“No.” she put down the fork and looked at him. She looked miserable and he hated it.
“Please tell me what’s wrong. Did I do something?”
“No! Oh no Asher, it’s not you at all. I’m sorry. It’s my parents.”
“Your parents?”
“Yeah. I asked my mother what we were doing for Thanksgiving. She said we were having dinner at the club. I was appalled. When Travis and I were little they made holidays so special. Now that we’re older it’s almost like they are no big deal.”
“Why the club?”
She rolled her eyes. “Some politician is in town from D.C. He invited them because they made a big contribution to his campaign. It’s all for show as usual.”
Asher nodded. He understood the whole ‘keeping up’ thing. His own parents had been guilty of it for years too. Each time one of the neighbours remodelled, they did. The neighbours got a pool, they got a bigger one. The one good thing that came out of his mother’s illness had made them realize there were a lot more important things than money to him and his mom anyway. His father didn’t seem to find anything important any longer if it wasn’t seventy-proof. “Did you ask her about eating with us? Mom hasn’t been feeling well enough to cook, but our house keeper, Maribel makes a mean turkey.” Lily had always cooked their holiday dinners but this year she was smack dab in the middle of her chemo and she just didn’t have the energy for it.
Mia nodded. “I asked her. That’s really what has me so upset. She got all dramatic about it and told me I was choosing your family over ours. She tried to drag Travis into it and she wanted him to tell me I was ruining his holiday by choosing not to go to the club.”
Asher already knew the answer only because he knew his friend so well, but he asked anyways, “So what did Travis say?”
Mia smiled. “He asked me, in front of my mother, if I could finagle him an invite too.”
Asher laughed. “He knows he doesn’t need an invitation. Sometimes I think my mom likes him more than me.”
“Your mother doesn’t like anyone more than you,” Mia said with a smile.
Mia had been helping Asher and his mom over the past couple of months. When Lily had a treatment and they weren’t in school, Asher and Mia would take her to the clinic and would sit with her for the four hours it took. They played board games with her or watched movies. Mia and Lily had gotten close. When Lily’s hair had started falling out, Mia had bought her a wig and even threatened to shave her own head. Lily had laughed and then suddenly sobered and said,
‘You better be kidding! I won’t be responsible for all that gorgeous hair being lost.’
“You run a close second to me,” he said. “And then Travis and then my dad.”
Mia cautiously asked, “Has your dad been home this week?”
Asher shrugged. “He’s been there as much as he ever is lately but he’s worthless to my mother. Sometimes when mom is sick at night from the chemo and I go in to help her to the bathroom he is laying right next to her passed out from being stinking drunk and he doesn’t even hear her calling out for help. I locked her meds up too.”
“Why?” Mia asked, alarmed. “Was there a problem with the nurses?” Lily had hired two nurses that rotated shifts when Asher was at school or wanted to go out. They had also brought in a hospital bed and shower chair and other equipment to keep her comfortable. She’d had a port installed in her chest where they gave her all the injectable medications. Asher was her primary caregiver when the nurses weren’t there in the evenings and on the weekends. He had learned a lot about cancer and medications. A lot more than any 17 year old should know.
“No, the nurses are great. It’s my father. She asked him to give her a pain pill the other night when the nurse left early and it was a couple hours before I came home. I got there and found her in excruciating pain. Her head hurt so badly she said she couldn’t even see straight. Which was strange because the pills would take the edge off. I had just picked up her prescriptions that morning and the old pain pills had one left. When I opened the cabinet, there was still one pill in that bottle. So I counted the new bottle. Those hadn’t been touched either. There was a bottle of Ibuprofen in there too. That one was missing a pill. When I confronted him he said that he hated how the morphine made her ‘out of it.’ We got into a fight about her being ‘out of it’ versus being in pain to the point of not being able to tolerate it any longer. He had probably already drunk half a liter of bourbon. I don’t think he processed any of it. I don’t want him giving her meds while he’s drunk. Who knows what he might hand her?”
“Wow, that’s probably a really good call on your part.” Mia reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “I wish I could do more for you.”
Asher furrowed his brow and said, “Are you kidding? What other girlfriend would come over just to read to my mother or change her sheets after she vomits? Who else would encourage her to drink more water by cutting up fresh fruit and putting it at the bottom of the glass? You’re amazing and I thank God every day for you. I don’t know if I could get through any of this without you.”
Mia squeezed his hand. “You’ll never have to know,” she said. “And on that note, I told my mother I was having Thanksgiving at your house. I really might have to bring Travis though because neither of my parents are speaking to him for defending you.”
Asher smiled. “The more the merrier,” he said. He hated that they gave her a hard time about him but he loved that she wasn’t willing to stop seeing him because of it. “Do me a favour though?”
She looked up at him with those gorgeous eyes. He wasn’t sure that he could wait for her birthday to make love to her. It was killing him. “What’s that?”
“Promise me you won’t feel guilty. You’re a good daughter, but you can’t help how you feel.” He almost said,
“Who you love,”
but neither of them had said that yet. It was another thing he was saving. He watched her nod her head and then said, “What are you doing the rest of the day?”
“Reading to your mother,” she said, “Dean Koontz’s new book came out today.” Asher smiled and shook his head.
“I am so damned lucky.”
Mia winked at him and said, “And don’t you forget it big boy.”
**
The months passed and the holidays came and went. Lily got sicker and was unable to attend to any of her own needs without being in debilitating pain most days. The sicker she got, the more binges Asher’s father went on. Asher did his best to avoid his father because each time he came across him drunk and feeling sorry for himself, a hot rage would burn inside Asher’s chest until he was almost afraid that he wouldn’t be able to control it. He spent most of his time when he wasn’t at school, at home with his mother. Mia did the same to the chagrin of her parents.
Lily’s treatments weren’t working. The tumor wasn’t responding to the chemo or the radiation and was in a spot too dangerous to operate on. Her oncologist had upgraded the stage to IV and he had told her the two years he had given her when she was first diagnosed may have been ‘overly optimistic.’ She was losing weight it seemed on a daily basis. She could hardly hold anything down any longer. They were now calling the care she received from the nurses ‘hospice care.’ Asher wasn’t by any means a medical professional, but he had done enough research on cancer since his mother had become sick to know what that meant. It meant that her days were becoming more and more numbered. Asher had been with her the day the doctor had given her that bit of news. His words had splintered inside him, causing real, physical pain in his chest. What he was telling them was that for his mother there would be no more of the walks in the park she loved. No more birthdays or parties at the club. The snow that had fallen in January would be her last and her life from then on out would consist of four walls and lots of pain medication. As he spoke, Lily had listened quietly to him and when he finished she asked, “Do you have a form I can sign for a Do Not Resuscitate order?”
Asher watched in private agony as his mother signed the paperwork that would tell her care providers when it was time she should just be let go. On the one hand he understood not wanting your chest pounded on and split open. On the other he felt anger, mostly at himself. He hated that she was signing it because anything they did to her or for her would be extending her time on this earth just a little bit longer. He felt guilty about that, but it was so hard to be unselfish and understanding when it was your mother they were talking about dying.
Two days before Mia’s seventeenth birthday Asher sat at his mother’s bedside and they both stared at a gameshow on television when she asked weakly, “What are you doing to celebrate Mia’s birthday?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I cooked her dinner here?” Lily no longer made the trip downstairs to the dining room. She pretty much did everything from the master bedroom. His dad had begun sleeping on the couch when he was home and only entering the bedroom for brief daily visits with his wife.
Lily smiled. “That’s a wonderful idea. You won’t burn down the kitchen, will you?”
Asher grinned at her and said, “I might set off the smoke alarm like some people I know.”
Lily laughed. She had made her first Thanksgiving dinner from scratch when Asher was about five years old. She hadn’t covered the turkey pan with a lid or foil and she had cooked it too long. As the skin turned to ash and dripped down onto the bottom of the oven, it had began to smoke. Every smoke detector downstairs began going off. Asher remembered his father teasing her about it and when he saw that she had actual tears in her eyes. He had taken her into his arms and told her how amazing she was. ‘
You don’t have to cook a perfect turkey. I’m actually glad that you didn’t.’
Looking confused and with tears now rolling down her cheeks, Lily had asked him,
‘Why?’
Asher remembered his father kissing the side of her face and saying,
‘Because then you would have been too perfect.’
He had taken them all out to dinner that night and it was one of the best Thanksgivings he could
remember. He knew even then how much his parents loved each other. He just wished now that his father would stop acting like such a pussy.
Asher gave his mom her meds and read to her until she went to sleep. Then he kissed her softly on the forehead and went downstairs to check on the dinner he was making for Mia. He had broken the cardinal rule of friendship and had begged his best friend to tell his parents he was taking his sister to the city for dinner and to an under eighteen club. He had rented a hotel room for his best friend and Travis told his mom and dad that he and Mia were going to stay overnight and drive home the next day. It hadn’t been easy convincing him. Travis had made him swear he only wanted Mia to stay over so they could ‘cuddle’ and he wouldn’t take it any further than that. For the first time, Asher had lied to his best friend. He suspected Travis knew he was lying but it made them both feel better that he didn’t know his friend’s real intentions.
The other thing that helped was that Travis had started dating Stacey Stuart a few months before. Asher knew that they were having sex because Travis had told him. Stacey was a senior like Travis, she had just turned eighteen. A night in the city in a hotel room he hadn’t had to pay for and a nice dinner that Asher footed the bill for too and he couldn’t say no. On his way out of town he had dropped Mia off and when Asher had opened the front door his friend put two fingers to his eyes and pointed them in Asher’s direction. Asher had grinned at him and waited until he was gone to pull Mia into his arms and kiss her deeply.
“Happy birthday, baby.”
She smiled and snuggled into his chest. “Thank you.” She giggled and said, “You smell like pasta sauce.”
“I made eggplant parmigiana.”
Mia pulled back and looked up at him. “That’s my favourite.”
“I know,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “You told me the night I took you to Tony’s for dinner.”
“You made it all by yourself?”
He grinned. “Mostly. I ran back and forth upstairs for tips from my mother.”
Mia looked impressed and when Asher took her hand and led her into the dining room where the table was set and the food was laid out she suddenly had tears in her eyes. She took in the white roses a in the vase in the middle of the table, the burning candles and the lovely gift-wrapped box that sat next to her plate and threw her arms around him. “This is the best birthday ever.”
Asher pulled her in for another hug and putting his lips to her ear he said, “We’re just getting started.”
They sat down and ate. Asher thought the eggplant was overdone but Mia sweetly raved about it. After dinner was finished he took the dishes to the kitchen, not letting her help, and came back with a tiny chocolate cake with two candles in the shape of a one and a seven burning on top.
“Oh my God! You made cake too?”
He laughed. “I wish I could take credit for it, but unfortunately my culinary skills don’t extend to pastries. I bought it but it’s the thought that counts, right?”
“I love it, and yes it is.” He sang happy birthday to her and she made a wish and blew out the candles. While he cut and served the cake he teased her and tried to get her to tell him what she wished for. She flushed bright red every time he tried and refused to tell him. That gave him hope that she was wishing for the same thing tonight that he was.