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Moving toward the center of the room, I glanced up at the ceiling, taking in every detail. My heart thumped in my chest as I absorbed her sad story. The hidden meaning behind her work was heartbreaking.
“This is incredible,” I whispered, still in disbelief at her fresco skills. “Your mother’s story is so vivid.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What story?”
“You don’t see it?” He shook his head, and my eyes filled with more tears. “When did your father adopt Bastian and Damian?”
“Six months before my mom died.”
“That makes sense. When they came into your lives, things got messy.” I stared up at the ceiling, unable to meet his gaze. “I studied Christian Lit because I wanted to get a better sense of artists like da Vinci and Michelangelo. Christian artists use numbers and symbols in their work that correspond to the Bible.”
He cupped my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length. “Stop rambling. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have it all figured out.” I raised my hand in the air and pointed at the far right corner to the first pendentive. “You can see the start of her journey. Beneath the red and gold geometric shapes, there’s an Art Deco woman hidden in the puzzle pieces.”
He tilted his head to the side. “How did you see that?”
Because it was how I taught myself to paint. To hide people and emotions with the swipe of my brush, so others could interpret my art however they liked. Concealing pieces of yourself in your work took a lot of skill.
“It’s easy to miss,” I assured him. “Your mom hid her story well. Do you see how she used lines and shapes to make it look like one unified piece?”
Luca nodded, and I motioned to the next set of images. “See the woman in a fancy dress holding a baby in her arms? She looks like the typical Art Deco woman. So does the man wearing a top hat beside her. She’s showing her transition from a girl to a woman, and from a wife to a mother.”
I grabbed his hand, leading the way as we strolled across the tiled floor. “She’s older in the next image. And now, she’s kissing a baby boy with another one hugging her leg. She starts with who she was before she met your dad. The number one represents creation and the start of her art journey. The number three relates to the divine, like the Trinity. And then she had Marcello, the number four representing the totality of her creations.”
“Keep going,” he urged.
“Are you sure?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You won’t like how it ends.”
“I’m sure.”
I motioned to the next section of her piece. It was the same family, only much older. Two more boys stood at the man’s side. Head down, the woman hugged her children. She turned away from Arlo and his adoptive sons. In the previous images, she was full of life, but now dark storm clouds separated them.
“Your mom wasn’t happy about adopting Bastian and Damian. Six is the sign of the devil, a symbol of imperfection. Damian and Bastian disrupted the unity in your family.”
He expelled a deep breath of air as he studied the fresco. “My mom spent a lot of time in her studio after my dad adopted them.”
“It shows.” I tugged on his hand, and we moved across the floor. “See the faces in the broken pieces of the mirror?”
“No.”
“Focus, Luca. They look like rectangles, joined to form one piece. But they’re shards of glass, and if you close one eye, you’ll see the stained glass has the shadow of a man’s face.”
He craned his neck to get a better look. “Now, I see it. That’s incredible how she did that.”
“Your mother was so talented.”
He nodded.
“This is where it gets super dark.” I pointed at the most devastating images. “There are seven mirrors. All of them have the same man’s face.”
“My father?” Luca guessed.
“It’s not obvious the man is your dad… but yeah, who else would it be? An outsider would look at this and think nothing.” I released a sigh and continued, “There are seven days in a week, seven virtues, and seven—”
“Deadly sins,” he finished with a pained expression marking his handsome features. “Keep going.”
“Your dad is wearing a crown with ten points.” I motioned toward the last piece of the Salvatore puzzle. “Ten horns, like the red dragon, a symbol of complete and total power.”
