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Her heart lurched up into her throat and she touched the spot as she demanded, “What? Tell me now.”
“His mother—”
She shot to her feet, rattling the table as she spun away. “What happened?” Her voice rose, and she couldn’t help it.
“Ambulance took her away.”
What the fuck?“Is she dead?” The words seemed to echo, panic making them wobble. “What about him?” What the hell happened? “Talk to me, goddamn it!”
“I don’t—” The guy she’d tasked with watching Toro since the day he left her house swallowed audibly. “He’s not good.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I want details. What happened to his mother?”
“I heard them mentioning something to do with her illness, but they’re not sure if—”
She hung up and spun, almost slamming into Israel.
“What’s going on?”
She lifted a hand. “Can I—Can I touch you?”
He didn’t respond, didn’t say no either, so she cupped his face, stroking his jaw. “I think—” Her hand trembled and she couldn’t believe the words she was about to say. “I have to leave,” she whispered. She got a reaction then. A tick of his jaw. “Julián—Toro’s mother is ill and I should…” She shook her head. “Iwantto be there with him.” She’d fought for so long to have this moment with her son. She’d cast Toro aside to have this moment with her son, and now that she had it… “I’m so sorry.” The words tripped all over themselves and the tears blurring her vision made it difficult to make out his expression, to see if he believed her, if he regretted this, if he hated her.
But she had a choice, just like the last time, and this go-round she was making a different one. Choosing a different man.
“I love him,” she told Israel softly. “If he’s hurting, I want to be there to help him.” To comfort him. She didn’t want him to be alone, not in this. She knew how much he loved his mother and if the worst were to happen—
Israel stepped back, and she took it as a rejection, slapping a hand to her mouth, but it didn’t smother the sobs. Was this the right choice? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t waste time trying to figure it out. It hurt too badly, walking away from this, a start of something with Israel. The promise of what could be.
But Toro needed her, and this time, she had to choose him the way he’d chosen her. She had to put him first. She managed to retrieve her handbag, then Israel was there, taking her arm, turning her to face him. Wiping her face with a rough touch.
“Where is he?” he asked. “Where is your Toro?”
She swallowed the tears, blinking the moisture from her eyes. “LA.”
He smiled then, a gesture that reminded her so much of herself that she almost staggered backward. “You’re in luck. I know a man with a plane.”
31
“Take a breath. Toro, take a breath.”
But he couldn’t. Didn’t his uncle understand? He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t sit still, and he couldn’t fucking think, because his mother was… He covered his face with one hand, holding the phone to his ear with the other as he paced the hospital waiting room. The place was too cold and too loud and it’d been way too long since they’d pushed his mother into surgery, intent on stopping the bleeding in her brain.
Bleeding from the fall she’d taken.
The doctors surmised her meds had made her dizzy, causing her to slip and fall. She’d hit her head on the sharp edge of her dresser on her way down. Now there was bleeding in her brain.
“Toro,” Daniel barked his name. “Are you listening to me?”
“Tío, I— I can’t.” He tugged on the neck of his t-shirt. He was suffocating.
“You can.” Daniel didn’t soften his tone, but Toro still noted the caring in the other man’s voice. “Stavros and I are on our way, but in the meantime, we need you to hold it together. Just a little while longer.”
But he didn’t get it. Toro couldn’t. He glanced around for some place to sit. For something to distract him, but there was nothing. Only other worried family members, waiting and panicking, just like him.
“Talk to me.” Daniel sounded as if he were walking fast. “Let me hear your voice.”
Toro glanced down the hallway where they’d taken his mother. Then at the exit. He desperately wanted some fresh air, but he couldn’t make himself leave, not for one moment. “I can’t stop seeing her lying there.” He spun around, facing the wall as the memory hit him again. It was a tsunami, crushing him. “The blood. Tío, she was so still.” His words came faster, harsher, more ragged. “So pale.” They’d had to hunt for her pulse, forcing her to come back to him,to come back to her son, there on the bedroom floor. “And I couldn’t do shit.” He slapped at his wet eyes. “I couldn’t do shit to help.” He’d never felt so useless, so incompetent, and so much like a kid in need of his mother. That feeling remained with him even now.
