I lay on the hospital bed, gazing into my son’s eyes. His small hand gripped mine with a desperate strength, his face streaked with tears. "Mum, please don’t go," he choked out, his voice thick with grief.
"I’m sorry you have to see me like this," I whispered, my own voice thin and reedy. "I know you’re angry with me. I know you must hate me for failing to convince your father to make you his heir."
It was a resentment I had felt building for years, a cold distance growing between us.
Daniel shook his head, a rough, frantic motion. "Mother, what are you talking about!?"
His reaction surprised me. I thought perhaps he was just being polite, unwilling to voice his bitterness at the end. "I’ve noticed," I pressed on gently. "You don't talk to me as much. You always seem so angry. I’m sorry I failed you."
He let out a long, weary sigh, a sound far too old for his young shoulders. "You still don’t get it, do you? You never cared enough to. You’ve always been like this." The disappointment in his voice was a knife in my heart.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a sliver of confusion piercing my fatigue.
"You only ever focused on making me the heir. You were obsessed with it, convinced it was what I wanted. But it wasn't." His words came faster now, a torrent of long-held pain. "All I ever wanted was you. My entire life has been a living hell. Everywhere I went, I was ostracized, bullied for our family's situation. The one thing that could have made it better was having you there. But you were always chasing after Father. I accepted a long time ago that he hates me. But you… you could have been there for me. I just wish you had spent more time with me."
My eyes widened. I stared at my son, truly seeing the sixteen-year-old man he had become, and the wounded child still inside him. All these years, I thought I was fighting for his future. Instead, I had been destroying his present. How could I have been so blind to his pain?
The shame was crushing. To know I had wasted my life, our time together, on a goal he never even wanted. And to only realize it now, on my deathbed, when it was far too late to fix anything.
"Now I’m about to lose you, and I’ll be all alone," he said, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks. Watching him cry was a physical agony. The knowledge that I was the source of his deepest wound was a hard pill to swallow.
Suddenly, my lungs seized. A vice clamped around my chest, stealing my breath.
"Mum! Mum!" Daniel yelled, his voice shrill with panic. My body was no longer my own; it trembled and shook uncontrollably.
He scrambled to the doorway. "Help! I need some help in here!" he screamed into the hallway. I heard the frantic thud of footsteps rushing toward the room as my vision dissolved into a blur.
"She’s going into respiratory failure!" a sharp voice cut through the chaos.
Somewhere in the distance, I could still hear my son crying. It was a terrible, broken sound. I was traumatizing him even in my final moments. If only I could go back, undo it all. If only I could give him the time and love he had always deserved.
What would happen to him now? If my ex-husband took him, I had no doubt that "woman" would find a way to get rid of him. I had failed as a mother. My one job was to protect my child, and I had failed, miserably.
As the doctors worked over me, I felt a profound coldness spread through my limbs. My body was shutting down. My blurry eyes felt impossibly heavy, and began to drift closed.
No! I screamed in the confines of my mind. Please, let me stay with my son! He’ll be alone. Please, he needs me! I have to fix this! I can’t die like this!
To die at thirty-six felt like a cruel joke. As my eyes finally closed, a blinding light bloomed behind them, stark and absolute.
The light enveloped me, a silent, white void. There was nothing else.
Was this the afterlife? I wondered. For what felt like minutes, I floated in the unchanging brightness. Then, slowly, the light began to recede.
Surprisingly, my eyelids no longer felt heavy.
"I’m sorry, Mrs Bennett, but Mr Bennett is busy," a crisp, professional voice said.
Unsure if I’d heard correctly, I slowly opened my eyes. A woman in a sharp blazer was seated behind a large, polished desk, looking at me with polite impatience.
"What?" I murmured, my voice stronger than it had been in years, the scene before me making no sense.
"Mrs Bennett," the woman repeated, her tone hardening slightly. "I said Mr Bennett is busy. He can’t see you right now."
Mrs Bennett? The name echoed in my mind. I hadn’t been called that since Robert and I divorced six years ago. I had gone back to my maiden name, Ms Hayes. Mr Bennett was Robert. My ex-husband.
She looked familiar. My gaze drifted past her, taking in the cavernous, marble-floored entrance hall. I recognized it instantly. This was the headquarters of Bennett Holdings Limited. Stationed at the grand reception desk were two impeccably dressed women—the receptionists.
"Mrs Bennett," one of them called out again, but I was lost in a maelstrom of confusion.
What was I doing here? How was this possible? Was this a dream? I pinched my arm, hard. The sharp sting of pain was undeniable. This was real.
A memory surfaced, one of many just like it: me, showing up here, begging to see Robert, only to be turned away every single time. But that was over three years ago. I’d been too ill to leave my home for the last few years. Had I gone back in time? Had my dying wish been granted?
"Mrs Bennett, if you don’t leave, we’re going to have to call security," the receptionist said, her voice pulling me from my thoughts.
I barely heard her. A single, urgent thought eclipsed everything else. Daniel! I could see Daniel. Whether this was a dream or a miracle, it didn't matter. I had to see my son.