キャミー・タング著「戌年」連載小説 プロのドッグトレーナーであるマリ・ムトウは、厄年を迎えている。 犬小屋と訓練所の改築をしながら、いつも不服そうにしている家族と同居することになった。母と姉に言わせれば、犬の毛とよだれかけにまみれる仕事は、家族にとって恥ずべきものだという。彼女は元カレを説得し、数ヶ月間犬を預かってもらうことにした。しかし、彼の兄は、数週間前に彼女が誤って車に追突した、怒り狂ったセキュリティ専門家であることが判明する。 アシュウィン・ケイトウは十分な問題を抱えている。叔母が玄関先に現れ、同居を希望している。彼は彼女にすべてを借りているので、断ることができません。母親が家を出て行った後、ネルおばさんはアシュウィンと弟を引き取り、愛のあるキリスト教の家庭で育てた。しかも、弟のダスティもアパートを追い出され、居場所を求めている。しかし、彼は犬を飼っている。そして、その犬の飼い主は誰だと思いますか？ しかし、旧友でオアフ島のノースショアでデイスパを経営する私立探偵のエディサ・ゲレロから依頼を受ける。マリの施設で奇妙な破壊行為があり、3年前に失踪したエディサの妹の財布を発見する。エディサはマリが危険な目に遭っているのではと心配する。警備の専門家であるアシュウィンがすでにマリを知っていることを知ったエディサは、忙しい若い女性を密かに監視することを彼に依頼する。 アシュウィンは、活発でのんびりとしたドッグトレーナーに不本意ながら惹かれていく。彼女は、幸せそうな母親を思い出させる。その母親の裏切りによって、彼は人と距離を置くようになったのだ。マリは、アシュウィンの冷たい外見を見抜き、彼が家族に忠実な男であることを認める。彼は、彼女のキャリア選択を批判するだけの母親や姉とは違う。 マリのバラバラな家庭とアシュウィンのバラバラな家庭の中で、過去を隠そうとする人たちから、彼らの周りに危険が迫ってくるようになる。彼らは、影で動く秘密に光を当てることができるのか？ 過去に発表されたパートへのリンクはこちら。 *** 第8章 - 恐ろしくも真っ白な不動産書類 『みんな仲良くできないのかな？』 マリは無用に力を込めて箱に本を投げ入れた。最近、なぜ彼女は人生の中で全員と言い争いをしているのだろう？もしかすると、これは本当に悪いアイデア
Camy here: This is one of those books where I read the back cover blurb and ached because I wished I'd come up with a story premise so incredibly clever and cool! Then again, why am I surprised? This is Terri Blackstock, after all.
It was her last hope—and the beginning of a new nightmare.
Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction, by staging an intervention. But when eighteen-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment—and her interventionist is found dead at the airport—Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.
Barbara and her son set out to find Emily before Detective Kent Harlan arrests her for a crime he is sure she committed. Fearing for Emily’s life, Barbara maintains her daughter’s innocence. But does she really know her anymore? Meanwhile, Kent has questions of his own. His gut tells him that this is a case of an addict killing for drugs, but as he gets to know Barbara, he begins to hope he’s wrong about Emily.
The mysteries intensify as everyone’s panic grows: Did Emily’s obsession with drugs lead her to commit murder—or is she another victim of a cold-blooded killer?
In this gripping novel of intrigue and suspense, bestselling author Terri Blackstock delivers the page-turning drama that readers around the world have come to expect from her.
Watch the book Trailer:
Terri Blackstock's new book Intervention was inspired by her personal experiences with her daughter's addictions. Six years ago she became aware that her daughter (then in her early twenties) had a severe prescription pill addiction that was killing her, and she hired an interventionist to convince her daughter to go to treatment. After a grueling few hours, her daughter agreed to go. As Terri put her on the plane with the interventionist, she was hit with the crushing feeling that her daughter was in the hands of a stranger, and anything could happen. That's when this book was born.
Over the past few years, Terri's family has been in a tornado of relapses and rehabs, with one emergency after another, and grace upon grace. But through all this, God has taught her to pray as never before, and he's shown her how many other families are experiencing the same thing. He's also shown her that many blessings can come from crises such as this. Terri has tried to fold all of those experiences into this suspense novel of desperation and hope. She's also added a page to her web site: "Hope for Families of Addicts," (http://www.terriblackstock.com/hope-for-families-of-addicts/ ) which has tips on dealing with a loved one who has addictions.
Though the book is fiction, Terri poured much of herself into Barbara, the mother who's desperate to save her daughter. And Terri's own daughter has given her blessings for Terri to talk about this, in hopes of helping other hurting families and raise awareness about the perils of addiction.
Excerpt of chapter one:
Intervention
Zondervan (September 22, 2009)
Chapter 1
The interventionist stood on the sidewalk at baggage claim, smoking a cigarette and chugging a Red Bull. What irony. The woman who’d promised to help rid Barbara’s daughter of her addictions clearly had a few of her own. Barbara considered driving past her, leaving her to get back on the plane and return to the rehab she ran. She could work this out herself — lock Emily in her room and take away her car keys, force her to stay sober. But hadn’t she already tried that? Despite Barbara’s best efforts to turn their home into a lockdown, Emily still managed to sneak out and get high.
How had this happened?
That familiar knot burned in Barbara’s stomach as she pulled to the curb and waved at the woman. It had to be her — the long red skirt, the white peasant blouse, just as she’d said. The outfit made her look more like a college student than someone who could escort a determined addict across the country. What if Emily put up a fight? How would this petite thing handle her?
Barbara stopped along the curb and pulled the lever under the dashboard, popping her trunk. Forcing a welcoming smile, she got out of the car. “Hi, are you Trish?”
“Sure am.” The woman dropped her cigarette on the concrete and stomped it out with a sandaled foot, then thrust a hand out to Barbara. “Trish Massey.”
“I’m Barbara Covington.”
Barbara glanced at the small bag at the woman’s feet. “Is this all you have?”
“Yeah, I won’t be here long.”
She picked up Trish’s bag and set it on the backseat as Trish got into the car. Barbara slipped back into the driver’s seat. The car that she’d freshened with Febreze suddenly smelled of smoke. “How was your trip?”
“Uneventful, which is always a good thing.” Trish was all smiles. “So where did you tell Emily you were going?”
“To an Al-Anon meeting.”
“And that’s okay with her?”
Barbara breathed a laugh. “Oh, yeah. She likes it when I’m working on her problem. She would love it if everybody she knew were going to meetings and wringing their hands. She loves to keep us playing the What-To-Do-About-Emily game.”
There she went again, letting her bitterness spill out to a stranger.
“Meetings are good,” Trish said. “Have you really been to any?”
Barbara slipped the car into Drive and pulled away from baggage claim, heading to the loop that would take them out of the airport and into Jefferson City. “Plenty. I’ve done the workbooks and gone through the twelve steps, like I’m the one with the problem. I’ve done everything they’ve told me to do. But she’s still using.”
“Al-Anon meetings are to help you cope, not to give you some secret code to sober up your loved one.”
Barbara knew that now. She’d gone to a few meetings, hoping to learn what would work with Emily. When she didn’t get those answers, she’d lost interest. Her own sanity would return when her daughter was sane.
Strange, that a woman who couldn’t be more than thirty would be counseling Barbara now. And who was Trish to counsel an eighteen-year-old? Emily would take one look at her and declare her dominance.
What was she doing? Maybe this was all wrong.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Trish said, as though she’d read Barbara’s mind.
Barbara didn’t want to cry in front of the stranger. For a moment she drove silently, staring at the taillights of the car in front of her. Finally, she spoke again. “When Emily was going into preschool, I personally visited fourteen schools. I interviewed teachers. I even spent a day with her at the one I liked, to see how she fit in.”
“I don’t blame you. I’d probably do the same thing if I had children.”
“It’s no easy thing, sending her to a place like this, halfway across the country. But I had to act quickly. There wasn’t time for a careful, deliberate search. I should have been more prepared when things escalated.”
“You mentioned on the phone that she’d stolen money?”
“Yes. Not the first time, but this was the most she’d taken. Four hundred dollars, right out of my account. She got my debit card out of my purse. Spent every penny on drugs.”
“How do you know?”
Barbara’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel. “Because she didn’t come home for three days. I found her strung out at a friend’s house. I got her to come home, and while she was sleeping, I searched her things. Found some credit cards she’d taken out in her dad’s name. John, my husband, died four years ago.”
Barbara paused, expecting a gasp, but it didn’t come. She supposed Trish had heard it all before. “You had to intervene,” Trish said. “It sounds like her life has spun out of control.”
Barbara’s own life had spun out of control. First, John’s cancer had disrupted their idyllic lives. When he died, she swam through grief so deep it almost drowned her. Being a forty-year-old widow with two children was the next mire she slogged through. But now, Emily’s drug abuse was more than she could take.
“You won’t be disappointed in our program,” Trish said.
Barbara glanced at Trish. “She’ll be locked in, right? Because if she isn’t, she’ll leave. I’ve tried treatment two other times — one time, she ran away after only a week. The second time, she smuggled drugs in and got kicked out.”
“We don’t lock them in, but she’ll be monitored at all times. Don’t worry, we do this all the time. She’ll be very comfortable.”
Comfort wasn’t Barbara’s main concern, though she didn’t want Emily to be miserable. Barbara bit the inside of her cheek as she pulled onto the interstate, headed for the hotel she’d reserved for Trish. She was sinking thirty thousand dollars into Road Back Recovery Center, money that had come from a second mortgage on her house. But being expensive didn’t guarantee that it was good. Even the best rehabs had underwhelming success rates.
She wished Trish inspired more confidence. “You seem very young. How did you come to own Road Back?”
Trish flicked her hair behind her ear. “I’m a recovering addict myself. I got clean at Road Back, and when I graduated, I stayed and worked there. I’ve been doing interventions for them for five years. A -couple of years ago, the directors wanted to retire, so I decided to buy it. I couldn’t stand the thought of it not being there anymore. That’s how much I believe in the program.”
That made Barbara feel somewhat better. She wished she could go to the facility herself to make sure it was all they advertised. But once she’d made up her mind to do the intervention, there hadn’t been time to take a trip to check it out in person. Waiting could have resulted in Emily’s arrest.
And Barbara knew she couldn’t take Emily there herself. No, it would take a professional to convince Emily to go, and Trish had to be the one to escort her. Barbara was sending her daughter off to some unknown place with this woman she didn’t know. Emily would pass this new threshold all alone . . . and be there for ninety days.
Emily had once been a fan of Hello Kitty and Amelia Bedelia. Now she collected pictures of her hero, Amy Winehouse, the famous addict with the hit song about avoiding rehab. Barbara still loved Emily with a love so painful that it ached through her at night, keeping her from sleep, but she didn’t like this person who’d replaced her daughter. If only this rehab could exorcise the addiction within her, and return Emily home in her former condition . . .
It would be a miracle.
But what if this failed too? What if turmoil and madness were all the potential Emily would ever fulfill?
Blinking back tears, she took the exit near her home. The Hampton Inn sign loomed ahead. “I hope the room is okay. I went ahead and checked you in.” Barbara handed Trish the key card.
“It’ll be fine. You should see some of the places I’ve had to stay.” As Barbara pulled into the parking lot, Trish shifted in her seat to look at her. “So, did you write the letters?”
“Yes.” She parked and got the envelopes from her purse. “Here they are.”
Trish took them and turned on the overhead light. “And who is Lance?”
“My son. He’s fourteen. It’s just us.”
“Did Emily’s problems start when her father died?”
“Not right away. But losing John was hard on all of us. Over the next year she got in with the wrong crowd.” She paused and settled her gaze on Trish. “I want you to know, we’re not like this. There was never even alcohol in our home. I’ve taken her to church every Sunday of her life . . .” Her voice faded. Trish had probably heard this same song and dance from every parent she dealt with.
“It’s not your fault.”
Then whose fault is it? Pursing her lips, Barbara let Trish read.
Finally, Trish looked up. “Will anyone else be at the intervention? Grandparents?”
“They’re too far away, and not in good health. I’ve kept them in the dark about all this. It would kill them.”
“Friends? A boss? Teachers?”
“Emily dropped out of school several months ago. Her senior year, six months before graduating, so there aren’t teachers. Her friends are like her. They don’t want her sober. And she lost her job three weeks ago. Hasn’t been sober enough to get another one, so there’s not a boss who can get through to her.” Barbara glanced at Trish in the shadows of the car. “Is it a problem that it’s only my son and me?”
“No, we can work with that.” Trish handed the letters back. “You both did a good job with the letters. You told her what her addiction is doing to the family, how you see her destroying herself, and what you’re asking her to do. The main thing is that you stick to your guns about what will happen if she refuses to go. To bring about change in her, you have to be willing to throw her out with no resources.”
Barbara said nothing. She had grappled with that issue for months now, and lain awake for the past three nights, begging God to give her a way out. Why couldn’t he sweep down and deliver Emily, before Barbara had to send her away for help or throw her out on the street?
“Are you ready for that? Putting her out if she refuses to go?”
Barbara swallowed. “I don’t know. I know it’s what I should do, but it’s like giving up. She’ll die for sure.”
“Or she might hit bottom and decide to get help.”
Barbara wondered what hitting bottom really meant. The picture that always came to mind was of a body lying broken and bloody on the street after falling from a twenty-story building.
“I’ve tried tough love. The third time she got arrested for a DUI, they sentenced her to three weeks in the juvenile detention center. I didn’t bail her out. It was the hardest three weeks of my life.”
“But it still didn’t scare her straight.”
“No. She went back to drugs a week after she got out.”
“Did you really think it would change her?”
“I’d hoped. What good was all that suffering while she sat in jail, if she didn’t change?”
“Your suffering, or hers?”
Barbara looked at Trish. “Both.”
“Again, you’re doing the hard things because you expect them to change her. You need to shift your thinking. Tomorrow, if she refuses to go and you have to put her out, do it because you and your son refuse to keep participating in her destruction. Do it for the mental and emotional protection of you and Lance. And you have to convey that to her. Make her understand you’ve come to the end of your rope.”
Barbara leaned her head back on the seat. “She has to go with you. That’s all there is to it.”
Trish reached over the backseat and got her bag. “Sometimes they want treatment,” she said. “Sometimes they’re more fed up than you know with the endless cycle they’re caught in. Constantly trying to get enough money to score another hit, thinking about it every waking moment, and never able to get that high they’re looking for. Running on that horrible treadmill just to feel normal — or their version of normal. Do you think she’s there yet?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I was hoping you were here to convince her, even if she doesn’t want help.”
“I can only do so much.”
So what had this extra thirty-five-hundred-dollar fee paid for? A free vacation for this woman? “She has to go with you. If she doesn’t, she’ll wind up in jail.”
“Or dead.”
Dead. No, Barbara couldn’t survive burying anyone else. “I can’t let that happen. This has to work.”
“I’ll give it everything I’ve got. Maybe she’s sick of her disease.”
Barbara fought the urge to argue semantics. She hated the AA words like disease and relapse, like it was a virus Emily had caught somewhere. Yet she couldn’t deny that Emily was sick.
Trish opened her car door. “What time will you pick me up?”
Barbara tried to think. The flight she’d booked for Trish and Emily was at three p.m. tomorrow, and this thing could take hours. They had to start early. “Eight a.m. I’ll get her up while you’re there.”
“Tonight, you need to take her car to a friend’s house. Park it there and hide the keys. If it’s not in the driveway, she can’t talk you into giving her the keys. If she leaves, it’ll have to be without the car.”
That wouldn’t be hard. Emily could have one of her drug buddies there in minutes.
“Hopefully, her connection with you and her brother will be enough to make her go. And I’ll do my part to make her see the possibilities.” She got out her cigarettes, pulled one out. “It’ll be okay. Most of the interventions I do are successful.”
“But there’s no guarantee.”
“I’m afraid not.”
She’d have to pay her whether Emily agreed to go or not. It had to work. Her resources were running out.
Click here to download a .pdf chapter excerpt!
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It was her last hope—and the beginning of a new nightmare.Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction, by staging an intervention. But when eighteen-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment—and her interventionist is found dead at the airport—Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.
Barbara and her son set out to find Emily before Detective Kent Harlan arrests her for a crime he is sure she committed. Fearing for Emily’s life, Barbara maintains her daughter’s innocence. But does she really know her anymore? Meanwhile, Kent has questions of his own. His gut tells him that this is a case of an addict killing for drugs, but as he gets to know Barbara, he begins to hope he’s wrong about Emily.
The mysteries intensify as everyone’s panic grows: Did Emily’s obsession with drugs lead her to commit murder—or is she another victim of a cold-blooded killer?
In this gripping novel of intrigue and suspense, bestselling author Terri Blackstock delivers the page-turning drama that readers around the world have come to expect from her.
Watch the book Trailer:
Terri Blackstock's new book Intervention was inspired by her personal experiences with her daughter's addictions. Six years ago she became aware that her daughter (then in her early twenties) had a severe prescription pill addiction that was killing her, and she hired an interventionist to convince her daughter to go to treatment. After a grueling few hours, her daughter agreed to go. As Terri put her on the plane with the interventionist, she was hit with the crushing feeling that her daughter was in the hands of a stranger, and anything could happen. That's when this book was born.
Over the past few years, Terri's family has been in a tornado of relapses and rehabs, with one emergency after another, and grace upon grace. But through all this, God has taught her to pray as never before, and he's shown her how many other families are experiencing the same thing. He's also shown her that many blessings can come from crises such as this. Terri has tried to fold all of those experiences into this suspense novel of desperation and hope. She's also added a page to her web site: "Hope for Families of Addicts," (http://www.terriblackstock.
Though the book is fiction, Terri poured much of herself into Barbara, the mother who's desperate to save her daughter. And Terri's own daughter has given her blessings for Terri to talk about this, in hopes of helping other hurting families and raise awareness about the perils of addiction.
Excerpt of chapter one:
The interventionist stood on the sidewalk at baggage claim, smoking a cigarette and chugging a Red Bull. What irony. The woman who’d promised to help rid Barbara’s daughter of her addictions clearly had a few of her own. Barbara considered driving past her, leaving her to get back on the plane and return to the rehab she ran. She could work this out herself — lock Emily in her room and take away her car keys, force her to stay sober. But hadn’t she already tried that? Despite Barbara’s best efforts to turn their home into a lockdown, Emily still managed to sneak out and get high.
How had this happened?
That familiar knot burned in Barbara’s stomach as she pulled to the curb and waved at the woman. It had to be her — the long red skirt, the white peasant blouse, just as she’d said. The outfit made her look more like a college student than someone who could escort a determined addict across the country. What if Emily put up a fight? How would this petite thing handle her?
Barbara stopped along the curb and pulled the lever under the dashboard, popping her trunk. Forcing a welcoming smile, she got out of the car. “Hi, are you Trish?”
“Sure am.” The woman dropped her cigarette on the concrete and stomped it out with a sandaled foot, then thrust a hand out to Barbara. “Trish Massey.”
“I’m Barbara Covington.”
Barbara glanced at the small bag at the woman’s feet. “Is this all you have?”
“Yeah, I won’t be here long.”
She picked up Trish’s bag and set it on the backseat as Trish got into the car. Barbara slipped back into the driver’s seat. The car that she’d freshened with Febreze suddenly smelled of smoke. “How was your trip?”
“Uneventful, which is always a good thing.” Trish was all smiles. “So where did you tell Emily you were going?”
“To an Al-Anon meeting.”
“And that’s okay with her?”
Barbara breathed a laugh. “Oh, yeah. She likes it when I’m working on her problem. She would love it if everybody she knew were going to meetings and wringing their hands. She loves to keep us playing the What-To-Do-About-Emily game.”
There she went again, letting her bitterness spill out to a stranger.
“Meetings are good,” Trish said. “Have you really been to any?”
Barbara slipped the car into Drive and pulled away from baggage claim, heading to the loop that would take them out of the airport and into Jefferson City. “Plenty. I’ve done the workbooks and gone through the twelve steps, like I’m the one with the problem. I’ve done everything they’ve told me to do. But she’s still using.”
“Al-Anon meetings are to help you cope, not to give you some secret code to sober up your loved one.”
Barbara knew that now. She’d gone to a few meetings, hoping to learn what would work with Emily. When she didn’t get those answers, she’d lost interest. Her own sanity would return when her daughter was sane.
Strange, that a woman who couldn’t be more than thirty would be counseling Barbara now. And who was Trish to counsel an eighteen-year-old? Emily would take one look at her and declare her dominance.
What was she doing? Maybe this was all wrong.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Trish said, as though she’d read Barbara’s mind.
Barbara didn’t want to cry in front of the stranger. For a moment she drove silently, staring at the taillights of the car in front of her. Finally, she spoke again. “When Emily was going into preschool, I personally visited fourteen schools. I interviewed teachers. I even spent a day with her at the one I liked, to see how she fit in.”
“I don’t blame you. I’d probably do the same thing if I had children.”
“It’s no easy thing, sending her to a place like this, halfway across the country. But I had to act quickly. There wasn’t time for a careful, deliberate search. I should have been more prepared when things escalated.”
“You mentioned on the phone that she’d stolen money?”
“Yes. Not the first time, but this was the most she’d taken. Four hundred dollars, right out of my account. She got my debit card out of my purse. Spent every penny on drugs.”
“How do you know?”
Barbara’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel. “Because she didn’t come home for three days. I found her strung out at a friend’s house. I got her to come home, and while she was sleeping, I searched her things. Found some credit cards she’d taken out in her dad’s name. John, my husband, died four years ago.”
Barbara paused, expecting a gasp, but it didn’t come. She supposed Trish had heard it all before. “You had to intervene,” Trish said. “It sounds like her life has spun out of control.”
Barbara’s own life had spun out of control. First, John’s cancer had disrupted their idyllic lives. When he died, she swam through grief so deep it almost drowned her. Being a forty-year-old widow with two children was the next mire she slogged through. But now, Emily’s drug abuse was more than she could take.
“You won’t be disappointed in our program,” Trish said.
Barbara glanced at Trish. “She’ll be locked in, right? Because if she isn’t, she’ll leave. I’ve tried treatment two other times — one time, she ran away after only a week. The second time, she smuggled drugs in and got kicked out.”
“We don’t lock them in, but she’ll be monitored at all times. Don’t worry, we do this all the time. She’ll be very comfortable.”
Comfort wasn’t Barbara’s main concern, though she didn’t want Emily to be miserable. Barbara bit the inside of her cheek as she pulled onto the interstate, headed for the hotel she’d reserved for Trish. She was sinking thirty thousand dollars into Road Back Recovery Center, money that had come from a second mortgage on her house. But being expensive didn’t guarantee that it was good. Even the best rehabs had underwhelming success rates.
She wished Trish inspired more confidence. “You seem very young. How did you come to own Road Back?”
Trish flicked her hair behind her ear. “I’m a recovering addict myself. I got clean at Road Back, and when I graduated, I stayed and worked there. I’ve been doing interventions for them for five years. A -couple of years ago, the directors wanted to retire, so I decided to buy it. I couldn’t stand the thought of it not being there anymore. That’s how much I believe in the program.”
That made Barbara feel somewhat better. She wished she could go to the facility herself to make sure it was all they advertised. But once she’d made up her mind to do the intervention, there hadn’t been time to take a trip to check it out in person. Waiting could have resulted in Emily’s arrest.
And Barbara knew she couldn’t take Emily there herself. No, it would take a professional to convince Emily to go, and Trish had to be the one to escort her. Barbara was sending her daughter off to some unknown place with this woman she didn’t know. Emily would pass this new threshold all alone . . . and be there for ninety days.
Emily had once been a fan of Hello Kitty and Amelia Bedelia. Now she collected pictures of her hero, Amy Winehouse, the famous addict with the hit song about avoiding rehab. Barbara still loved Emily with a love so painful that it ached through her at night, keeping her from sleep, but she didn’t like this person who’d replaced her daughter. If only this rehab could exorcise the addiction within her, and return Emily home in her former condition . . .
It would be a miracle.
But what if this failed too? What if turmoil and madness were all the potential Emily would ever fulfill?
Blinking back tears, she took the exit near her home. The Hampton Inn sign loomed ahead. “I hope the room is okay. I went ahead and checked you in.” Barbara handed Trish the key card.
“It’ll be fine. You should see some of the places I’ve had to stay.” As Barbara pulled into the parking lot, Trish shifted in her seat to look at her. “So, did you write the letters?”
“Yes.” She parked and got the envelopes from her purse. “Here they are.”
Trish took them and turned on the overhead light. “And who is Lance?”
“My son. He’s fourteen. It’s just us.”
“Did Emily’s problems start when her father died?”
“Not right away. But losing John was hard on all of us. Over the next year she got in with the wrong crowd.” She paused and settled her gaze on Trish. “I want you to know, we’re not like this. There was never even alcohol in our home. I’ve taken her to church every Sunday of her life . . .” Her voice faded. Trish had probably heard this same song and dance from every parent she dealt with.
“It’s not your fault.”
Then whose fault is it? Pursing her lips, Barbara let Trish read.
Finally, Trish looked up. “Will anyone else be at the intervention? Grandparents?”
“They’re too far away, and not in good health. I’ve kept them in the dark about all this. It would kill them.”
“Friends? A boss? Teachers?”
“Emily dropped out of school several months ago. Her senior year, six months before graduating, so there aren’t teachers. Her friends are like her. They don’t want her sober. And she lost her job three weeks ago. Hasn’t been sober enough to get another one, so there’s not a boss who can get through to her.” Barbara glanced at Trish in the shadows of the car. “Is it a problem that it’s only my son and me?”
“No, we can work with that.” Trish handed the letters back. “You both did a good job with the letters. You told her what her addiction is doing to the family, how you see her destroying herself, and what you’re asking her to do. The main thing is that you stick to your guns about what will happen if she refuses to go. To bring about change in her, you have to be willing to throw her out with no resources.”
Barbara said nothing. She had grappled with that issue for months now, and lain awake for the past three nights, begging God to give her a way out. Why couldn’t he sweep down and deliver Emily, before Barbara had to send her away for help or throw her out on the street?
“Are you ready for that? Putting her out if she refuses to go?”
Barbara swallowed. “I don’t know. I know it’s what I should do, but it’s like giving up. She’ll die for sure.”
“Or she might hit bottom and decide to get help.”
Barbara wondered what hitting bottom really meant. The picture that always came to mind was of a body lying broken and bloody on the street after falling from a twenty-story building.
“I’ve tried tough love. The third time she got arrested for a DUI, they sentenced her to three weeks in the juvenile detention center. I didn’t bail her out. It was the hardest three weeks of my life.”
“But it still didn’t scare her straight.”
“No. She went back to drugs a week after she got out.”
“Did you really think it would change her?”
“I’d hoped. What good was all that suffering while she sat in jail, if she didn’t change?”
“Your suffering, or hers?”
Barbara looked at Trish. “Both.”
“Again, you’re doing the hard things because you expect them to change her. You need to shift your thinking. Tomorrow, if she refuses to go and you have to put her out, do it because you and your son refuse to keep participating in her destruction. Do it for the mental and emotional protection of you and Lance. And you have to convey that to her. Make her understand you’ve come to the end of your rope.”
Barbara leaned her head back on the seat. “She has to go with you. That’s all there is to it.”
Trish reached over the backseat and got her bag. “Sometimes they want treatment,” she said. “Sometimes they’re more fed up than you know with the endless cycle they’re caught in. Constantly trying to get enough money to score another hit, thinking about it every waking moment, and never able to get that high they’re looking for. Running on that horrible treadmill just to feel normal — or their version of normal. Do you think she’s there yet?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I was hoping you were here to convince her, even if she doesn’t want help.”
“I can only do so much.”
So what had this extra thirty-five-hundred-dollar fee paid for? A free vacation for this woman? “She has to go with you. If she doesn’t, she’ll wind up in jail.”
“Or dead.”
Dead. No, Barbara couldn’t survive burying anyone else. “I can’t let that happen. This has to work.”
“I’ll give it everything I’ve got. Maybe she’s sick of her disease.”
Barbara fought the urge to argue semantics. She hated the AA words like disease and relapse, like it was a virus Emily had caught somewhere. Yet she couldn’t deny that Emily was sick.
Trish opened her car door. “What time will you pick me up?”
Barbara tried to think. The flight she’d booked for Trish and Emily was at three p.m. tomorrow, and this thing could take hours. They had to start early. “Eight a.m. I’ll get her up while you’re there.”
“Tonight, you need to take her car to a friend’s house. Park it there and hide the keys. If it’s not in the driveway, she can’t talk you into giving her the keys. If she leaves, it’ll have to be without the car.”
That wouldn’t be hard. Emily could have one of her drug buddies there in minutes.
“Hopefully, her connection with you and her brother will be enough to make her go. And I’ll do my part to make her see the possibilities.” She got out her cigarettes, pulled one out. “It’ll be okay. Most of the interventions I do are successful.”
“But there’s no guarantee.”
“I’m afraid not.”
She’d have to pay her whether Emily agreed to go or not. It had to work. Her resources were running out.
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