I had.
“La Mia luce…” I murmured through my scratched and raw throat. Ally’s face softened in adoration. The next words I spoke came straight from my heart without any conscious thought. “Ti amo, carina… I love you so damn much that sometimes I can’t fucking take it.”
Ally dragged in a shocked breath, and as her bottom lip quivered, she leaned down to kiss my dry lips and murmured in reply, “I love you too, Axel. So so much. You’re all of my heart.”
Fuck. She loved me too…
Our kiss became deeper, until I pulled back. Feeling exhausted, I laid my head on Ally’s lap, my eyes looking straight up at her face.
As I watched her happily stroke my face, I thought over mamma’s prayer and I froze.
Ally, sensing something was wrong, asked, “What is it, baby?”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I said, “Just something that came to mind.”
Ally’s dark eyebrows pulled down. “Tell me,” she urged.
I glanced over to the marble angel of my mamma and said, “Do you believe in fate?”
Still looking confused, she entertained me and shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. I think sometimes things happen that seem so planned out by an outside force that what happens can’t be simply coincidence.” Her head tilted to the side. “Why do you ask, baby?”
Clearing my throat, and feeling pretty damn stupid for saying it, I decided to tell her any way. “My mamma used to pray that one day I would find my light, the thing to change me, to save me. She would always call me her lost son, and her biggest wish was that I would find my way.”
Ally smiled and reached out to take my hand, playing with my fingers. “But I didn’t. In fact, things only got worse. She died and I went to prison.”
“Axel…” Ally said in sympathy, but I stopped whatever she was going to say by holding up my hand.
“Ally, when I went to prison, it forced me from the Heighters, which led to me being shanked.”
Ally blinked fast and I rushed to make her understand. “Carina, if I hadn’t gone through all that… all that pain, that rage… I would never have talked to the nurse in the infirmary about my tattoo designs. I’d never have been forced into the art class to rein in my anger. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with clay sculpting, that then led to my marble sculpting, into which I poured my pain. I would never have met Vin, who published pictures of my works, who then took my marble angel to an exhibition at the Met—”
“Where I saw it in a magazine and flew to New York to see it in reality. Where I then wrote articles and journals on your works and methods—”
“Where Vin read them, and when he went to put the show together, hired you to curate it… the woman that was friends with my brother… the woman who understood my soul before I even did…” I took a calming breath, “the woman who was in the room with my mamma as she passed when I couldn’t be… that same woman who answered my mamma’s prayer… she became my light, she saved Mamma's lost son.”
“Axel… I… I don’t know what to say…” Ally whispered, as more tears fell from her eyes. I pulled her to my chest and breathed in the lavender shampoo scent of her hair.
“I always wanted this,” she said tightly, “I always wanted this kind of love, this intense love… I just never realized it could be so much more… until you.”
I closed my eyes as she said those words and for the first time ever I felt… unburdened.
I fixed my attention on my mamma’s marble statue and said quietly, “Ave Maria.”
Ally tensed against my chest, and asked, “What?”
“The angel, its title should be “Ave Maria.””
“Axel,” Ally sighed, “It’s beautiful… it’s perfect.”
Ally pressed kisses all along my neck and I closed my eyes, relaxing at her touch. “The broken angel is my mamma in this life. Trapped in a body she couldn’t escape from, praying for death rather than living in that hell. The ashes she’s holding are symbolic for death.”
Ally’s lips had left my neck, her body so still. “And the other side?”
I smiled, almost feeling the warm sun on my mamma’s face. “That’s the next life, heaven, paradise, whatever you wanna call it. That’s my mamma waking after death, fully healed, feeling the bright sun on her healthy body… free… it was always my dream from when she got sick. That she would once again be free.”
A sense of peace filled me as I looked at the statue and I took a deep breath. All the titles and information were given. I’d gotten through it. The exhibition was finally complete.
“Axel?” Ally said.
“Mmm?” I murmured, my attention fixing on the bright stars of Orion’s belt through the glass roof.
“It’s time to tell your brothers about your sculptures.”