Asher’s mother decides to go to Europe in order to join her husband, and begin work on her own. Asher is told that he will live with his uncle so he will still be able to work with Jacob Kahn. I think that this is going to have some kind of an effect on Asher. He didn’t like it when just his father was gone. In earlier chapters from before, he thought to himself that all he wanted to do was tell his mother that they can go to Vienna because he missed his father. Now, with both parents gone, what will the effects be? I think that he will start to feel guilty that the only reason that his family is so broken up is because of his need to persue art. He has felt this before, but I sense that it may come back due to this new change.
He was more close to his mother than his father, and he has known this virtually all of his life. With such a figure missing from his life, be is bound to feel some grief. He will see his mother very rarely, and constantly be dealing with art, school, and his uncle. Sometimes he may need to talk to someone, and she won’t be there.
Or, maybe Asher has replaced his mother. Maybe he sees Jacob as being the one to take on this new role. Can he talk to him as closely as he can his mother? Has Kahn gotten that close to Asher already? We don’t yet know. I think somewhere, this is hurting Asher, it’s either barely visible, or he’s too concerned with his art to think about it.
The fact that he is now almost virtually alone in New York must make Asher feel very strange. He is only in his early teens, and he is doing so much more than any other child from his community. Since meeting Kahn, so m any things have changed that maybe it’s hard to keep track of them all. No one would have ever thought that Asher’s life would have taken such a drastic turn from normal, but that’s exactly what has happened. In a way, I think that Asher has learned to deal with change, and not really become so emotionally attached anymore. His art is important to him, and in many situations, that’s what will come first.