Mike was only 14 years old on a fateful morning in late February 1995. Les was getting ready to go to work at the mill. Valerie was preparing for her day of getting the boys up for class and doing her job as a school bus driver.
Les heard an odd noise coming from the bedroom. He went to investigate and found his wife on the floor, out cold. He tried to rouse her. When that failed, he hustled the boys out of bed. “Hurry, hurry! Something’s wrong with your mother. We need to get her to the hospital.”
Les rushed her to a hospital in Bangor. Valerie had experienced a brain aneurysm. At first, doctors were very optimistic. When she came in, she knew her name and address. Doctors told the family that was unusual and promising.
The family’s hope soared. Then Valerie took a turn for the worse. Over the next few days, her condition wavered between highs and lows as she endured the surgery and other procedures the physician used to try to save her life. “She’d overcome so many things, we really expected her to pull out of this, too,” Shirley Harvey said.
When the medical personnel used up all the options available at that facility, they transported her to a hospital in Boston for additional treatments that went beyond the resources in Maine. Shirley wanted to be by Valerie’s side, but she had a more important task. Les took Valerie’s mother and sister south to Massachusetts and Shirley stayed behind to care for Frank and Michael.
In Boston, doctors performed a procedure that they hoped would save Valerie’s life—but instead, it turned her into nothing more than a physical shell, kept alive by a life-support system. After that, Valerie never gave any indication of knowing that Les or her mother or sister were there. She demonstrated no awareness of her surroundings. She responded to nothing. On March 8, Les made the most gut-wrenching decision of his life. He authorized the physician to pull the plug to the machines that artificially maintained Valerie’s physical existence. Now, Les was a widower with two boys to raise on his own. The love of his life was no longer by his side to lighten his journey through the years. The family fire had burned out.
Les was totally unprepared for this responsibility. Valerie had been a stay-at-home mom who’d taken care of everything. She paid all of the bills—Les didn’t even know where she’d kept the checkbook. He didn’t know how to cook, clean or wash the laundry. The first month of dealing with his grief and rebuilding structure for his family was overwhelming.
Mike saw his father stagger under his burden and assumed the role of caretaker. He automatically made it his responsibility to look after his little brother and his dad.
Mike became keeper of the minute details of the family. When they went to the bank after his mother’s death to straighten out the situation there, the banker filling out paperwork asked Leslie for Michael’s Social Security number. Leslie said, “I’ll have to get back to you with that.”
Mike said, “I know it, Dad,” and rattled off the digits. Then the banker asked for Leslie’s Social Security number. Leslie didn’t know that off the top of his head, either. Mike did. Everyone turned to Mike when Frank’s number was needed and, sure enough, Mike knew that, too.
That summer, Les traveled with his sons to Pennsylvania and stayed at the home of Valerie’s Aunt Lenore. He took the boys to their first experience at a major league baseball game to watch the Phillies play. The caps they got at the ballpark became prized possessions. When they left in the morning, Lenore was surprised and delighted to discover that her two young grand-nephews had made their beds without being asked.
Mike returned to his first year of high school at the Lee Academy—it was a unique educational environment, one of only twenty town academies in the country. It had opened a century-and-a-half earlier, in 1845, when there was no public school system in Maine. Several towns got together and started one on their own. Lee Academy grew into the major educational institution of the region east of Lincoln and as far as north as the Canadian border.
This private, independent school teaches ninth through twelfth grades as well as a thirteenth year for students who need additional preparation before going to the university. The student body consisted of about 200 day students from nineteen different towns—the students and their parents elect to attend this school, some riding the bus for an hour-and-a-half for the privilege of going there. Additionally, there were about eighty dormitory students each year from other states and several countries. The students were drawn to the academy because of its long, well-established reputation, the small, safe rural environment and the solid academic program with a low student-to-teacher ratio.
The dormitory students pay tuition. The day students’ cost is covered by their local town government and the state. Maine sets the rate at roughly $8,000 per local child and reimbursed the school accordingly. Fifty percent of the academy’s budget is public money. Mike thrived at the school.
In 1996, a convenience store clerk caught Leslie’s eye. Brinda Leighton was working that job as a stopgap measure. It was a way for her to earn money until the beginning of tourist season. At that time, she planned to move with her girls down to Bar Harbor, where jobs were plentiful and paid well.
Brinda was not looking for romance. She’d been separated from her husband for a year-and-a-half. His infidelity still stung, and she didn’t believe she was ready for a new relationship. Then along came Les. His stops at the store grew in frequency. He talked a lot about losing his wife and about how much he’d loved her. He told Brinda about his two boys.
Soon, he was asking leading questions. Did she like children? Did she like being a mother? Brinda said yes, telling Les about her two daughters.
Finally, Les made his next move. “You wanna go out for a cup of coffee?”
Brinda was hooked. How could she deny a man who applied no pressure? How could she pass up that innocent invitation? It was their first date of many. They found it easy to talk to one another, enjoyed each other’s company and discovered that they had a lot in common.
The new relationship posed a number of challenges. Les still grieved for Valerie. Brinda was still reluctant to trust any man. They both worried about the impact on their children.
In July, though, they plunged in and merged their households. Brinda, with 10-year-old Brooke and 13-year-old Nicole, moved into the home of Les and his two sons, 15-year-old Mike and 12-year-old Frank.
The four children got along from the start, even though young Frank could not understand why his family needed any additional members. Brinda was cautious with the boys and respectful of their mother. She never tried to replace her, and pictures of Valerie remained scattered throughout the home.
The two boys still hurt from the sudden loss of their mom. Mike handled it a lot better. He didn’t outwardly display his grief, but was able to cope by talking with Brinda and Nicole about his memories of his mother—the camping trips and family activities and the fun of having her for their school bus driver.
Mike was a lot more accepting of the reality of his new life than Frank. Being older, he had a better understanding of adult relationships and could see the importance of Brinda in his dad’s life. Frank, however, seemed stuck in the anger phase of his grief. He didn’t freely share his thoughts about his mother and tended to keep the three Leighton women at arm’s length. He was never hostile to them, but he never invited the close relationships with them that they had with Mike.
For her part, Nicole was delighted to have the older brother she’d always wanted. Nicole and Brooke continued to attend school in Lincoln after the move. Mike helped Nicole transition to the new neighborhood, introducing her to friends and taking her to different activities and places.
Mike and Nicole were close in age and had an interest in athletics in common. Nicole played basketball and field hockey. Mike focused on track and skiing. Together they jogged to get into condition and keep in shape for their sports.
While a lot of kids go in for one type of skiing or another, Mike wanted to do it all—slalom, downhill, cross country. He excelled at all three, and competed in the Penobscot conference, winning fourth place in the multi-discipline Ski-meister competition. He also ran cross country. In his senior year, his school team was eliminated before the state finals, but Mike made it as an individual.
Frank was big into basketball. Even though it wasn’t Mike’s favorite ball game, he and his friends would play with Frank at the house where they had a basketball hoop. Because of this practice with the older kids, Frank soon excelled at the sport. In many ways, the boys’ lives went on as they had before the Leightons joined the family.