“Just as you belong here with me, this little girl belongs safe in the arms of her family,” he said as I looked down at the beautifully painted little wooden doll, an exact replica of the one I’d lost all those years ago.
I let the tears fall as I bent forward to cup his face in my hands before pressing my lips to his, knowing he was right. This was exactly where I belonged.
Where Nikolai was the dark of my past, Alek was the light of my future… a light I knew would never dim.EpilogueAlekThree months later – New YorkI smiled, watching as Olga rose to her feet without assistance, the medical trial she’d been accepted into allowing her hands, far less twisted, to clap as enthusiastically as the ones of those around her. Tears slid down a face wearing a smile as bright as the spotlight that bathed her beloved granddaughter in a circle of light.
Everyone in the theater was on their feet, the applause, loud as thunder, rolling in wave after wave toward the stage where Clara was bent toward the floor, one arm extended over her head, her wrist flexed, the other curled beneath her, her head practically brushing the stage. Not a single muscle so much as quivered She was perfection personified, frozen in place as the applause caused the entire theater to vibrate.
She’d done it.
She’d returned to where she belonged… no longer a principal dancer.
Clara had earned the honor very few had been given before her. She wasn’t just a prima ballerina… she was prima ballerina assoluta.
But as she lifted her head and found me in the wings, her smile told me all I needed to know…
She was my prima.The End