“Mira Dominic Alejandro Díaz, que no me impolta que tú tengas casi cuarenta año’ que yo sigo siendo tu mamá.”
“I know you’ll be my mother regardless of how old I am, but I’m telling you I’m fine. I’m also not forty.”
“I did not say you were. I saidalmost. Casi, casi.”
I roll my eyes.
“Dominic,” she spits. Fuck, I forgot if I can see her, she can see me.
“If you are so fine, como dijiste, how come you look sad?”
I’ve never been able to hide anything from her—not my feelings, not my thoughts, and certainly not Riley if she were to ask.
I don’t want her to ask.
Or maybe I do.
I need to talk to someone, and my brothers are going through it right now, Oliver with his daughter struggling in school and Lucas with whatever is going on with his best friend. I don’t have a lot offriends, and I don’t think Arnie would give me unbiased advice. He might kill me, now that I think about it.
“What did you do?” she asks, reading me like an open book.
I sigh. “Why do you always assume I did something wrong?” I rest my arm behind my head, relaxing on the chair on the porch, my eyes trained on the beautiful woman next door’s window, but I refuse to look for her in the shadows.
“You are right. My therapist tells me I need to stop assuming for people. Or the worst of people? Uno de eso, you know?”
I love her and miss her. I miss them all, but I don’t miss who I was when I was there. And there’s too much to do here to take a vacation, even a short one. It would be detrimental to the ranch and to the progress I’ve made here.
I’m happy here.
Or so I thought.
Because the way I felt when I was with Riley is something I can’t explain or describe, other than bliss.
“I know,” I reply.
“¿Hay una nena que te tiene enchulaó, Domi?”
Smitten? We’re past that, but, “Why did you assume there’s a girl involved?”
“Because your eyes have not left whatever is behind me, and my guess is it’s a girl. Or is it a cow? A horse? A goat? Did you get a goat like that friend of yours?”
None of that; just the cabin of the woman whose heart I broke when I lied about what I wanted and who I can’t stop thinking about.
“It’s not a goat.”
“A cow?”
In any other situation, I would laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but I can’t get out of my head, Riley front and center. “Not a cow.”
She smiles. “Un caballo?”
“There are no animals here, Ma. They are on the other side of the ranch. Only cabins here,” I point behind me, “and the river over there.”
“Then what are you looking at?” she asks. “I hope it’s a girl, because the only reason you wouldn’t be paying attention to your mother when she is talking to you is because there is someone you’re interested in, right?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, unable to reply, not wanting or willing to give her more information. Or any at all.
“You know I won’t judge you,” she says, living up to her witch label everyone in our family has given her. How does she know exactly what I’m thinking, always?
