Jessica Sankiewicz - If Only We

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?”

Ideas? Does he think I’m making up an excuse to drop my car off like Heidi? “What?”

“Before I came over.”

Oh. I let out a sigh of relief on the inside. “Yeah, I was browsing through some magazines. Getting a feel for the latest colors and trends.”

“Are you going to start making clothes too?”

“No. At least not yet. I actually had somebody request a pillow order yesterday.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“Yeah, it is.” I pull into his driveway. I reach over and squeeze his hand again. “Let me know how things go with your mom…or if you need any help with anything.”

“I will,” he says, still holding my hand. “Thank you again.”

“You're welcome. You know I'm always here.”

He smiles. “I'm glad you are.”

I go about the rest of my week systematically. Sunday, I get material, lace, and trim at the fabric store and drop it off at Lyndsay’s. Monday, I work on the first half of the project and help with dinner. Tuesday, I do all of my chores and watch three more episodes with Kaitlin. Wednesday, I finish the pillows and pick Kaitlin up from her lessons.

Chevy sent me a handful of messages to let me know how things were going. His mom was reluctant about the intervention but when he convinced her how important it was, she gave in. They got in touch with a mediator and member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The two of them started to get in touch with people they want to come—his older brother, Seymour; his father’s brother and sister and their families; a couple of his father’s college friends.

He sent me a message Thursday afternoon that said, “Everyone will be here soon. Wish us luck.”

So I do, and ask him to let me know what happens. I remain nervous for the rest of the night awaiting the response. Did they convince John to get help? Or did he refuse? I do everything I can do to distract myself. Dusting all the shelves in my room, cleaning my windows, organizing my desk and folders.

Chevy never sends a message.

I’m surprised I managed to get to Lyndsay’s this morning remotely functioning, especially with the high state of worry I am currently in.

“Adrienne, you need to calm down,” Lyndsay tells me. “He will let you know as soon as he can. If he trusted you enough to tell you this to begin with, there’s no way he would keep you out of the loop entirely.”

“You’re right,” I reply, giving in. “I know he will. I barely got any sleep last night because of it.”

“You’re losing sleep?”

I handed out too much information. She doesn’t realize how serious getting John to quit drinking is. I shrug it off and say, “I guess I’ve been more anxious than usual lately with the whole career change thing. Adding on one extra stress makes me think too much and worry about the future.”

“You know what you need?” she says as she jumps up off the couch.

“What’s that?”

“A weekend away. You said you wanted to spend time with your dad, right?”

I have been so caught up in everything else that I completely forgot about my promise to him. I did send him a short email a couple weeks ago with a small update. Maybe I should drive down to visit him. “Yeah, that would be a good idea. Probably not until next week though, since I’m taking my car in.”

She holds her hands in front of her face, tapping her index fingers together in contemplation. “I have to work early shift tomorrow while Ben has the late shift. Maybe we could have a girls’ night. You know, like old times. We can paint our fingernails and toenails, have a movie marathon, and stay up until four in the morning.”

“I could go for a throwback to the good old days.”

* * *

I pull into the parking lot for The Auto Stop near closing. I go to the lobby and ask for Chevy. The receptionist tells me to wait a minute and she will get him for me. I sit down in one of the old chairs. The television is playing a black and white show. I see Chevy come in out of the corner of my eye and say, “Is this standard for every car repair shop?” as I point to the TV.

“Yeah, we have a VHS tape in the other room playing the same two episodes in a continuous loop.”

His voice sounds hoarse, almost as if he swallowed sandpaper. When I turn to him, his bloodshot eyes and posture show he had little or no sleep. “Chevy, are you okay?” I ask as I run over to him and touch his arm.

He faintly smiles. “I’m…hanging in there. I didn’t sleep.”

My heart sinks. “He’s not getting help, is he?”

He shakes his head no. I close my eyes to hold back the tears. When I open them again, I know he can see them watering. “Hey,” he says with concern, reaching out to lift my chin. “It will be okay, Adrienne. He’ll come around. We’re not giving up yet.”

I nod, swallowing back the tears. “Okay. I just hate to see you like this.”

“Don’t worry about me.” He touches my arm with a smile. “Now, where’s your car?”

“I parked it off to the side. Here’s the key.” I hand it over.

He closes it in his hand. “It won’t take me long. I should be back in here in fifteen or twenty.”

A few minutes after he leaves the room, John walks in. I freeze in place, not sure what to say or do. He takes one look at me and stops. “You waiting for someone to help you?”

“No, I’ve already been taken care of.”

He furrows his brow. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I’m a friend of Chevy’s.” He grunts and turns to walk away. Before he turns the corner, and before I can even think, I blurt out, “I want to know why.”

He stops in the middle of his step. “Why what?”

Why did I speak up? What am I thinking? I ball my hands into fists. “Why you won’t get help.”

He slowly turns to face me. “Help?” he asks brusquely.

“Yes, help. Chevy was trying to help you.”

He flares his nostrils. “Young lady, I don’t see how it concerns you. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“No! Don’t you dare walk away from me!” I shout. His eyes widen in surprise at someone daring to talk back to him. Before he can regain his composure, I continue. “It does concern me because Chevy is my friend. You should care what he says. You want to know why? Because he is your son,” I point to him, “and he loves you. He's asking this of you because he doesn't want to lose you. He cares too much about you. He's giving you a second chance at life. And trust me, a second chance is something you don't want to throw away.” I take in a deep breath. “If you cared at all about your family, you wouldn’t be doing this to them. Stop being a selfish coward and take advantage of this second chance, because if you don’t…you may not get another one.”

His jaw drops as he stares at me. I'm afraid of what he might say now that I have run out of words. I run past him and out the entrance. Safely away from him around the corner, I lean against the side of the building and breathe slowly to calm down my racing heart. The adrenaline took over when I yelled at him. What came over me? I have never yelled at somebody like that before. Then again, I’ve never had a good reason until that moment.

Heart now at a steady pace, I look for Chevy. He is standing by the entrance, looking for me. When he spots me, he asks, “Are you all right?”

I'm not about to explain to him what happened inside. So I just tell him, “Yeah, I'm fine. I just saw your dad and had to get out of there.”

Based on the look on his face, he knows I’m lying. He just nods and doesn’t press the issue, probably because of how exhausted he is. “Well, you’re all set. Let me know if it becomes less cool over the next month. I can always recharge it again if needed.”

“Thanks,” I say as he hands me the keys. “Are you sure I can’t do anything to repay you for this?”

“Actually, there might be something. They don’t need me for anything else today, so I’m going to skip out early. I could use a ride home.”

I nod. “Sure.”

We drive to his house mostly in silence. Before he gets out of the car, I hug him tightly. He holds on for a very long time. If he didn’t have to leave, part of me believes he wasn’t planning to let me go. The other part of me disregards that thought, and I head home to spend the rest of the evening in my room crying it all away.

The next day, I decide to walk to Lyndsay’s instead of drive because I need the exercise. I have been spending most of the summer driving places. When I walk up the driveway, I can see her peek out the window blowing on her fingernails. Her hair is slicked back into a high ponytail. Dropping my bag, I stand with my hands on my hips and yell up, “Hey! I thought we were going to paint our nails together.”

“Chill your britches, dear! We are! This is just a base coat, not color.” She waves her hands up and down. “Come on up. I have everything set up. You won’t believe how many hundreds of shades of pink I have.”

“Do I have to use pink?”

“The sooner I get rid of the pink, the better.”

“Why do I have to suffer with it?”

“Just pick up your stuff and get up here!”

She wasn’t kidding about having everything set up. She has a bunch of pillows and blankets all over her bed. There's also her old mini plastic picnic table set up in the middle of the room with all the nail polishes. Fifty percent of them are pink, from hot pink to light pink; the remaining half consist of a wide variety of purple, red, and glitters. She also has a stack of movies sitting next to the table.

She sees me eyeing the pile. “I wasn’t sure what kind of mood you would be in, so I picked out several childhood movies, some comedies, and some chick flicks. We could marathon a genre, or mix and match.” She sits down at the table.