Changing Her Heart

“I can’t take it anymore. I think I’m going to go to counseling.”

Lacey leaned across the table and rested her hand on Susan’s arm. “That’s good, but you’re not the one who needs counseling. It’s Eric.”

“He won’t go. He says he doesn’t have a problem. He says he can quit anytime he wants.”

Lacey bit her tongue. She couldn’t count the number of times Eric had quit drinking, but it was exactly the same number of times he’d fallen off the wagon. And every time it was Susan who landed with a thud. His drinking was ruining Susan’s life and their marriage. It wasn’t good for their two children, either.

A couple of verses from Proverbs 23 that her mother had quoted when Susan had said she was going to marry Eric once again echoed through Lacey’s head.

Do not gaze at wine when it is red,

when it sparkles in the cup,

when it goes down smoothly!

In the end it bites like a snake

and poisons like a viper.

Indeed, Eric had poisoned his life, and he was poisoning the lives of his family. He didn’t seem to care what his drinking did to anyone; he only continued to drink himself deeper into a hole.

Most days, Lacey tried her best to pray for him, and every day, she tried not to hate him.

She opened her mouth to tell Susan that she had to do something more than just counseling for herself, that no magic solution was going to fall from the sky, but before she could speak the sound of footsteps clicked on the tile floor behind her.

Bryce’s voice broke the silence. “Lacey, have you seen my MP3 player? Oh. Hi, Susan. Thanks for contributing to the computer. It sure was a surprise.”

Lacey quickly spun around in the chair to see that Bryce wasn’t alone; Randy was beside him. She looked at both men and tried to signal Bryce with her eyes to leave the room. Bryce took the hint and walked out as if nothing was happening, but instead of leaving, Randy moved closer and leaned toward Lacey’s face.

“Have you got something in your eye? If you want I can—” Randy’s words came to a sudden stop when his attention wandered to Susan, who did have something in her eye. Both eyes. Tears. Which were streaming down her face.

He straightened, and his whole body went stiff. “Is something wrong? Do you need help?”

Susan swiped her arm over her eyes, which only smeared her makeup, making her look worse. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s my husband. I should go. I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

Susan stood, but Lacey blocked her path. “Where are you going to go? Is he home? Is he…” She let her words hang. There were times Lacey feared that as the situation continued to escalate, the day might come that Eric might hit Susan. She prayed daily that things would never get to that.

Susan must have thought the same thing at the same time, because she sank back down into the chair and covered her face with her hands. “You’re right. He’s probably in worse condition than when I left, and I know I’m being a bad wife, but I can’t deal with that right now.”

Randy stepped closer to Susan. “What’s wrong? Is he sick? Is there anything anyone can do?”

She shook her head without taking her hands from her face. “No. It’s not like that. He’s not sick. He’s…he’s…” Her voice shook and trailed off as she raised her tear-streaked face. Lacey moved closer to Randy to tell Susan without words that he was with her, and that it was okay to keep talking. Once Susan figured that out, she looked straight at Randy. “My husband is at home, drunk. He was so bad I told him to stay home, not to come to my own brother’s birthday party. That’s so wrong. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Lacey didn’t know what to say, but somehow having Randy beside her made her feel stronger, and not as helpless as she always did whenever Susan’s husband went off the deep end.

Randy’s voice dropped to a soothing murmur. “I’m sorry. It sounds like he’s got a serious drinking problem.”

“I used to say that he didn’t, that he could stop anytime, but I think I was just fooling myself. Yes, he has stopped, but he never stops for long, and every time he starts again it’s worse than the time before.” The tears started flowing again down Susan’s cheeks, and her lower lip trembled. “I wish I knew how to make it stop.”