until dusk in the cold is hard, hard work. A drug like that makes the job a lot easier. Yup, the Gulf of Maine is full of guys battling heroin addiction.”

  “But why isn’t everyone trying to change that?”

  “For years, the industry ignored the use of drugs because they didn’t want to taint the image of the rough-and-tumble lobsterman who braves the elements to hunt lobster. Maine’s prize fishery brings in something like five hundred million bucks a year.”

  “So people are making lots of money off the backs of guys dying from this addiction, and there’s nothing islanders can do about it?”

  “The drug is incredibly powerful and people selling it are ruthless. Like the eel traffickers but even worse.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “But what does it have to do with a stuffed moose on the dunes?”

  “Islands where heroin is a big problem make that known in different ways. I’m guessing the sick moose is this island’s way of doing that.”

  We passed the moose effigy on our way to the harbor. The thing looked terribly sad, and I felt even sadder as it disappeared from view. The creature represented a dreadful plague for too many young Maine lobstermen, a curse that was literally killing them.

  Connor piloted Lucky Lady into a snug little harbor where a handful of old rowboats swung on their buoy lines. On such a fine day, the lobstermen of Little Moose wouldn’t steam home until sundown. Then they would drop their catch on the pier or store lobsters in submerged crates, chug over to their moorings, tie up, and row to shore.

  The tide appeared to be dead-low, and a couple of dilapidated wooden shacks looked down on us from thirty feet above. On many Maine islands the harbor’s edge was prime real estate. Here, apparently, no shops or restaurants vied with each other for visitors’ cash.

  Connor shut down the motor and Lucky Lady slid up to an orange buoy with a wide black stripe in the middle. He handed me a long wooden stick with a metal hook on the end. “Mara, gaff the buoy, if you would.”

  That done, we clambered down into the leaking rowboat. “This belongs to Leonard?” I asked.

  He nodded toward the seat at my knees. “Take the bow, if you will. And this dinghy better be Leonard’s, or some fisherman’s wife or kid will book it down here before we make it to shore.”

  “Sure,” I said. “On an island this small, news like that’d travel faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”

  Picking up the oars, Connor said, “Who the heck is Jack Robinson anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t have a clue.”

  Connor secured the oars in their oarlocks and after a few quick strokes, we were within reach of the narrow wooden ladder that would take us up to ground level. Such ladders are ubiquitous in Maine harbors, but they’re not my favorite way to reach terra nova. Climbing them, I always envisage hurdling backward into the water with a piece of rotten step in my hand.

  A little breathless, I climbed as quickly as was safe to the top, stepped off the ladder, and looked around. Only one person was within view—a man I put at sixty, sitting on a wooden crate, smoking a cigarette. With his wire-rim glasses, short-trimmed gray hair, and L.L. Bean canvas jacket, Leonard was not at all what I had expected.

  As if he understood my confusion, Connor said, “That’s Leonard.”

  Standing, Leonard dropped his cigarette on the ground, snuffed it out with his shoe, and walked toward us. Connor stepped forward and Leonard wrapped both his weathered hands around his friend’s outstretched one.

  “Well, can you believe this?” Leonard said. “After all these years and here’s Connor Doyle on Little Moose.”

  “It has been a long time,” Connor said. “And this”—he put a hand on my shoulder—“is Mara Tusconi, the lady I told you about.”

  “Mara, pleased to meet you,” Leonard said, as he shook my hand. His grasp was firm, confident. “I believe I’ll be able to help you.”

  Before I could respond, he turned back to Connor. “I see you found my mooring okay. Let’s head up to the house for some coffee to go with the cookies Ann baked before she left for the mainland.”

  We walked down the dirt road leading away from the harbor, the only road within view. Narrower trails on both sides were just wide enough for a car or truck, but the two-foot stripe of grass down the middle of each said they were little used.

  It was good to walk. Fast boat rides on the ocean are always exhilarating, but this time the cold wind, constant roar of the motor, and slap-slap-slap of the hull against the waves wore me out.

  Connor and Leonard quickly outpaced me. Both talked vigorously with their hands, and the occasional chuckle said they were sharing mutual stories and having a great time while they were at it.

  Leona
rd turned off the center road onto a suggestion of a wide path. I guessed that his vehicle, probably a truck, traveled that path every other week or so to meet the ferry. Loaded with empty propane tanks on the way down, the truck would carry full tanks, groceries, beer, and other alcohol back to the house. In between, Leonard might use the truck to haul logs from a woodlot or even use it as freezer storage in the winter.

  At the end of the path Leonard’s home sat high on a knoll with its back to the woods and front door facing the unpeopled Atlantic Ocean in the distance. The cottage was vintage Maine: a Cape design with weathered shingles and shuttered windows on either side of a prominent wood front door. I stood next to Leonard’s rusting red truck (which didn’t have a license plate, of course), to take in the view.

  Looking back, Leonard called out, “Take your time, Mara. We’re going inside. Front door’s open.”

  Standing there, I thought about Maine’s islands, a particular interest of mine. Over four thousand pepper the state’s coastline, each with its own distinct character. Less than twenty islands support year-round communities of any size, with residents who, for the most part, scraped by catching fish and lobsters or selling made-in-Maine goods to tourists. Little Moose’s population of thirty was on the small side.

  Most Maine islands are little more than piles of granite rock dumped thousands of years ago by the most recent glaciers. With their skirts of waving seaweed, strips of exposed rock, and scattering of pines and hardwoods on higher ground, they are the sole domain of raptors, seabirds, and seals.

  I stepped through Leonard’s front door into a comforting bungalow—a long rectangle, with the kitchen at its far end, an old wooden dining table in the middle, and living room with brick fireplace and mismatched couches toward the front. Already seated at the table, Connor dunked an oversized cookie in his mug. He held up the half-eaten sweet. “These are amazing, Mara. You’re missing out if you don’t take one.”

  Leonard slid a steaming mug onto the table. “Mara, use one of the hooks by the door for your coat, then have a seat and some coffee. And get yourself a cookie before Connor eats them all.”

  Still chilled from the boat ride, I settled into one of the pine chairs, wrapped my hands around a mug, and savored the aroma of hot coffee. Soon, I reached for a cookie the size of my palm. Filled with raisins and nuts, it looked too good to dunk. I took a bite. Definitely too good to dunk.