Chapter 1
The Downeast Life
Seven thousand pairs of eyes burned through Audrey Bartonâs heart, and she breathed deep at the free throw line. With four seconds left in the half, Audrey, the Narraguagus Lady Knightsâ co-captain and center, had once again reminded fans why she was the one to watch. Everything about her was lean and strong: her angular jawline; her deep brown waist-length hair, loosely swept into a ponytail; and her extended body. She picked off the ball at half court, stole a quick glance at the clock, and counted the seconds in her head. Four, three, two, one: she took the shot at the buzzer and drew the foul.
It was the 2016 Class C North state championship game, the Lady Knightsâ chance to bring the Gold Ball home for the first time in school history. Narraguagus was down by one point. Everyone knew the Boothbay Seahawks were favored. They were biggerâmuch bigger. Theyâd battled tougher regular-season opponents, and had emerged with a 20-1 record. But the Lady Knights were scrappy. And they had the power of Downeast pride behind them.
True, Narraguagus wasnât playing in the most competitive league in Maineâs high school tournament. Big-time colleges werenât calling them. Division I scouts werenât circling their names. Those honors were reserved for Class AA teams from cities like Portland and Bangor, bright-lights places rich with talent and opportunity. The Class C teams were the small-town upstarts, whose schools struggled to keep enrollments up, whose families stretched to make ends meet. But tonight, to the nearly four thousand Downeasters who packed the Augusta Civic Centerâs rafters, the Lady Knights stood taller than the Boston Celtics. Barely a soul had been left at home, barely a face in their crowd was free of maroon and gold war paint, and barely a sound was heard as Audrey Barton stepped up to the foul line to try to pull the Lady Knights ahead before halftime.
When Audrey missed both free throws, she hung her head low at the bench, and whispered âIâm sorryâ in a voice so pained it cracked. Olivia Marshall, the pride of Harrington, the lobster fisherman-cum-basketball coach who had shown these girls they could compete, opened her eyes wide and shook her head. âNo, no, no. Weâre not doing that,â she said as she gave Bartonâs arm a quick, tight squeeze. âWeâre good. Letâs get it back together and go out there and do what we have to do. Thatâs done and over with.â
And it was.
Things stayed tight through the final minutes. Defense ruled on both sides, and baskets were scarce. Finally, forty seconds remained. Narraguagus had stretched its lead to 4 points, and the Lady Knights were jumping up and down, and almost celebrating. But Olivia Marshall knew it wasnât over. She stopped pacing long enough to gesture wildly to her head and yell, âYou have to think. You have to think. You play until the final buzzer goes.â
With seven seconds left in the game, the Lady Knights still led by two possessions. The Gold Ball was in their grasp, and the girls were dancing a bit as Olivia called their last time-out. âNo fouls,â she exhorted, fighting to check her own exhilaration. âJust let them shoot.â But they were smiling, and Olivia was smiling, and she said, âMan, Iâm proud of ya,â and sent them on their way.
When the game ended, the roars were deafening. And the nightlong celebration began.
Every one of Harringtonâs 950 residents felt as if they had carried home the coveted Gold Ball. Along with neighbors from the adjoining towns of Addison, Cherryfield, Columbia, and Milbridge, they had made the five-hour round-trip drive to Augustaâs Civic Center. They had followed their hometown girls since the seasonâs late-November start, from the gym at Narraguagus, where most of them had gone to school years earlier, to Searsport, Baileyville, Jonesport, and other hamlets along the Downeast corridor. As the season chugged along and the girls ground their way toward an 18-2 record, the people here found themselves forgetting, for a couple of hours each week, about where theyâd find the money for the unpaid heating bill, or how many times theyâd fixed the leaking roof on their aging double-wide; about the way the money wasnât coming in so fast once blueberry raking season had come and gone; or why this yearâs lobster yield wasnât even close to what they needed, ever since Donny had succumbed to the lure of fentanyl; about where theyâd go, without their neighbors knowing, to stock up on food for the long winter that lay ahead.
They found themselves forgetting, and they cheered for the squad with an average height of five feet five. They cheered for the multitalented coach, Olivia Marshall, who gave the girls something to strive for on and off the court. And they cheered for the possibility that this once-robust set of communities could beat the odds in other ways. Because if a group of underdog girls could lift themselves up from the valley of the overlooked, surely, they could too.
Welcome to Downeast Washington County, where the state juts so far into the Atlantic that first light routinely breaks by 5:00 a.m. Here, in the most rural county in the most rural state in the nation, is a proud, traditional place, where generations have fished lobster, raked blueberries, withstood harsh winters, and thrived amid the rugged natural beauty of their birthplace. For more than two hundred years, they have also embraced a creed of self-sufficiency, bolstered by the bonds within their communities. But now, they are struggling to navigate the changes that have overtaken their once-protected world.
By a host of metrics, there is no more challenged place in Maine than Washington County. Nearly 30 percent of its kids live in poverty, and more of those kids are persistently poor than anywhere among the New England states. Of Maineâs sixteen counties, it is ranked as the least healthy, as measured by a set of factors that include behaviors, access to and quality of clinical care, education, income inequality, unemployment, family structure, and death by injury. Mortality rates from drug and alcohol abuse are significantly higher than in the rest of the state, with the fewest and farthest options for recovery. Indeed, overall life expectancy in Washington County is the lowest of Maineâs counties. Whatâs left of the population is aging, with fewer and fewer kids remaining to take their place.
To be sure, there have been boomlets, and with them prosperity for some. Downeast Maine has long been known for commercial fishing, forestry, and blueberry harvests, each bringing a centuryâs worth of steady processing and manufacturing jobs. The lobster industry alone, a more than one-billion-dollar statewide endeavor, has sustained generations of families. Itâs backbreaking work, but it pays.
In recent years, though, other core employment has disappeared at alarming rates.
Itâs a now familiar story. Between 1970 and the early 2000s, Maine lost more than sixty thousand industrial jobs. Shifting demand and technological advances were the main offenders, forcing mills and plants into a steady retreat. Whatâs more, a legacy of overfishing depleted the waters of virtually all breeds save the lobsterâeliminating key coastal work that had long been taken for granted.
Many of those changes landed hard Downeast. Some companies that stayed retooled with new technologies, requiring fewer and more highly skilled workers. A service economy crept in, looking to fill the growing void. Instead, for most, it brought low pay and unfamiliar job demands. Economists call it a skills mismatch. Whatever you name it, the trend has helped place Washington County at the bottom of Maine state rankings of metrics for educational attainment, employment, and income. And for the residents of these towns, whose children attend Narraguagus High in dwindling numbers, social and economic forces continue to push hard against hope.
The raucous midnight celebration of the Lady Knightsâ championship run was on, as hundreds of proud townspeople gathered in the parking lot of Narraguagus High. At the center of the party stood Audrey Barton, star athlete, top student, hometown beauty, and a quiet, confident leader who would soon embark on the next step of her life journey at Bates College. In that moment, she epitomized optimism for the future of Downeast Maine.
A few steps away danced Willow Newenhamâhead held high, forgetting, for a while, the dark family secrets that she kept locked inside. A sophomore, Willow was one of two team managers for the Lady Knights. When she was with the squad, she was buoyant. With wide brown eyes, an unselfconscious overbite, and a heart-shaped face that lost definition whenever she struggled with her weight, Willow was the nurturer, the confidante, the one her teammates called âMom.â She gave the girls of Narraguagus basketball her heart, and they gave her the family she never had.
Not far from Willow, Mckenna Holt flashed her brilliant smile and basked in the knowledge that she was one of only two freshman players to earn court time for the championship game. A gifted athlete, she could already begin to imagine the moment when she might lead the Lady Knights to statewide glory again.
Off in one of the celebrationâs outer rings stood Vivian Westford, absorbing the scene with a wry and distant smile, contemplating just the right moment to slip away for another adventure beyond the communityâs watchful eyes. Beneath the surface of Vivianâs childlike visage lay a well of emotional journeys. Too many for a sixteen-year-old to have withstood unscarred.
Finally, Josie Dekker. Proud, wholesome, virtuous Josie. She locked arms with those around her in tribute to the team. Yet simultaneously, in manner and deed, she stood apart and seemingly above the crowd.
They were, that night, five girls who individually personified and collectively represented a microcosm of the Downeast life. Audrey, Vivian, and Mckenna claimed multigenerational legacies in the region, and surnames that opened doors and held a trove of local lore. They were shaped in powerful ways by these legacies, both embracing and rebelling against them. Josie, on the other hand, was a relative newcomer, whose grandparents had abandoned their Pennsylvania roots in search of a âsimpler country lifeââwho, decades later, were still defining their space in the taxonomy of Downeast culture. Willow was a local girl of a different sort, whose family name brought sidelong glances. When the celebration ended, Willow would face an amalgam of challenges not uncommon in the region. And yet she cherished this place despite the pain she endured within it.
Different as they were, and distinct as the choices were that each would make in the coming years, these five girls were alike in fundamental ways. They shared a common bond of Downeast identity that made them, above all else, resilient. They saw their birthplace for all its flaws, and yet remained reverent of the place they called home, and of the gifts of nature and community it bestowed on them. They not only accepted but embraced the work ethic that came with the life. And although they occasionally grumbled about the geographic isolation, the lack of movie theaters, and the paltry restaurant options, they were Downeasters through and through. Even if they planned to leaveâfor school, love, adventure, or warmer climatesâtheyâd stay forever tied to this region. What was it about this place, and its people, that captured their very souls?
At 2:00 a.m., the crowd, still toasting hope in the high school parking lot, began to disperse. There was work to be done. There were needs to be met, and elements to battle, on land and at sea. Morningâs first light would soon emerge, and with it a stinging reminder of the troubles that sat like a weight atop this proud and tight-knit community.
Chapter 2
Beginnings
By twelve years old, Willow Newenham was lost in the wreckage of a crumbling childhood. A few days after her fatherâs hospital discharge, she hid in her room, hoping for a night of peace. But the damage was done, the finger had been crushed, and there was no turning back from the rage that had begun to descend on the brown house on Valley Lane. Willow had sensed it building since even before the accident. And when William Newenhamâs torrent came, the only thing standing between Willowâs two younger brothers and a merciless pounding was Mom.
It wasnât the first time, nor would it be the last. But the ferocity of the beatings after Dadâs accident, the bloody result of a truck jack gone awry at Powellâs Lobster plant, was evidence to Willow that the Newenham family had entered uncharted waters.
In Willowâs world, the same story played over and over again. Dad got high, Dad beat Mom, Dad went after the boys. Most of the time he didnât get to Willow. But sometimes she wondered if the mental abuse he routinely subjected her to was worse.
They called it their âfamily secret.â
It echoed through the walls of their cramped rooms. Sister and brothers surrendered to it, and it bound them together. No one else in this tight community could know because, in the familyâs eyes, âwe would be banned.â
And it was âjust fine,â remembered Willow. âI didnât say anything, and thatâs how life went on.â
But it wasnât fine.
When Willow was born, William and Lily were students at Narraguagus High. Lily was eighteen, William was sixteen, and with the news of Lilyâs pregnancy, Lilyâs mother insisted there was no choice in the matter. The pair married at the local church and began to raise their baby girl. They called her their âwonderful terrible mistake.â
When Willow was one, Lily worked the night shift as an aide at a local nursing home. William worked mornings, mostly day labor on the waterfront, and he and Lily took turns watching the baby. Years later, Lily told Willow that she arrived home one night to find William high on cocaine, shaking Willow hard and fast. Lily had to beat him to make him let go.
After Willowâs first brother, Scott, was born, Lily begged William to get a vasectomy. He promised he would, but not long after, Lily was pregnant again. One night, in Lilyâs first trimester, William got high again. âHe knew she was pregnant with my Isaac, my younger brother, and he beat her to the point where she thought she was gonna lose the baby. She and him were the only ones that knew.â
Most locals thought it was the drugs that made him do it, but Willow knew it wasnât. Sober or not, it was his way. It was pretty much the one thing Willow could count on in her early life. âI saw my dad beat my mom so many times,â she remembered. âI have this one visual I can never get out of my head. My dad ripping my momâs hair as he drags her across the floor. And he wasnât even high. My entire life I wish that I could blame it on him being high. But I canât.â
There was a time, when Isaac was still a baby, that things felt vaguely settled in the Newenham home. Lily and William were working carpentry together, taking whatever jobs would come their way. Theyâd moved from the trailer park to a house in Harrington. It wasnât much to look at, but at least it was a house, a place to begin to put down roots. Not long after, the Newenhams cheered their good fortune when they found they could afford a better place, one town over, in Cherryfield. It was, recalled Willow, âthe nicest house weâd lived in, and we all got along for a while, and everything was good.â
This too would end. It wasnât long before Willow learned that âDad had been cheating on Mom.â Heâd left the house on Christmas Day to spend time with the woman heâd been seeing on the side. âAnd Mom broke down.â It turned out, too, that Williamâs drug use and drinking hadnât let up. âHe was a mean drunk,â Willow remembered, and when heâd arrive home out of control, Willow learned to scramble to her parentsâ bedroom. As Willow hid, Lily would do her best to protect her little girl. Indeed, for a time, that bedroom became Willowâs safe haven, so much so that Willow took to sleeping there regularly with her mom, while William slept in Willowâs room.
When Willow was seven, William brought home a dirt bike for her birthday. Willow never knew where he got the money for it. Dirt bikes werenât cheap, and William wasnât working much. It was exactly the bike Willow had dreamed of owningâbright red, with black handlebars and knobby tiresâand when William gave it to her, she felt a rare sense of joy.
The feeling didnât last. Lily would later tell Willow about the day it was lost. How they had peered out to the driveway and seen two strangers approaching. How, on its face, the presence of strangers at the Newenham home might not have been alarming to anyoneâafter all, throughout Willowâs childh...
