Sweet Hope (Sweet Home 3)

“You ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” I replied, and Ally drew the curtains apart to reveal the gallery, completely changed from the last time I’d seen it.

My feet began moving forward as my eyes drank in the space. It was… incredible… surreal… out and out fucking crazy that this was all for me.

My sculptures looked perfect at all the different heights. They were spread out so visitors would be able to see every part of them back and front.

“Well?” Ally asked anxiously.

Taking her hand in mine, I lifted it to my mouth and kissed along her warm skin. “Fuck, Ally,” was all I could think to say. Her responding smile almost knocked me on my ass.

“Can I guide you round? Can I take you on the journey?”

I frowned not understanding what she meant by 'the journey’. Ally, clearly seeing it on my face, began to lead me forward.

“I set the flow of the gallery out in a certain way, in themes. As you told me what each sculpture meant, and what inspired it, I put them in a certain order. I started with this piece first because it felt like the beginning to me.”

Ally brought us to the statue I made of us Carillo boys as kids. Austin and I were laid down, Austin pointing up at the sky, and in my arms, I held a baby—Levi. Beneath us was fire and faces screaming in pain… those faces belonged to my mamma, screaming from inside the trailer because of my papa as I tried to keep my brothers safe from his fists.

Ally pulled on my hand and next brought us to a marble stidda, a marble stidda the corners of which were choking a heart, it’s sharp edges drawing blood. “Next is how things began to go wrong, an innocent heart being punctured by this star.”

I didn’t say anything, couldn’t, as we next moved to three brothers stood in a circle, heads down, the eldest brother gripping the necks of the younger two, dragging them alongside him.

“Then comes the demise of the boys from the beginning, the eldest leading them astray.”

My heart pierced with shame as Ally said that, but she was only repeating my words back to me. Next we came to my newest sculpture, the boy crying bullets. Ally stood next to me and said, “We need a title for this one, Axel. Any thoughts?”

I nodded my head as I stared at the boy’s face, too terrified to shoot. Levi’s words from today circled my mind, about how he had nightmares believing he’d killed someone.

“Hamartia,” I said gruffly. Ally looked up at me in confusion. “It means to sin, to do wrong, to miss the mark. It’s an event that happens to main characters in a story which ruins their lives or sets them along a path that can only ever end badly.”

“Axel…” Ally whispered sadly.

I looked to Ally and said, “You know the inspiration behind it. I don’t need to explain it, right?”

Ally nodded at me in understanding. We walked round the rest of my sculptures, each one more gutting than the last.

“So we start with fear, then despair, then sin, guilt, and finally… this…” Ally trailed off. I didn’t need to look up to know we were at the angel.

“Darlin’,” Ally said soothingly, her hand on my back, “we need a title, we need something for the text boards. It’s the last piece to talk about.”

Feelings I was no longer able to hold back surged forward, suffocating me. I gasped, my eyes squeezing shut as I tried to get my breath.

“Querido,” Ally whispered quietly and I pushed back my hair, opening my eyes.

“I can’t, Ally, I can’t talk about… her…” I said, my voice breaking on my last word.

Ally was suddenly before me, her hands gripping my wrist, forcing them from my face. “Baby,” she said quietly, “It’s time for you to face it. You need to talk about your mamma. It’s eating you alive.”

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.