For $20,800 for 28 days, patients undergo a regiment of instruction, therapy, fellowship and something about having to get up at 6 in the morning. "This campus is routinely inspected by detection canines," says a sign in the lobby of the nonprofit. The only permitted "contraband" is candy. A media blackout is imposed; no cell phones, no BlackBerries, no TV - except during Super Bowls and World Series. Sixty percent of the patients are men, after all.
Until a few years ago, Father Martin regularly visited and welcomed patients with his trademark: "The nightmare is over." He held court afternoons in the sunny dining room, as patients gathered around.
To know Father Martin is to know his penguin joke: A police officer spots a drunk walking down the street with a penguin. Tells the man to take the penguin to the zoo where he belongs. The next day, the officer sees the same drunk walking the same penguin. Thought I told you to take him to the zoo. "I did," the drunk said. "He loved it. Today, we're going to the library."
The joke, emblematic of Father Martin's disarming approach to addiction, is immortalized in Ashley's chapel, where a 1-inch figure of a penguin was inserted in one of the stained-glass panels. The penguin is part of a tour of Ashley, as are the hundreds of nametags stuck on the ceiling of a waterfront gazebo by patients on their last day at the facility. Along the fence line above the Chesapeake Bay, markers still remain for Molly and Bonnie, Father Martin's Labs that once escorted patients on walks and chronically retrieved balls.
Adorning the walls of Ashley's rooms, portraits of Father Martin and Mae Abraham hang inseparably. Mae still speaks there every month, while Father Martin has stayed home. He watches the news, waits for her return, and steels himself against more dialysis.
"I live tired," he says.
But he's not alone.
At the Abraham home
At Mae Abraham's Havre de Grace home in early June, no one is enjoying the pool - too hot for that. Her manicured gardens feature plants just high enough, as she points out, to avoid the urinary wrath of the Labradors, which her 52-year-old son, Alex, field trains. The home was built out in the back to make a bedroom for Father Martin. A crucifix hangs over his crisply made bed, where a stuffed penguin hogs a pillow.
