Prologue
Dominic - Four Years Ago
“Dom,honey, stop moving around so much. I’m getting dizzy,” my mother said. Her hoarse chuckle still reverberated around the room even though she was too weak to raise her head.
“You need to eat. The nurses are too busy socializing to answer the call bell. I’ll go get it.”
She grabbed my wrist with her bony hand when I popped off the chair next to her bed. “You pressed the button two minutes ago. I’m not the only patient.” A half-smile ghosted across her pale lips. Whenever I’d throw a tantrum as a kid or freak out as an adult, she’d give me that same look. The “are you done, yet?” smirk of amusement that always seemed to bring me back to reality. We’d laugh and I’d calm down, but this was the first time it didn’t work. “A package of stale graham crackers isn’t the magic cure, Domenico.”
“Domenico?” An unexpected chuckle fell from my lips.
“It’s the name that I gave you, so I can still use it whenever I want.”
A tiny smile crept across my lips. “Whenever I’m in trouble, right?” I brought her hand to my lips, stifling a cringe when I glanced at the bruising along her wrist.
She let me change my name to Dominic in school because I’d hated Domenico. She set me on a path but always let me be who I was.
Without her, who was I? I had no clue. I was still outwardly denying it, but I knew she was never coming home.
“Hi, Linda. What can I do for you?” Luanne, one of the nurses we’d come to know all too well, came up to my mother with a warm smile.
“Is there juice or a package of graham crackers lying around?” Mom croaked out. “I didn’t feel like eating dinner but I’m—”
“If there isn’t, I’ll find some. Appetite is a good thing.” Luanne’s eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. There were no more good things or good signs, but I wasn’t ready to admit that out loud yet—or ever.
“Dom,” Steve, my stepfather, called from the door. “Can you step outside for a minute?”
The minute I met his eyes, I already knew this wouldn’t be a conversation I’d like. He was as tired as I was. Mom and Steve were high school sweethearts who’d parted before college. Mom met my father and had me, then divorced him when I was only a baby. She ran into Steve one day at the grocery store, and the rest, as they say, was history. He’d lived with us since I was seven but had only married my mother a few years ago. They’d always joked about not wanting to ruin a good thing, but he was a great stepfather and loved my mother with all he had. On the rare moments I saw past my own pain, I felt sorry for the guy. He looked as if he was dying a little bit each day, too.
“Go,” my mother lifted her hand to shoo me out the door.
I trudged outside to where Steve was leaning against the wall with somber defeat in his eyes that made my skin prickle.
“What?” I rushed over to him in a panic. “What did they say?”
“Nothing I wasn’t expecting. Dominic, we have to move your mother out of the hospital.”
“We’re taking her home? Good.”
“No,” he sucked in a breath before raking a hand through his hair. “There’s a good facility in the Bronx. They specialize in caring for end stage cancer patients. They have a really nice staff, and they’ll focus on keeping her comfortable.”
“What—like a hospice?” If we took her home, it would have meant the same thing, but the thought of actually checking her into a place like that made my heart free fall into my stomach.
“Yes. I hate the word as much as you do, but she’s going to need more care than you and I can give her, even with the daily visits from the nurse she’d get at home. I drove over earlier today, I didn’t want to talk to you until I’d checked the place out. You can go, too, before I tell them—”
“No, I trust you.” I dragged my hand down my face. “When would she go?”
“If I tell them yes now, probably tomorrow afternoon. Dom, trust me, if there was anything else we could do, I—”
I squeezed his shoulder and brought my cloudy gaze to his. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know.” A lump in the back of my throat was choking me, and I needed air. “I’m going to take a walk outside. If the truck is there, do you want anything?”
He shook his head before slapping my arm. “Go. I needed a minute after the social worker suggested this, too.”
I nodded without lifting my head and moped outside. Her prognosis had never been good, but now, we were officially out of hope.
Plopping down on the concrete bench in front of the entrance, I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. Until now, I’d managed to hold in any crying until I arrived home from the hospital, not wanting to make my mother worry about me anymore than she already did. This time, a tear escaped.
“Dominic!”
