The Secret That Intervened

by Lisa Marie Stum

  We finished the appetizers and drinks and said our goodbyes. Taylor headed to the bathroom and I headed out the door.

  I got into my car and thought about going back in to use the restroom, but decided to just stop by my house instead since it was on the way to Mama Mary’s.

  I opened the door and made my way quickly to the bathroom. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator after seeing I still had time before I had to pick up Chloe.

  Engrossed in the television and the beers, I completely forgot about Chloe until after midnight, when I went to check on her as usual.

  After realizing she wasn’t there and that I needed to pick her up, I headed over to Mama Mary’s.

  I guess I was too noisy, because I woke up Mama Mary.

  “Hailey?” she asked.

  “Sorry I’m late, I lost track of time,” I said, with Chloe in my arms. My voice sounded normal to me but I knew I wasn’t standing there with sober legs. I kept swaying.

  “Hailey, I think you should stay the night.”

  Chloe woke up when I lost my footing and stumbled back into the wall. Mama Mary took her from me. “Hailey, have you been drinking?”

  My face felt like it had turned brighter than a beet as the seriousness of what I had almost done settled in, cracking through the haze in my mind caused by the alcohol.

  “I had dinner with Taylor.”

  “Spend the night in Cody’s room tonight.”

  I didn’t fight it; there was no way I was going to win that battle.

  I fell onto Cody’s old bed, feeling completely humiliated and disgusted at myself for showing up there drunk, and almost putting my daughter’s life in jeopardy. I swore to myself I’d never drink again for the thousandth time since I’d started.

  Chapter 25 - Cody

  Mom called me last night after Hailey showed up drunk. Not sure how to even begin to process that. She’d never been more than a few minutes late and even in those instances she had called my mom to let her know. And now her lateness had happened twice. Didn’t even know what to think about her drinking. Sure in the hell couldn’t fathom Hailey making the decision to drive drunk with Chloe in the car, or drive drunk at all for that matter.

  All I knew was what Taylor had told me about that night at the Dark Horse. The lies the girls had spewed in the bathroom, that Hailey had left and decided to walk home, and somewhere along the way she had stepped on glass.

  She kept her phone off most times, and I’d usually end up going directly to voicemail. The times it continued to ring she didn’t pick up. Whenever I knocked on her door she wouldn’t answer. And she barely acknowledged me when she dropped off Chloe. I’d tried to talk to her one day at Frankie’s, during her break, when I knew the restaurant would be empty, but that didn’t end well.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee while my mom made breakfast. “Has she done this before?” I asked.

  “No, Cody. I’m not any more certain what to make of it than you are.”

  “It’s just not like her at all. She always swore she would never drink.”

  “I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions until she comes down. Let’s give her the opportunity to explain, and if she doesn’t offer an explanation let’s not push her.”

  My mom knew I had a tendency to do that, to push people into telling me what I wanted to know. I didn’t have the gracefulness my mom had when something was eating me to shreds.

  “I went through her car last night.”

  My mom turned from the stove and gave me a look that I knew meant she was disappointed in me for violating Hailey’s privacy.

  “She has a couple of bottles of wine in her trunk,” I said, ignoring my mom’s disappointment. It didn’t feel wrong to me, not even a little. Something was obviously up with Hailey and I needed to figure out what was wrong. Especially since she had suddenly morphed into this completely different person, someone who had become foreign to me, even though she was in my earliest memory I had as a child.

  My mom was about to say something when we heard Hailey coming down the stairs. I took a seat as Mom put a plate of French toast on the table.

  “Good morning,” my mom said to Hailey when she entered the kitchen.

  Hailey looked over at me like she’d seen a ghost: her face went white, and her eyes flashed fully open. She quickly turned her head to my mom. “Good morning.”

  She stood there looking like she didn’t know what to do, like she felt trapped, and uncomfortable in her own skin. At first, I thought it was just the embarrassment of what she did last night. Then I realized it was the first time she didn’t have an excuse to leave in a hurry. It was a mix of both, and she didn’t know how to respond to the situation.

  She greeted Chloe and took a seat at the table, setting her purse on the floor beside her. “Sorry I was so late last night,” Hailey said to my mom.

  “It’s fine, Hailey, just call me next time if you’re going to be late.” My mom said that not because keeping Chloe longer had been an inconvenience, but because she had been so upset that Hailey drove in the condition she was in. Mom would have encouraged her to stay where she was, insisting that she’d keep Chloe.

  I watched her as she spoke. I could tell it was making her uncomfortable, but this was the closest I’d been to her in more than a month. Suddenly, her body jerked and her entire face clenched at the same time. Her hands started to shake afterwards and then she made the face she always made right before she cries.

  I watched her draw in a few deep breaths, never once turning to look at me. She was trying to shake whatever it was she was feeling. I’d never seen her do that; it was disturbing, and amped up all the concerns I had about her. I didn’t say anything to her about it, and my mom didn’t see it.

  “How was dinner last night?” My mom asked Hailey. It was one of her infamous open-ended questions. What she really wanted was for Hailey to acknowledge the situation she had put herself in, so there was no longer a ridiculous amount of tension in the room.

  “It was good. I didn’t expect a few glasses of wine to hit me like that,” Hailey blurted out. “I didn’t know my tolerance would be that low.” She sucked her lips into her mouth.

  I knew the part about going to dinner with Taylor was true, because Taylor had texted me while she was with her.

  My mom placed a plate in front of Chloe and then asked Hailey if she wanted anything. Hailey said no.

  I looked down at her purse, staring at it when I saw a pack of cigarettes poking out the side. She must have seen me staring at them, because she finally looked at me.

  “You can have them. I found them lying on the ground outside the restaurant. I figured someone would want them.” She pulled her lips into her mouth and then picked up her purse and handed the pack to me.

  I took them from her and held her eyes until she glanced back down to the table. It was quick, no more than a fraction of a second, but I did notice the deadness in them and I knew it wasn’t from the hangover.

  This girl was killing me. The sadness I could see in her was fucking killing me, and I would do anything to wash it all away from her. I knew the number of days since we’d made love just that once, and I could count it down to the hour also. Everything had been ripped out from under me, and I had no idea why. I didn’t sleep anymore; it was worse than the day she moved away. The way I felt mattered very little in comparison to watching my girl breaking in front of me.

  She searched around her purse. “I must have left my keys upstairs.” She excused herself and headed up the steps.

  When she was out of sight I followed behind her. When I walked into my old room she was looking underneath a pillow.

  “Will you talk to me for a few minutes?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.

  “Do I have an option?” She turned to look at me.

  “Not really.”

  She put the pillow down and took a seat at the edge of the bed. I knew she wasn’t going into a fit of anger because she felt guilty about what she did last night.
She folded her hands together, and pulled her shoulders in like she was trying to protect herself.

  I had never seen her like that, and knew I needed to be careful with my words, and gentle in my approach. Not that I was good with subtleness – I wasn’t at all. Demanding answers wasn’t going to work, and I couldn’t do that to her with how fragile she appeared.

  I took a seat next to her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, staring down at the carpet.

  “Hail?” I placed a hand over hers. “I’ve missed you, Hail.”

  She looked over at me for no more than two seconds, but I noticed her lips trembling. When she looked over at me again her eyes were full of tears. I reached over to hug her but her whole body jerked. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and when she began to shake she dug her fingers into her arms.

  I wanted to hug her so bad, to take whatever pain she felt away. All I felt was hopeless and useless because I didn’t know what to do other than sit there with her.

  She was crashing right in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do. How do you make someone else fight for themselves as much as you want them to fight? You can’t. And I felt like I was failing. I was failing her in every fucking way possible. And I didn’t want to fail her, because it hurt, and just the thought of her hurting made me hurt more.

  I grabbed a few tissues from the nightstand and kneeled in front of her.

  I wanted her to look me in the eye, so she understood how much I meant my words. “Hail?” She looked at me, and I handed her the tissues. “I’m always going to love you no matter what, baby.”

  Chapter 26 - Cody

  Standing at the entrance of Frankie’s, I nervously tapped on the wall as I waited to be seated. I was hesitant, since the last time I showed up here she’d called me a stalker. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered me, because it wasn’t true.

  Yesterday it felt like I was making progress with her. Not wanting to slow any momentum I had built, I called Frankie to find out her schedule for the week. Her car wasn’t parked out front, so I assumed she’d parked it in the back lot.

  Andy noticed me and shouted “one minute” as he carried a tray full of dirty dishes into the kitchen. I had yet to see Hailey, and assumed she was in the kitchen or bathroom.

  Frankie came over to take my order after Andy had seated me. That was odd. Frankie rarely took orders. “Hey, Cody, good to see you!”

  “Hey, Frankie, it’s good to see you too.” I paused. “Hailey back there?” I asked, motioning my head to the kitchen doors.

  Frankie looked around nervously and shook his head slightly. He took a seat across from me in the booth, clasping his hands together, and rested them on the table.

  “I told her to take the rest of the day off. She didn’t seem very well,” Frankie said with an upset look on his face.

  I had a strong suspicion of why she didn’t seem well, and was certain that alcohol had become a problem for her. The only thing I didn’t know was why. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t walking out of the restaurant with any uncertainty about the conclusion I had drawn. Pressing Frankie for the truth was what I had to do, because he wasn’t fully disclosing it.

  “Frankie, if something happened you need to tell me. I’ve been really worried about her.”

  “Cody… I, um. Well, I had to let her go for the day. She came here a bit tipsy.” He looked over at Andy, who was approaching the table, and asked him to give us a few minutes. “I let her work, but she dropped a piece of hot pie on a woman’s arm.”

  “Has she come to work appearing drunk before?”

  Frankie shook his head no.

  “I don’t know how to help her, Frankie.”

  “I feel bad, but I can’t risk the business or the liability. She does it again, and I’m going to have to let her go, Cody. Don’t want to do that, but ya know I got a family. I got mouths to feed.”

  “I understand.” I stood up and thanked Frankie for his honesty.

  ***

  After driving past Hailey’s to make sure she’d made it home all right, I went to my mom’s house. Hailey didn’t answer the door but her car was parked safely outside. I wished Frankie had thought about how she’d get home. He was a good guy, so I knew if he’d even considered it he would have had someone drive her.

  My mom said she looked fine when she picked up Chloe, so she must have slept the buzz off before picking her up.

  I strummed on my guitar as I sat on my bed, staring at the picture Taylor took of me and Hailey the night when everything got fucked up. I’d give anything to have the happiness back that I felt when that picture was taken.

  All of it felt like my fault. I should have quit the band when we started dating, and shielded her from all the bullshit that came with it.

  The uncertainty over what she was concealing from me was driving me fucking nuts.

  It was killing me watching her fall like this. It was worse than watching her leave for New York. I felt like I was watching her die. Not just leave, but die. And maybe not a physical death, but a death like what had happened to Grace. I’d rather her be happy with Jason than like this because of me.

  It felt so good to just be around Hailey yesterday, but I wished I knew why she’d started drinking. She didn’t even look like herself anymore. Last night I had a nightmare that she killed herself and Chloe while driving drunk. The car crashed into a tree, sending both of them flying through the windshield. The thought of anything happening to either one of them was overwhelmingly terrifying.

  I heard the front door close, and then Taylor’s screeching voice echoed down the hallway. I put my guitar down and headed into the living room.

  “Why did you let Hailey drive home drunk?” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows and flashed me a condescending look. “Peyton told me what you said, but she wasn’t drunk.”

  “She was barely coherent when she got to my mom’s, and she drove there.”

  “She had, like, three drinks at the restaurant.” Taylor slid her jacket off and flung it on the couch.

  Peyton went to the bathroom. I was sure he wanted no part of the conversation. He avoided any form of drama, which was ironic since he was dating the queen of it herself.

  “Cody, she was perfectly fine when she left.” She jutted her hip out and placed her hand on it.

  “Did you leave first?”

  “No, I went to the bathroom. Her car was gone by the time I was in the parking lot. I swear to you, she wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t even tipsy.”

  “Don’t take her drinking again.”

  “She’s not a child, Cody, you can’t treat her like one.”

  My eyes narrowed at her. “Don’t take her drinking again.”

  “Whatever, Cody,” she said, rolling her eyes at me.

  I slammed my fist into the wall, leaving a hole in the drywall. “Don’t FUCKING take her drinking again!”

  “Damn, you don’t have to get all violent about it.”

  Peyton came back into the living room. “Dude, chill out,” he said, patting me on the shoulder.

  I flashed Taylor a look of disgust as I walked past her, taking a seat on the couch. Anger surged through me. How her ditzy ass could not realize that something was definitely wrong with Hailey was beyond me. She never drank, never, and Taylor knew about Grace’s issues.

  Taylor looked at Peyton. “I’ll call you later.” She grabbed her jacket and was quickly out the door.

  “Dude, I’ll be back,” Peyton said as he followed behind her.

  I lay in bed for a few hours thinking things through, hoping that an answer to this mess would magically appear in my mind. It was late, but I decided to stop by Hailey’s one more time.

  ***

  I was about to knock on the door when I heard Chloe’s cries making their way through it. I stood there for a few seconds before I decided to unlock the door. Something wasn’t right, I could feel it.

  I eased the door open. My heart began to pound again
st my rib cage. Hailey was on the floor, face down. Her body was limp and she looked as if there was no life in her.

  I rushed toward Hailey, ignoring Chloe’s cries. I was sure she was dead. There was no response from her body when I rolled her over. After checking for her breath I realized she was all right – just drunk.

  Instant relief settled through me. For the first time probably ever, I was angry with Hailey for scaring me like that, for doing this to herself, for allowing her to become this kind of mother to Chloe. I sat back on my knees and placed my head in my hands. I needed to steady myself before I went to Chloe.

  I sat down on the couch next to Chloe and pulled her onto my lap. As I sat there rocking her, I noticed how filthy the place was. Empty cans of beer were thrown about on the table. A basket of unfolded clothes was on top of the dining room table. They looked as if they had been rummaged through. The television stand was covered in a sheet of dust. There was a large purple stain next to the television, probably from spilt wine.

  After Chloe calmed down I told her that I would be right back, as softly as I could. I got her pillow and blanket from her bed and placed them on the couch. “Lie here for a few minutes, Princess.” I grabbed her doll from the floor and placed it next to her.

  I knelt down next to Hailey and picked her up. Her body was limp, and she didn’t make a sound.

  After getting Hailey into bed I decided I was going to take Chloe to my mom’s. Hailey was in no condition to take care of her and I couldn’t leave her there. Plus, if she awoke the next morning and I was there, I was certain she would fly into a fit of rage, and I didn’t want Chloe to witness that.

  I noticed the mess in the kitchen on my way back to the living room. Pots and pans were piled high in the sink, pouring over onto the counter. The parts of the counter that were exposed were coated with food stains. The smell of old trash and rotting food was overwhelming. There was a line of ants coming from the trashcan underneath the sink.

  I spent the next few hours cleaning up the kitchen and trash in the living room. It was the only way I thought I could help right then.