Chapter 14

Mia stood out in front of the Fury house and stared up at it. She could remember when it had been a happy place. Even when Lily was sick for a while, they had been happy. But Greg had slipped into his alcoholism and then Lily died and Travis died and Asher left. Asher had walked out of her life without so much as a word. He had left a hole in her heart that had never healed. He had left her with trust issues to say the least. Now Asher’s father was dead and that hole in her heart was aching like an open wound.

She walked up onto the porch past the porch swing that Lily used to love. When Mia helped Asher care for her in the last days of her life, she used to sit out there with her and they would swing and talk. Mia had loved Lily. She had loved her own mother too but Lily was everything that Norma wasn’t insofar as she had such a huge capacity for love and forgiveness. Lily hadn’t cared that Mia’s mother and father had been on the outs with her and Greg for years. She had treated Mia with respect and love always. Her death had broken Mia’s heart not only for herself, but for Asher. After Lily died, Asher hadn’t even called her. Instead, he had gone drinking with Travis. By the time Mia saw him again they were burying his mother and her brother. She had just turned seventeen years old. She had just lost a mother-figure and her brother she adored. She hadn’t known what to do with those feelings and when she finally saw Asher that day, those feelings had come out as anger and blame.

Mia knew that Asher had adored his mother. She knew that Asher had also loved her brother. She knew that Asher would have traded places with either of them that day if he could have. She had seen the pain in his eyes and it had killed her. It was almost palpable. Yet, instead of taking him in her arms the way she should have and comforted him, she had displaced all those feelings that she didn’t know what to do with, on him. She had been so damned young. Then her mother had stepped in and Norma had told him it was all his fault that Travis was dead. The look of horror on his face then had snapped Mia back to reality and she called after him, but he hadn’t even looked back. She had thought he was only going for a drive that day but he never came back and no one in town had heard from him since, not even his father. She often wondered if Dean ever heard from him but he had long since left town too.

Mia used her key and let herself into the Fury home. She had been helping Mr. Kentworth with the planning of the funeral and she was here today to get some photos for the service. He had left provisions for what he wanted in his will. He wanted to be cremated and have his ashes buried in the plot next to Lily. Mia had arranged the graveside service for him through his Priest and she had ordered the flowers and arranged for a reception at her own home afterwards. She wanted something personal at the service though a photo of better days. There was one photo on the mantle of Greg and Asher and Lily when Asher had been just a little boy. Mr. Fury had loved that photo and that was the one she was here to get today.

She was comfortable here. Before Lily had died she had been here a lot, helping Asher care for her and just spending time with him. Once Asher was gone she couldn’t stand the thought of Greg being alone. She had taken meals over a few times a week, each time trying to sit and talk with him for a while and let him know that he wasn’t alone. Eventually, he admitted to her that his drinking was out of control and he’d hated it. She had helped him get into a program and she had visited him regularly. Once he had been released she had continued to help him around the house. He’d had staff to do his cooking and cleaning, but she had liked to do things for him like pancakes before church on Sunday morning or a pot roast on Friday night. Those were things Lily had done for him and he was so touched that he began to open up to Mia about a lot of things and they had become very close.

Greg blamed himself for Asher leaving. He told her all the time that Asher loved her and if he had stayed, he would have married her. He told her that the day Asher left it was because of him. His drinking had escalated, completely out of control and he had said some horrible things to his son. He had never told her exactly what was said or what the fight was about and Mia hadn’t asked. She knew that Greg’s main goal in telling her had been to ease the pain she felt when Asher had left. It hadn’t work. Her heart had still ached. But the friendship she had developed with Greg helped. She at least felt close to him when she was in the house.

She took down the photo that she had come to pick up and suddenly the gravity of it all rained down on her. She slumped down into one of the chairs in the living room and she began to cry. She wasn’t just crying for Greg, she was crying for them all. Lily, Travis, her mother Norma, Asher, Greg and herself. Lily’s illness had set into motion seventeen years of pain and suddenly Mia was feeling overwhelmed by it all.

She sat there for some time, just crying and wishing that things had turned out differently for them all. She heard the front door open after a while and she looked up and saw her father.

“Oh baby!” He came over to her and knelt at her feet. She crumpled into his arms and he ran his hand through her hair, rocking her back and forth and telling her that everything would be okay. “Sweetheart, you can’t do this to yourself. You were the best thing that could have happened to Greg for the past seventeen years. You saved his life and he knew how lucky he was to have you. He told me that more than once.”

Mia pulled her head up and looked at her dad. “He told me that a lot too. I think we saved each other, all three of us.”

Mia’s dad nodded and said, “Because of you. If not for you, Greg and I would have continued that ridiculous feud that had been going on for too many years. Who knows what it was even about?” He chuckled.

Mia wiped her tears and smiled. Even ten years after her mother’s death, her father still refused to say a word against her. They both knew that her mother was the one who hadn’t liked the Fury’s. She had been jealous of them and she had let that colour her attitude about everything they did. When Mia had been twenty-four years old, her mother had suffered an aneurysm that ruptured in her brain. She had gone into a coma and for a month, her father had sat at her bedside, refusing to take her off life support. Mia had been the one to talk her father into it. She told him her mother was gone and keeping her body alive was prolonging everyone’s suffering. He had refused for weeks and one night after leaving the hospital, he had gone into one of the bars in town for a drink. He saw Greg Fury there. Greg had already gotten sober, but he was there just talking to some of the old farmers that hung out there and having a good time. When he saw Frank, he went over to him. Mia had told him about Norma. Frank told Mia later that Greg had sat down next to him and said, “Lily begged me to let her go.”

“What?” Frank had no idea what he was talking about.

“When she was really sick, she begged me to let her go. She was suffering and I selfishly wanted to keep her alive as long as possible, because I didn’t know what to do without her. I’m sorry about Norma. I know the decision you have to make will alter your life either way you go. I just wanted to let you know that I refused to let her go, and that has haunted me ever since.” He had clapped Frank on the back then and as he stood up he had said, “This is going to sound strange coming from me, but if there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.”

He had left it there and Frank confused. He ultimately made the decision to let his wife go, based in part on what Greg had told him. Mia had urged him after that to let old wounds heal and befriend Greg. They had both suffered such loss in their lives. They had both lost their sons and the wives they had adored. It had taken some time, but eventually they did become friends. For the past ten years, the two had been inseparable.

Frank looked at the photo Mia now clutched in her hands and then up at his daughter. “Is that for the funeral, or you?” She smiled and wiped more tears away.

“It’s for the service.” She looked up at the mantle at one of Asher and his mother right before she got sick. That was the Asher Mia remembered. His cocky smile looked like a kid on the verge of becoming a man who would set the world on fire. “I want that one,” she said pointing at the picture.

Frank smiled too. He got up and took the photo off the mantle and handed it to her. “Then take it. You have a right.”

She ran her finger across Asher’s face in the photo. “Do you think he’ll come back for the funeral?”

Frank shrugged. “I don’t know honey. As far as I know, no one has heard from him. I’m not sure anyone was even able to reach him about Greg’s death.”

Mia nodded. She thought it was probably best if he stayed away, after all these years. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to stay away from him if he came back, even though he had hurt her so badly. She still loved him and she probably always would. It was what had gotten in the way of every relationship she’d ever had since, except the last one. And he was just an abusive asshole.

Mia stood up and grabbed several other photos off the mantle. Frank raised an eyebrow at her and she said, “In case he does come back. There are some things that will need explaining before he sees these.”

Frank nodded, understanding. She wiped the tears from her face. The thought of her ex reminded her of the Proctors and she asked her father, “Dad, have the Proctors been bothering you?”

She knew that her father didn’t tell her most of the time when they did. She was running the family business and helping him with the side businesses and dealing with Greg’s death and James’s harassment. Her father thought her plate was too full. She didn’t want him feeling like he was alone though, especially where the Proctor family was concerned.

“They’ve been around,” he said.

“Dad,” she said, crossing her arms. “I know that you talked to Greg a lot about what you were both going through. Those people are vicious and I don’t want you being alone against them now that Greg is gone. I’m stronger than you think.”

He smiled and said, “Huh uh, I’ve always known that you were the strongest one of all of us. You just have so much to worry about. Besides, Lyle Kentworth has his own issues with them too, so I’m not alone here.”

Mia nodded. For years now, Randall Proctor had been pressuring both Mr. Fury and her father to sell him their assets. Years ago, Greg and Frank owned roughly fifty percent of the property in the town between them. Another third was owned by the Kentworth’s and the Proctor’s jointly. Over the years as Randall Proctor served as maintenance and transportation director for the Haddenfield Independent School District (HISD) he was amassing a small fortune. The Halloway’s and Fury’s hadn’t been able to prove it, but it was suspected that Randall had been misappropriating funds that were granted to the district over the past ten years. It was also suspected that bribes were being offered and taken when it came to positions for his sons within high-ranking positions.

Randall’s sons hadn’t grown up in Haddenfield. Randall and his wife had divorced when they were young and the three of them had moved back to Colfax County after their mother’s death. It wasn’t a year later when Vince, Randall’s oldest son was elected mayor. A year after that Michael, the middle son was elected President of the HISD Board of Trustees. Randall’s youngest son James was Mia’s biggest mistake and turned out to be the reason the Fury’s and the Halloway’s had come to know so much about the other family’s corrupt activities.

Mia and James had dated for three years. It had been the worst three years of her life. He presented as a smart, articulate, well-rounded man and he was really good looking. He had come into the Bar and Grille for lunch every day and at first he would just smile at Mia or say hello. Then he started sitting at the counter when she was behind it and he would make small talk. It was almost two months after he came to town before he asked her out. He took her for nice dinners out of town and dancing and concerts. They always had a great time. And then one night Mia picked up his phone while he was in the shower. The text message he had just received said something about picking up the money for the trustees. It was from a man she knew to be a contractor here in town. There had been rumours about trustees being demoted or even fired for voting against James’s father at the school district. She had tried to give them the benefit of the doubt before this. She couldn’t keep silent about it and that night when she confronted him about all of it, he had tried to deny it. When he realized Mia wasn’t a fool and not accept his pathetic excuses for why he had so much money and why the board always seemed to vote affirmatively for things his father would benefit from, he became threatening and told her he would hurt her family if she told anyone about her suspicions.

Mia was smart enough to be frightened of him. She didn’t put it past any of the Proctor’s to commit violence. But, she wasn’t frigthened enough to be intimidated by him. She had told Greg and her father in hopes of it helping their battle against them. What she didn’t tell the two men in her life that she knew would absolutely lay down their lives for her was that James had begun abusing her.

She still lived with her father, but she had been staying with James a lot. When he caught her packing the things she had left there, he had hurt her physically and forced himself on her sexually. She was became terrified of him very quickly. She left her things as soon as he went to work and returned to her father’s. She stopped taking James’s calls and she went to the Sheriff’s and filed a restraining order. James wouldn’t bother her at home because he didn’t want any witnesses to what he did to her but the restraining order hadn’t intimidated him at all when he saw her in town. That is what scared the shit of her the most. The fact he had so much control over so many people.

Meanwhile her father and Greg and Lyle had been trying to get evidence against all of the Proctor’s in the hopes of running them out of office and out of town. The town was on the brink of ruin as it were, thanks to their bullying. By the time Greg died, they still hadn’t had the evidence they needed. People in the town were scared to death of them and nobody wanted to talk. If they did, ‘accidents’ would happen to them and their families.

“You know, I think they’re responsible for Greg’s death.”

Mia furrowed her brow. “Didn’t they confirm he had a heart attack at the hospital?”

Frank nodded. “They drove him to it. They were terrorizing him. They wanted his ranches and he refused to sell them no matter what.”

Mia didn’t doubt that, she knew first-hand how capable they were of terror. She worried about her father though. Frank’s health hadn’t been good recently either and she feared they would stress him to his death as well. “Dad, you can’t let them stress you out that bad.”

He waved her worries off as Mia locked up the house and as she and Frank walked down the front steps, her father asked her, “What about you, honey? Has James been bothering you?”

“Not recently,” she said. She never told her father how bad it had gotten. She had finally bought a gun and carried it everywhere with her. “He knows I have the restraining order now and last time he came by, I also held my shotgun on him, trained on his face.”

Frank laughed. “I would have liked to see that.”

She rolled her eyes. “He just laughed. He thinks he’s invincible. They all do.”

With a heavy sigh Frank said, “That’s because they have the whole town terrified of them. I’ll talk to Lyle after things settle down with Greg’s service. Maybe he can think of a way for us to get these guys.”

Mia nodded. At the bottom of the steps she kissed her father’s cheek and hugged him. “I’m going to close the Bar and Grill down for the day tomorrow. Everyone wants to attend the funeral.”

“That’s good,” he said. The Halloway’s owned Halloway’s Bar and Grill. It had started out as a small bar and when Mia took it over not long after she got out of school, she began improving on it and making it more about the food and less about the bar. It had evolved into a family establishment that people from all over the county would come to eat at. The bar is still part of it and Mia brought in local bands every weekend to play. It gave the bands exposure they wouldn’t get otherwise and they give the Bar and Grill a discount price. It worked for everyone.

“I’ll pick you up before the funeral tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay baby. I love you.”

She smiled. “I love you too, Dad.”