I'm not prepared to find Chevy standing on the other side.
After a week of wondering where he was, here he stands in front of me.
I must have been staring for a while because he raises his eyebrows and says, “Adrienne, are you going to let me in?”
I blink a few times, shaking myself out of the shock. “Of course,” I say, holding the door open so he can step in. “I’m just surprised to see you here.”
“I could imagine,” he says. “Could we go somewhere and talk?”
This takes me aback, but I nod. “Sure,” I say as I lead him upstairs to my room. On the way up, I wonder what it is that he wants to say. His presence after being away is creating a new kind of nervousness inside of me. I pick up the mess of magazines strewn out to make room for us to sit on my bed.
Once he sits, I ask, “What is it that you want to talk about?”
He is quiet for a moment. “I guess, first of all, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. If I could have called, I would have. I’ve been grounded.”
“Grounded? What happened?”
He lets out a sigh. “To put it plainly, I was irresponsible. I spent an extra day in New York and, instead of calling my parents to let them know, I just showed up a day later. I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, it was only one day, right? When I got home, I was reamed out. My mom was worried and my dad was pissed because he needed me to work. ” He holds out his hand and touches his index finger. “They took away my phone.” Then he touches his middle finger. “They took away my car.” Then he touches his ring finger. “And I wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless it was for work.”
“That’s no good.”
“I know. They lifted the grounding this morning. I have my phone back, and obviously, I can go places again. But I don’t have my car since my dad has the keys and he’s not home.”
Doesn’t have his car? Then that means... “Wait…did you walk here?”
“Yeah.”
He could have just called. He could have even sent a text. “You didn’t have to come all the way over here to tell me this.”
He squirms a bit. “Maybe for that. I have something else to tell you. Or ask you.” He shakes his head. “I guess I just need advice.”
Something isn’t right, and while I am concerned, part of me is touched that he wants my advice. “I’m listening,” I tell him.
He carefully weaves his fingers together in front of him and leans forward. “That night I came home, my dad left the house after yelling at me.” He presses his lips together. “He came home drunk. It wasn’t the first time he has done that—getting mad and drinking—but it has become more frequent. That time was the first time he went somewhere to drink and drove while drunk, though.”
At hearing his words, it suddenly feels as though something has struck me in the chest. Nothing could have prepared me for this. I look away from Chevy at the wall in shock at this revelation.
Drinking. Drunk driving. Car accident. Death.
All this time I was imagining a car accident that was just that—a car accident. All this time I was thinking I just needed to make sure he didn’t drive that night. Never did I stop to think there could have been a reason, that something else could be the cause of it. That must be it. This has to be it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Nobody told me any other details. Maybe nobody wanted to disclose that information. It all makes sense now.
“He’s been out almost every night since,” he continues, leaning back. “Two days ago, he knocked a couple things over on his way into the kitchen. He was in a rage over something, we never found out what. He just walked out of the room and crashed on the living-room couch. My mom is concerned but afraid to say anything. I want to say something but I have no idea what, or if it will make a difference. I’m afraid it's just going to get worse. I don’t want it to escalate any further. He’s my father, and I love him.” On impulse, I reach out and cover his hand with mine. He looks down at it, then up at me. He says, “I wish there was something I could do. Something I could do to change all of this around.”
There is something I can do to change this around. I have been given the chance to make a difference. Of all the things I am changing, this one is by far the most important. I know what I need to do. “Have you ever thought about an intervention?” I ask.
“An intervention?”
“Yeah, an intervention,” I repeat. “Where you gather up all of his loved ones and together you convince him to get help. Sometimes it has more of an impact on a person when they see the effects of what they’re doing to the people that mean the most to them.”
“I don’t know,” he says, letting out a long breath. “It sounds like a great idea, but I don’t even know how to do one.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, on TV they usually just gather friends and family together along with a mediator who’s there to keep everything together.”
He holds his free hand out. “I’m not sure if he’ll even listen.”
I can hardly blame him for being skeptical. Day in and day out seeing his father like this. It’s hard to believe you can tackle something as big as alcoholism without a negative outcome. “That’s possible, they don’t always produce results. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t. You can express how much he is hurting you and your mom. In turn, when he hurts his family, he is ultimately hurting himself. If he feels any sort of remorse, he might be willing to make changes… At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to try.” I don’t want to see Chevy go through it again if I can help prevent it. I am willing to do whatever it takes to make sure he does not have to face the pain of losing his father to something he hated.
He stares off again, taking in my words. “I think…I think you’re right.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He turns to me. “We have to at least try. If he doesn’t listen, we'll know we have put forth the effort to make things better. Maybe he doesn’t realize what he’s doing to us.”
I lightly squeeze his hand. “Finding out you have inflicted pain on somebody you love causes a person to rethink everything they have said and done.” The memory of the hurt in Chevy’s eyes at the cemetery that day flashes in my head. He appeared to be too mad at me to care at that point. Part of me wonders if that were true. “I’ve been there.”
“Yeah, me too.” He puts his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “Thank you,” he whispers. Then he gets up and stands in front of me. “I’m going to go home and talk to my mom about it.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Rain begins to spatter on my window. “Uh-oh. I can’t let you walk home in this. You’ll catch a cold. Let me drive you.”
He waves me off. “I’ll be fine. I made it over here in one piece, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t raining then.”
“You’re not going to stop until I give in, are you?” I shake my head no. He throws his hands up and smiles. “I guess you win.”
On the way to his house, I suddenly remember my car's air-conditioning. It has started to become less and less cool over the last week, just like it did before. By August, it had stopped working entirely and I couldn’t handle driving in the heat anymore. No reason to let it happen again. “I don’t know if you noticed or not, but my air conditioner isn’t as cold as it could be.”
“Oh yeah, I can tell.”
“How easy is that to fix?”
“Not too difficult. Probably just needs to get recharged.”
“Could you help me with that? I would pay—”
He holds up a hand. “You don’t need to pay me anything to do that.” He smiles at me. “Were you coming up with ideas?”