Chapter 3

When I awoke the next morning, Maria and Dad were not in the shack. My mother was on the tarp she and Dad had slept on, lying on her back with eyes open. I was so excited that I didn't bother standing up. I scurried over to her on my hands and knees. Mom was okay so everything would be all right. I stopped at her side waiting for her to look at me. She didn't.

"Mom?"

No answer. No movement except for a slow blink.

"Mom, you awake?"

Still no answer. I placed a hand on her shoulder. No movement. I shook her. She turned towards me and stared with blank eyes. I shook her again, but her expression didn't change.

"It's Bobby. Why won't you talk to me?"

No answer.

I plopped onto my butt and stared at her. She didn't move. I noticed the zipper on her shorts was lowered halfway and remembered my father had re-dressed her the previous night. When I pinched the shiny tab to raise it, Mom finally showed signs of life. She covered my hand with hers and pressed it against her crotch. I yanked my hand away. Mom's arm dropped back to her side and her face resumed its zombie-like stare.

A noise caused me to spin around. Maria entered the shack holding the bottom of her tee-shirt up so that it formed a pouch to cradle many bananas. Doing so uncovered her belly, and from my angle sitting on the floor I saw the bottom of her bra. With the waistband of her pink shorts dipping below her belly button, a lot of skin was exposed.

My father appeared in the doorway. "Bobby, go wash up in the stream. We'll eat breakfast and then there's work to do."

I glanced at my mother and then back to Dad. The sadness on his face left me speechless. Why was Mom like that? She had spoken last night. She had sex with my father. I wanted to shake her, but I did as I was told.

The bananas were delicious and soon we were up and about. Maria was told to gather coconuts, find more fruit, and to occasionally check on Mom. Dad and I investigated the area.

Now alone with him, I said, "What's with Mom? I thought she was getting better?"

"What made you think that?"

"Last night, I—" He raised an eyebrow and stared at me. My eyes dropped. "I don't know. I just thought she was getting better."

"Well she's not."

I shrugged and continued walking. We saw a lot of birds and some small animals scampering from bush to bush or ducking into a hole. After a few hours we returned to the shack for the fishing net. Mom lay where we had left her. Her eyes looked at us when we entered, but then returned to staring up at the ceiling.

Catching fish with the net was easy and soon we were back at the shack where Maria was tending to Mom. Dad showed me how to start a fire and we ate cooked fish. After Maria finished hers, she fed Mom.

That's the life we led. Days became weeks and then months. Dad kept a calendar and had surprised me on my sixteenth birthday, but none of us had been in the mood to celebrate. Maybe if Mom had been normal it would have been different.

Dad spent time alone or with Mom. Maria was my only company and we became friends. I was grateful for her being there. She had taken the job to earn money for college. Now it looked like she would never go. Me neither. I wouldn't even graduate from high school. Whenever one of us would talk about our future plans, or what our plans had been, we would hug each other and Maria would cry. I felt like crying as well, but held it back.

Our diet consisted of coconuts, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, fish, crabs, rabbits, and an occasional bird. I learned to hunt. Our life was so primitive that my weapon of choice for birds was throwing a coconut. Mom improved somewhat, being able to feed herself, but she was still not talking or actively participating in anything, except when we went to sleep. Then she became alive, initiating sex with Dad—often. Mom never whispered at those times, and after a while Dad didn't try to quiet her. It was a natural part of our routine.

And then one day my life changed.

I was hunting with the spear, hoping to snag a rabbit. It had been a few days since we had meat and I was sick of fish. Thankfully the fish were plentiful and easy to catch with the net the Spanish sailors had bequeathed us. Without an icebox, if you didn't catch an animal you didn't eat meat that day. I spotted a rabbit, but my aim was off, leaving the spear quivering in the ground.

The rabbit bolted. I grabbed the spear and ran after it.

Stalking a prey was easy on the island. The ground was dirt and absent of twigs that snapped under your feet. The occasional fallen palm tree branch needed to be sidestepped, but they were easy to spot. Of course coconuts littered the ground. My stomach grumbled thinking about fresh meat. I continued on. The rabbit was heading towards the stream. Good, I was thirsty.

I stopped mid-stride. Thoughts of the rabbit vanished when I saw the pink shorts draped over a bush. On top of another bush lay a black tee-shirt. And something else pink. Panties. My eyes shifted from the panties to the sound of splashing. Bent over, I ran to an outcrop of volcanic rock and ducked behind it. I peered around the big rock.

Maria was squatting waist deep in the stream, splashing water on her bare chest and under her arms. I noticed some dark hairs growing there. But my eyes were riveted on her breasts. They started off round at her chest and then tapered, tipped with dark areolas and nipples. She had lost her bra a while back. Not quite lost. It was stolen. Not by me. After washing it, she had laid it out to dry like her clothes were now. A seagull swooped down and flew away with it. All we had to wear were the clothes on our backs so she had to go braless. Watching her tits jiggle inside her tee-shirt had always turned me on, but nothing compared to seeing them in the flesh.

She stood up. The water poured down her body, dripping from the patch of dark hair between her legs. Then my breathing stopped. Maria walked towards my side of the stream, plodding through the thigh-deep water. I hunkered behind the rock, pressing the side of my face against it. She stepped out of the stream and walked away from me to a grassy area where her clothes were. I watched her buttocks sway with each step. And then she bent at the waist, thrusting her round bottom at me.

When she turned, I noticed that she had picked up a knife, but my attention was diverted to the juncture of her legs, to the patch of dark black hair. She sat on the grassy slope facing me with her feet flat on the ground and her knees raised. And then Maria did something that will be burned into my memory until I die. She spread her knees outward. I stared at her pussy.