My house may be big, but I don’t know if she’ll want to stay there once she finds out Mia isn’t going anywhere. I would never turn my back on my mother, but she’s going to have to learn to play nice if she really wants to stay at my place.
“Of course,” the doctor says, nodding and smiling. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye like he’s reading my mind. “It’s going to be quite some time before we can even entertain that discussion, though. You need your rest, Mrs. Mazur. You had a big day.”
“Would’ve been an even bigger day if that heifer Luiza didn’t have such clumsy feet. We were about to win our doubles tournament and she tripped me. That suka tripped me!”
I chuckle and hang my head. “You’ll have to excuse her, doctor. She has the mouth of a sailor when she has a couple pain pills in her.”
A nurse steps into the room, smiling nervously when she sees me. It’s not like everyone in this hospital doesn’t know the Mazur family name. If they don’t, I’m sure my mother has made them well aware. “I’m sorry, but visiting hours are ending in five minutes. I can fill out the paperwork if you’d like to request you be allowed to stay later.”
My mother waves her hand. “That won’t be necessary. My son is a very busy man, and my programs are about to come on.”
The nurse and the doctor leave the room, and I walk over to the bed and stroke my mother’s hair. I know I probably shouldn’t pile on to her stress, but at least if she passes out, there’s an oxygen tank handy.
“Mom, I need to talk to you about something, and I feel really bad doing it here, but I feel like there’s something you need to know before you make plans to move into my house with me.”
“Did you get a dog?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, Jesus, did you start adopting cats again?”
I pull the ring box out of my pocket and flip it open. “Mia and I are getting married. We’re starting our lives over together.”
She pulls the box closer to her face, examining the ring my grandmother passed down for me to one day give to my bride. “If it were anyone else in the world, I’d tell you to wait, son.” She snaps the box shut. “I thought a lot about our last conversation, and I realized I should’ve trusted your judgement. You’ve always known exactly what you wanted, Serafin, and you did whatever you had to to get it. It was wrong of us to stand in your way.”
“Are you just saying that because you like her paintings?”
“I never disliked Mia,” she says, placing her cold wrinkled hand on my wrist.
I laugh and so does she.
“I am happy you’re starting your life over together. I hope that maybe she can find it in her heart to forgive me and maybe I can be a part of it in some way?”
“I don’t think she has it in her heart to hate you, mom. I don’t think she’s capable of holding a grudge. Besides, you and dad bought her an art gallery today.”
“Did we?” she asks with a big bright smile. This is going a lot better than I expected. “I really don’t need to move in with you two, Serafin. I don’t want to get in the way of your honeymoon phase. I’m not going to be around forever, and I’d like to at least meet my grandchildren.”
Those words hit me right in the heart. Mia is going to be such a good mother. I can’t wait to have a houseful of kids and laughter. I can’t wait to be a father.
Everything I thought I’d never have is suddenly falling into place.
“We’ll figure it out when the time comes. Doctor said you’ll have to be here for awhile.”
She begins coughing, and I start getting nervous when she doesn’t stop. The nurse rushes in the room, and soon I’m being pushed out of the way.
The doctor is waiting outside the door in the hallway, and he doesn’t look as chipper as he did when we were talking in the room just moments ago.
“I didn’t want to say this in the room, Serafin, but your mother’s condition is a lot worse than it appears. While we were operating on her, we discovered a tumor in her stomach.”
“Can you just take it out?” I ask.
“We need to run some tests. How she was even functioning, let alone playing tennis is beyond me. You can tell she’s a fighter. We have to do whatever we can to keep that spirit high because at the end of the day, that’s half the battle. You know that as well as anyone.”
I peek through the window in the doorway, where it appears my mother is back to her normal self, waving her hands as she tells the maid some wild story, probably about how she’s going to to be a grandmother soon.
“There’s not much more we can do today. Her body’s been through a lot of trauma. We should have more answers for you in the morning.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I say. “I’ll be back in the morning. Please keep me updated if anything changes tonight.” I open the door and blow my mother a kiss, but she just waves me off. It doesn’t feel right leaving her here, but I remember back when I was in the hospital, all I wanted to do was sleep and be left alone. Visitors just reminded me what brought me there to begin with.
I walk outside, the afternoon sun warming my face. I slide my sunglasses down and shoot Mia a quick text. I hop in my Jaguar and head down to Jakub’s office.
17
Mia:
“Hello, gorgeous,” I say as Serafin walks in the door. He’s got on this tight black leather jacket, and his jeans are
