Page 171 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘How long do you think she has?’

‘I wish I could answer that. It could be weeks. On the other hand, it could be days. There is no telling.’

Weeks?Days?He wasn’t ready for this. Knowing something was going to happen some time in the future was infinitely worse when there was a timeline attached to it, however uncertain that timeline might be.

‘What are you two wittering about? Hand me that phone.’

Dom started as his mother’s frail, yet still imperious voice rasped. ‘Mamá?’

The doctor sighed. ‘Rosaria insisted I call you tonight. She demanded she talk to you.’

‘Surely she should be sleeping? It’s the middle of the night there.’

‘In a perfect world, yes. Instead, Rosaria dozes. Except tonight she refuses to settle at all until she’s spoken to you.’

‘Are you going to stop bleating and give me that phone?’

Normally Dom would raise a smile at his mother’s haughty demands, but not tonight, when he knew that, for all her strength of spirit, her body was crumbling. It was unthinkable. To Dom, she’d always been a powerhouse, strong, indomitable. The only time he’d ever seen her falter was when his father had died, and she’d lost her beloved Roberto. She’d grieved then, long and hard, at times her grief threatening to overwhelm her. But slowly and surely, she’d come back from that. And instead of being crushed by her grief she’d grown stronger, adding the role of father to the already heavy burden of mother, lending her intellect to his while he grew into his new position as head of Estefan Inc. In Dom’s book she was a force of nature, which made what nature was doing to crush her all the crueller.

‘My son,’ he heard. ‘Is that you?’

‘It’s me, Mamá.’

She sighed. ‘At last. I thought I might die before that damned physician handed over the phone.’

Dom pressed his lips together. His mother’s condition was hardly a joking matter, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. ‘Dr Rodríguez is the best in the business, you know that.’

‘That may be true, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘I’m dying, Dominico.’

A dagger pierced his heart. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why not, when it’s true?’

‘Because it’s not what you should be focusing on.’

‘I’m not focusing on it.’

‘Then why mention it?’

‘Because I wantyouto focus on it.’

As if he could focus on anything else right now, all thought of his most recent success blown out of contention.

‘How do you know that I’m not?’

‘Because otherwise you’d have already given me what I want. If you were a good son, you would have given me the grandchildren I have so longed for.’

‘Mamá,’ he protested, ‘it is not because I have sought to deny you grandchildren. I did not know you would become ill. I cannot change that now.’

‘No. What is done is done.’ She sniffed. ‘Or, in this case, what is undone is left undone.’

Dom dropped his head into one hand, his earlier high spirits deflated by both the physician’s prognosis of his mother’s worsening condition and her comprehensive evaluation of his failings as a son. It didn’t seem to matter to his mother that he had taken the business his father had bequeathed him at the tender age of twenty-two and expanded it tenfold. The myriad successes he’d had along the way didn’t seem to count. He had denied his mother the experience of becoming a grandmother and for that and that alone he was being judged.

‘Dominico!’ His mother’s thready shriek was like a slap to his head. ‘Are you there?’

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