Austin sighed and ran his hand down his face as I got out of the car and walked through the back gate. I prayed on the final bead on my rosary that she was sat on the bed, waiting for me. When I opened the door there was nothing here.
Just darkness.
No lights were on in the room, but I looked up and the plastic stars were shining, but not the jar, not Elsie’s light. I was drowning, fucking drowning in worry.
In pain.
After staring at that bare side table, the missing damn stupid glow stick splattered jar, I turned on my heel and needed to get the hell away. I ran. I sprinted as fast as I could to my Jeep, ignoring the sound of Austin yelling from the front door, ignoring my cell when he tried to call.
I had one place I wanted to be. The only place I ever felt at peace.
It took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and the start of rain to reach the warehouse. Keeping the rosary in my hand, I entered the warehouse, walking straight to the angel and ripped off the sheet. My breath hitched as it always did when I saw her glowing face, the side of the angel where she had risen from the ashes.
Tears pricked my eyes and I held up my rosary to her face. “Ciao, Mamma,” I said, my voice too loud in the huge room. “I got your rosary with me,” I went on and ran the beads through her marble fingers. I sucked in a deep breath and slumped to the floor, my back resting against her legs.
I inhaled, and fighting my emotion, said, “I found her, Mamma.” I sighed and looked up at my mamma’s happy angel face. “The one you always said I would, the girl you wanted for me. I found her.”
I closed my eyes, my memories taking me back to that day in the trailer, the day when the thunder and lightning had me running into mamma’s room…
… You are different from Austin and Axel. They are alike in so many ways—hot headed and tough, hard on the outside until they let you in. You are the timid one, the gentle brother—inside and out. You are the one to carry his heart on his sleeve. You are the one who watches silently from afar and loves with all his soul… Whoever you end up with, my son, whoever claims your heart, will be a very special girl indeed… So much love, mia luna. You will love with your whole being, and it will be forever. You could not love in any other way…
I allowed the tears to roll down my cheeks as the memory played like a movie in my mind. And I replayed my response. The response I thought would be true, my young self not knowing what bumpy road lay ahead…
And you’ll meet her, Mamma. You’ll love her too. Yeah? You will love the one I marry too. She’ll be like a daughter to you. And she’ll love you too…
“She did,” I whispered to my mamma in the empty room. “She came here and met you, Mamma. And she loved you. She held your cheek and she loved you, I could see it in her eyes.” I smiled a weak smile. “You would have loved her too. You’d have loved her so much, my silent girl. Bella mia.”
I blinked through the blur of my tears, and looked up at my mamma’s face. I gripped my rosary tightly and asked, “Why does everyone leave me, Mamma? Why does everything have to be so hard? For everyone? Why did we have to have the pop we did? Why did you have to get sick? Why did Axel have to go to prison? Why did Lexi nearly die? Why did Austin have to look after me when he was practically a kid himself? And why did I not get to know you like my brothers did? Why did you get taken away before I truly knew you, and you knew me?” My tears poured down my face. “And why did my Elsie get her shitty life? Because she’s perfect, Mamma. So beautiful. She’s been through so much, yet she has the kindest sweetest heart I’ve ever known. But those girls tore her down. How can anyone tear anyone so fragile down? My Elsie, my girl?” My throat clogged and I hushed out, “And why did she leave me? Where has she gone? I… I love her, Mamma. So much. I love her so much…”
I dropped my head and brought the rosary to my bowed head, praying and praying that she’d be safe.
I didn’t hear the shuffle of feet until two people sat beside me. I wiped at my eyes, only to see Austin and Axel sat on my either side.
My face heated with embarrassment at what they might have heard, at seeing me fall apart. But they didn’t say anything. Austin rested his head back against the angel and I suddenly found myself against Axel’s chest, his big hand on my head as he pressed a kiss into my hair.
I tried to pull back, but he held me still. My big brother wasn’t letting me go. Letting it all out, I fisted his sweater and fucking broke apart. Axel’s arms held tight, and nothing was said as I purged everything I’d held back for years. All the damn pain. But most of all, the heartbreak that was killing me at Elsie being gone.
When my eyes ached and my throat burned, I turned my head, breathing in the cool air, and said in a croaky voice, “Thanks, Axe.”
Axel dropped another kiss on my head. “I heard you, Lev. We both did, and let me tell you something now, kid, the best days of your life are in front of you, you just gotta wade through the shit to get there first.”
Axel’s words soothed something inside, but I said, “She’s gone, Axe. I don’t know where the hell she is.”
“So you’re gonna give up?”
I sat up straighter, pulling back from Axel’s chest. “No, I ain’t giving up, but where do I go from here?”
Austin’s hand landed on my bent knee, when I saw something on the floor before us. My heart swelled seeing that pretty face staring back at me. I turned to Axel. “You finished it,” I stated, taken back by the realism, by the perfect likeness.
“Today,” Axel said. “Came over to give you it, and as I did, I saw you ripping outta the driveway.” Axel pointed at Austin. “Aust told me what happened with little Els, and I knew where we’d find you.”
I closed my eyes and breathed though my nose. When I opened my eyes, I said, “It’s the only place that calms me down when I lose it. I… I copied one of your keys a while back.”
Axel nodded, but said, “I get it, Lev, I do. But this ain’t Mamma, those rosary beads ain’t Mamma. You gotta start living right, not in the past, not making these tributes, these possessions, a shrine to all that you’ve lost. You gotta move past the grief, Lev. Mamma would want you to live. All she ever wanted was for us all to be happy.”
“I can’t move on, I’ve tried,” I rasped. “I’m sick of everyone leaving me. Mamma, you, now Elsie. She’s gone and I feel like I can’t breathe at the thought of where she is and what’s happened to her.”