Chapter 2

Asher had known Mia Halloway forever. He had been best friends with her brother Travis since the sixth grade. For some reason over the past year, he started looking at her differently. She had always been pretty but something had changed over the past year. He had noticed her beauty before in a general sort of generic way. But suddenly he found himself sitting in class and staring over at the masses of chestnut hair hanging down her back and wondering what it would feel like in his hands. The night of the party when they had taken a walk together in the moonlight he noticed the way her hazel eyes had a light yellow rim around them. It had reminded him of a cat. When she had smiled at him that night and her eyes had sparkled and her cheeks had dimpled, he thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful.

The rest of the day after he had kissed her at lunchtime he had been useless in his classes. His mind should have been on the football game that night. They were playing their biggest rival––but instead it was on Mia and the way her lips felt on his and the way her tongue tasted in his mouth. He could hardly wait for the game to be over just so he could be alone with her again. As he was walking out to his car after school he was brought out of his reverie by a voice that reminded him there was something he had to do before he and Mia went any further.

“Hey Ash! Wait up!” It was Travis. How was his best friend going to feel about him dating his sister? He already knew that her parents didn’t like him. That was only by virtue of his last name as far as he knew. He had never figured out what their parent’s problem was with each other. They were both well–to–do business owners in the little county of Colfax New Mexico. Both families had a lot in common. They were both well-off, both offspring of the founders of the county. One family succeeded in the railroad business and the other in the gold rush. They attended the same parties and the same church. Their kids had gone to school and played together since they had been little. But the two families were like oil and water and as Travis approached him, Asher suddenly worried about how his friend would react.

“Hey! What’s up?”

“Are you going to Mel’s?” Mel’s was a drive-in that the football players usually hung out at before or after the football games. Asher had planned on going with them but his mother had paged him earlier in the day. When he called her back she had asked him to come home right after school because she needed to talk to him. She sounded serious and when Asher’s mind wasn’t on Mia throughout the day, he wondered what could possibly be going on.

“Nah, sorry man. I promised my mom I’d come straight home before the game. There’s something she wants to talk to me about.”

“That’s cool; we’re going after too.––”

“About that, there’s something I needed to talk to you about too.” Asher started walking towards his car. He was too nervous to stand still. He wished he had a sister so that he could imagine how it would feel for your best friend to date her. He couldn’t imagine it would be the best feeling in the world. Travis and Mia were only a year apart and closer than most siblings. He had to do this though. He wasn’t about to pass up on a chance to spend time with her. The thought of kissing her again gave him the motivation to say–– “I asked Mia out.”

Travis stopped walking. He stared at Asher for what seemed like a long time before finally asking, “Why?”

Asher almost laughed, but he held it in. “Um…because I like her.”

Travis looked like he was having a hard time processing that. “Since when?”

Asher shrugged. “I’m not sure. Just recently, I guess.”

“What did she say?”

“About going out with me?”

Travis drew his brows together. “Yeah, what else is there?”

Asher did laugh then. It was a nervous chuckle. He wasn’t afraid of Travis––just of messing up what he had with his best friend. “Nothing man. There’s nothing else, I promise. She said yes about having dinner with me. We’re supposed to go out tonight, if that’s okay.”

“What if it isn’t?”

Asher hadn’t given that a lot of thought. He wasn’t ready to lose his best friend, but he wanted to take Mia out more than he had wanted to do anything in a really long time. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just know that I really like her and I really want to go out with her. You know me man. I’m not going to hurt her or disrespect her.”

Travis still looked unsure about the whole thing but after another nerve wracking pause he said, “Yeah. Okay, I guess.”

“Thanks man. I won’t hurt her.”

“I know,” Travis said, making Asher feel a lot better. “If I thought you would, I’d kill you right now.”

Asher laughed. He felt at ease when Travis laughed too. “I’ll see you in a few hours,” Asher told him. He was about to get into his car when Travis said, “You do know I’m not the one in the family to convince, right?” He was talking about his parents and their obvious dislike of the Fury’s.

Asher grinned. “I know. We’ll cross that bridge when and if it comes to that.”

He drove home in his sixty-nine Mustang his dad had bought for him when he was fourteen and helped him fix up. By the time he was sixteen and able to drive, they had fully restored it. It was midnight blue with black leather interior and custom wheels. Asher loved his car and in his mind he saw himself babying the classic and fixing it back up for his son one day. He drove into the driveway of his home and was surprised to see his father’s car there already. It was early for his dad to be home from the office. As a matter of fact, it was early for both his parents. His mother usually left and came home around dinner time, but some days his father was there until seven or eight at night.

Greg Fury had been raised in a nice, middle-class family. He had only become wealthy after marrying Lily, whose family had owned over half of the land in town since the gold rush days. There was no doubt in Asher’s mind that his parents had married solely for love. He could see the way they felt about each other, in the way they treated each other, and the look in his father’s eyes when his mother entered a room. The other way people knew his father didn’t married Lily for her money was how hard he worked. He ran the company that managed the land and the properties on that land that they owned. Because of his extraordinary head for business, their wealth had increased by a ten-fold in the twenty some years his family had been together.

He walked into a quiet house and found his parents sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee. They had been quietly talking and both of them stopped as soon as he walked in. He leaned down and kissed his mother’s cheek. After giving his father a smile he sat down and asked, “What’s going on?”

His parents looked at each other and Lily said, “Four or five weeks ago, I started waking up with headaches in the mornings. At first they were mild enough that I just ignored them, or took an ibuprofen or two and went on with my day. They felt like tension headaches and I thought very little about them. The headaches never completely went away though and along with them, I started feeling this pressure in my head and a light-headedness sometimes if I stood up too fast or bent down to pick something up. I ignored it all and went on with my day. Then I started getting nauseated and the pain became more and more intense. I continued to get headaches regularly; sometimes migraine style, sometimes cluster style, and sometimes just like a tension headache. Your father finally convinced me to see my doctor about everything.”

Asher looked at his father’s face. He wouldn’t look at his son. His mother had on her, ‘Make life beautiful for everyone around me,’ face. Asher’s heart started to pound. Something was really wrong. She took a deep breath and said, “That was two weeks ago. He prescribed some Tylenol with codeine for me and sent me for an MRI. They told me that they would call with the results so I went back to my daily business and just waited. The doctor called last week and said there was an abnormality on the MRI and I should come back in.”

“Oh my God. What is it?” The silent way his father sat and the grim look on his face made him even more nervous than his mother’s words. At least that’s what he thought until he heard her say, “I have a brain tumor honey.”

“What?” He knew he hadn’t mis-heard what she said, but his brain refused to process it.

“It’s called a Glioblastoma Multiform. The doctor said it’s a grade III brain tumour. They can treat it.”

“So then you’ll be okay. Right?”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears and Asher knew his life was about to change dramatically. Things would never be the same again. His life would become about ‘before Mom was diagnosed,’ and ‘After.’

“They can’t operate honey. It’s in a place where they won’t be able to take it out.”

“What does that mean? They can still treat it, right?”

She nodded. “They’ll do chemotherapy and radiation. The doctor said that will slow it down, hopefully.”

Asher looked at his father again. Greg was still staring at a spot on the wall. He pushed his chair back and stood up. “No! They have to fix it! You need to see another doctor! Get a second opinion.” Lily’s tears were beginning to spill down her face. Asher realized they weren’t for her, but for him when she stood up and opened her arms. She had to stand on her toes to hug her large son. He folded into her and for the first time since he was a very little boy he cried like his heart was breaking, because it truly was.

Sometime later when he became aware of his surroundings again he realized his father had left the room. His mother put her hand on the side of his face and said, “The doctors are hoping for two years if the treatment slows down the growth of the tumor.”

“Bullshit! Two years is not long enough.”

“Baby, I wish so badly that you or your father didn’t have to go through this.”

“What about you, Mom? You’re the one that will have to…” he couldn’t even say it. The words pain and cancer and sickness stuck in his throat.

“I don’t have a choice honey. As far as I’m concerned life will just go on until it ends. I don’t want to live like a sick person. I want my life to go on as usual. I’ll keep working. I’ll keep taking care of my boys.”

“No! We’ll take care of you. Where the hell did Dad go?”

His mother looked towards the doorway. “He’s having a really hard time with this. We’ll need to be extra sensitive with him.”

“Are you kidding me? He’s having a hard time?” Asher was incredulous. His mother was standing here being braver than anyone he had ever known and his father was cowering somewhere in another room. That was unacceptable.

“Yes Asher. This is devastating to him. It just means he loves me as much as I have always believed he did. I will take care of my treatments as long as I can. But I ask you to promise me something. When I get too sick to take care of myself, I don’t want any hospitals, okay? I want to stay at home until I die. I might need nurses to come in near the end.”

“Please stop. I can’t do this. I can’t talk about ‘the end’ of my mother’s life.”

She put her arms around him again and they stood there for a long time before she said “As much as you are able to bear is as involved in this as you have to be. I told your father the same thing.”

Asher suddenly felt like a heel. She was being so brave. He had no idea if he could be positive about things and concerned about everyone else’s feelings. He held her back at arm’s length and looked into her pretty green eyes, his eyes. “I will do whatever you need me to do, Mom. I’ll be here for you no matter what. I love you so much. Whatever it takes to help you through this and make it as comfortable as we can, I’ll do it.”

She hugged him again and said, “Thank you, honey. For now, I want you to go and be a kid. Enjoy your life. I love you so much.”