Sweet Hope

by Tillie Cole

  My heart swelled in my chest and I struggled to breathe, my lungs constricting. But I knew she was right. For five long years I’d blocked out my mamma from my head to keep my sanity. But it was killing me. I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was hurting me, not being able to remember the good things: her face, her smile, how much she loved me, without feeling like I was being tortured slowly in the process.

  Drawing in a strained breath, I forced myself to look up at that statue. A tidal wave of grief and guilt rushed through my body, physically bringing me to my knees.

  Suddenly, Ally knelt down on the floor beside me, arms wrapped around my back. Tears started pouring from my eyes as I pictured the last time I’d seen my mamma. She was lying on her bed, her speech almost non-existent and her frail body weak and still. She stared at me leaving to go to the Crimson Tide’s National Championship after party at Austin’s school. I’d given her her meds, and picked up her clothes in her room. The entire time she’d just watched me with tears in her huge eyes from her broken position on her bed.

  She worried for me. She was always worried for me. But that night, there was something different in her stare. It was as if she knew it was the last time we’d be there together… like she knew I was about to fuck up so badly that it was gonna change everything for us all…

  *****

  As I hung Mamma’s clean nightgowns in her closet, I turned round to find her watching me, her face soaked with tears. My heart cracked at the sight of her so tiny and sad on that bed. She was always sad. Always lying down, unable to move, crying buckets of tears. As I stood there watching her breaking, I remembered what my mamma had looked like before. She’d been beautiful, so full of life, but the ALS robbed her of her every muscle and worst of all, her smile. All that remained unchanged were her huge brown eyes. The same brown eyes that could tell you all she was feeling with just one look. Those brown eyes that were gutting me as they stared at me right now.

  I walked to where she lay, my heart racing in my chest, something inside of me making me sit on the edge of her bed and take her cold bony hand in mine.

  As our gazes met, tears escaped the corner of my eyes just at the sight of hers. I couldn’t fucking take her crying, it broke my heart. It broke my heart knowing that those tears were out of worry… out of disappointment in me.

  I lifted Mamma's hand to my lips and pressed a kiss on her thinning skin. “Sorry, Mamma,” I whispered as she stared up at me, her body unmoving, her tears coming thicker and thicker the more I spoke. “I know I’m not the son you wanted me to be. I’m sorry I’m such a huge fucking failure.”

  Mamma closed her eyes, blinking away the sadness filling her gaze as I told her those words. My head fell to her hand and I whispered, “I just wanted to help you, Mamma. Even as a kid, with Papa beating you, I always wanted to protect you, to keep you safe… to save you from having such a shit life. But I know all I am to you now is a letdown. I ain’t the sports star like Aust. I ain’t like that young sweet kid in the next room that you just know is gonna be somebody someday…” I choked on a breath and met her eyes again, moving my finger to brush away the fresh warm tears from her cheek and the damp hair from her face. “But I love you all the same, Mamma. I love you so much that I don’t know how to deal with all this shit you’re going through, this fucking disease. I just can’t stand what’s happening to you. I can’t stand not being able to do shit about it. I’ve always protected us all, but I can’t protect you from this… and I can’t fucking handle it.” I squeezed my mamma’s hand tighter and paused so I could breathe. “And I ain’t sure what the hell I’ll do when you leave me… when you leave us all…” A sob ripped from my chest as I thought of what it’d be like to live in a world where she didn’t exist and it fucking broke me.

  Mamma’s breathing increased, and as I looked at her face, even though her muscles couldn’t move, I saw the grief in her expression… I saw the gutting truth that she didn’t want to leave us either… that it was eating her that she had no other choice but to slowly fade away.

  “I ain’t sure how to do this life without you, Mamma. I’ve fought for so long to keep us going, to keep you going, that I don’t know what the hell I’ll do when you go… how I’ll cope…”

  I cried an age on this bed with my mamma’s hand so weakly in mine. I didn’t think I could move from sitting here, just holding Mamma’s hand, but Gio pounded on our trailer door, telling me we had to leave.

  Wiping at my cheeks, I stood and washed Mamma’s face with the wet cloth I kept beside her bed. Leaning down, I kissed her on her forehead and whispered, “Ti voglio bene, mamma… sempre.”

  Just before I left, I moved to her old record player and switched it on. “Ave Maria” immediately began playing from the speaker.

  Walking to the door, I left without ever looking back.

  And I never saw her again…

  *****

  “Shh…” Ally whispered in my ear as she rocked me, crying into my hands.

  Lifting my face, I met Ally’s sympathetic gaze and said, “I never got to say goodbye, Ally… I never fucking got to say goodbye to Mamma…” Louder cries burst from my mouth and I fought just to breathe through the racking guilt.

  “I was selfish… so fucking selfish, and I ran, I ran and left her all alone, left them all alone. She must have been so afraid for me, so worried about where I was as she laid there unable to get up and come find me. Because she always worried about me, Al. Even as she was dying, years of slowly wasting away, I didn’t give her any peace. What the fuck was I thinking? She died in that hospital room without me there to tell her I loved her, to tell her to finally leave this shitty life and be at peace… and that I’d miss her for the rest of my life… Christ, Ally, how the fuck do I get past that? There’s no going back and I don’t know how to go on.”

  Ally’s tears splashed on my head and she said in a cracked voice, “She knew you loved her, baby… she knew that one day you’d be someone.”

  “But she didn’t live to see any of it, did she? All she knew of me was disappointment. She died thinking that all she’d raised was a piece of shit coke dealing son. The guilt… the guilt of that just fucking rips me apart. She must have died thinking she’d failed as my mamma… but the truth was, I’d failed as a son…

  “Axel…” Ally went to speak, but I looked up at her and said, “I don’t even know what it was like when she passed. I’ve never been able to ask Austin about it. I don’t know how she looked, what time she died, what was said. I can’t ever forgive myself for it… for as long as I live, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  All the color drained from Ally’s face and her arms tightened around me. Then she opened her mouth and confessed quietly, “I was there, Axel…”

  Still trying to stop my chest from suffocating me, I didn’t understand what she meant. Ally’s shaking hands pressed on my cheeks and she explained, “Baby, I was there when your mamma died… I saw her… I was in the room as she took her last breath.”

  Confusion made me freeze. Ally’s face broke into soft cries. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long that I was with Austin and Levi when your mamma passed. We were all at the hospital for Lexi when she relapsed and your mamma was brought in. Austin almost broke having his mamma dying and his soulmate fading away. He couldn’t cope, so we all stayed to support him and Levi.”

  All I could do was stare at Ally as she spoke.

  Fresh tears filled her eyes. “You could never talk about her and I was afraid if I mentioned it, it would chase you away. But I was there, querido. I was there when she passed.”

  Unsure how to react to what she was saying, I asked, “Was it peaceful? Was she in pain? I can’t bear the thought of her fighting death, desperately trying to live.”

  Ally’s lips pursed as she fought not to break down further. Then she added, “Your mamma was sleeping peacefully and then she just drifted away… it was painless, Axel. She looked like she was sleeping… she looked beautiful… like an angel…
”

  The image of my mamma’s beautiful sleeping face filled my mind, and unable to hold it back, I collapsed into Ally’s lap, shedding five years of pent up grief. I cried until my throat and chest were raw and aching. The whole time, Ally just held me in her arms, stroking back my hair and crying with me… still fucking treading water beside me.

  “I wanted to tell her goodbye, and now she’s gone it’s impossible…” I croaked, purging my guilt.

  Ally’s cheek pressed on my head and she whispered, “Death isn’t goodbye; it’s simply goodbye for now.”

  My lungs paused in breathing and I raised my head to look right into her dark eyes. “Do you really believe that? That this isn’t the end?”

  Ally stroked back my hair. “With every part of my heart.”

  I don’t know how long I stayed wrapped in her arms, but when I finally lifted my head, my chest felt lighter. And as I looked into Ally’s loving eyes, my hands on her perfect face, I knew my mamma’s prayer for me had come true…

  Io prego perché tu possa trovare la tua luce, mio figlio smarrito… I pray you find your light, my lost son….

  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.”

  I waited for the apprehension, the shame and the dread. For once, it didn’t come. As I stared up at the stars, I realized I was ready to tell them about the real reason I was in Seattle, and what I’d really been doing with my life.

  “Yeah,” I said in response. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

  I could feel Ally smile against my chest, and she whispered, “Te amo, querido.”

  A rush, an almost crippling feeling of love ran through me, filling my every muscle and I whispered back, “Ti amo, carina. Sempre.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Axel

  As I sanded the final curve of the hand, then washed the Carrara marble down with water, I stood back on the riverbank and exhaled.

  This was my favorite piece yet.

  I’d worked around the clock to get this done over the past week, the quickest I’d ever completed a sculpture, but I had no choice. I had to get the image from my head and into marble… I needed this piece to be seen forever. I needed it to complete my first show. It was the perfect end to the journey Ally had created.

  As the afternoon wind whipped around me, I covered the sculpture with its tarp, padlocking it to the plinth and texted Vin that I’d finished. Only he knew I was adding it to the exhibition last minute. He had the text boards made up in private, the title board, colored backdrop and everything else I needed to make this perfect.

  A beep came through my cell, telling me that he was on his way with his men. I told him where it was and that I’d be out. More than that, I trusted him to make the placement of it in the gallery.

  Vin assured me everything would be fine and Ally would never know of it until opening night. It was my surprise for her.

  My soul’s gift to hers.

  Moving into my studio, I smirked at the still messed up linen on bed. Every morning I’d usually wake up and make my bed before anything—years of being in prison giving me habits too hard to shake. But after last night, after making love to Ally last night, her telling me she loved me over and over in my ear as we came together… I couldn’t bring myself to change a thing
.

  Seeing the Camino keys on the workstation, I walked over, picked them up, as well as my smokes and made my way out to my car. Nerves were shredding my stomach. The thought of telling Austin and Lev all about my sculptures; more than that, about my opening tomorrow night had me almost puking.

  What the hell would they think? Me. A sculptor with his own show in a real fucking museum.

  A new wave of something new hit me as I imagined their happy reaction… relief, excitement… want. Fuck, that was it; I wanted them to be proud of me. I wanted them to finally see me as more than just their older brother who’d only ever shown skill in pushing coke.

  As I weaved through the streets of Seattle, I thought back to when Ally told me she’d be leaving to do her next commission after my show. The thought of not having her next to me every single day made every part of me fucking ache. I wanted her to stay. I wanted her to stay here in Seattle with me.

  I had to figure out a way of making it happen. I couldn’t let her leave. We’d come too fucking far.

  As I drew closer to Austin’s house, the nerves returned making my hands shake. I laughed that I was shaking. I was a damn pussy.

  In minutes I’d parked up the Camino and walked through the front door… then immediately stopped dead at seeing Levi and Austin sat on the stairs, with my bag full of clothes sitting at their feet.

  Both of my brothers had their heads down, but when they heard the door open, Austin looked up, a stony expression on his face.

  “What’s all this?” I asked, feeling the temperature in the room drop about fifty degrees.

  Austin got to his feet and walked over to stand at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed over his chest.

  When his eyes met mine, I could see how much pain he was in. I almost moved forward to wrap my arm around his shoulders to ask him what was wrong, but the shitty way he was looking at me kept me rooted to the floor.

  Austin lifted his foot, and rested it on top of my bag. “Went to the fish market this morning, Axe, the one you said you were working at.”