Yes, perhaps more than anything The Sculptor understood the delicate workings of fate-understood how to recognize the signs of divine providence and negotiate that razor-thin line between predestination and free will. Such insight, such sensitivity was a gift that had been bestowed upon him as a boy-when he was still called Christian-when he first laid eyes upon the Pietà in St. Bartholomew’s, the church of his mother.

It was there, back in her old neighborhood, that she used to take him on Sundays when his father was away on business. And it was there, in the small chapel off of the main church, that the boy named Christian would often stand for what seemed like hours staring at the marble statue of the Virgin and Her Son.

“A mother’s love is the greatest gift a boy can have,” Christian’s mother would often tell him. “It’s why I named you Christian.”

“And your name is Mary,” the little boy would reply. “Just like in the statue.”

“That’s right,” said his mother. “And I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. Just like in the statue.”

Oh yes. Even as a boy The Sculptor understood.

And for years on those Sundays at St. Bartholomew’s it was only just the two of them-Mary and Christian, mother and son-listening to Father Bonetti read the Mass, and then lingering in the votive chapel to stare at the marble statues long afterward. Mother and son always agreed: the Pietà was their favorite.

But when the boy named Christian grew a little older-oh, six or seven The Sculptor supposed-his mother began to rest her hand in his groin when she drove him home from the bakery after church-the smell of fresh Italian bread filling the car as his Sunday khakis grew tight beneath the warmth of her hand. It was a strange sensation, the boy named Christian thought, but one that was pleasing to him nonetheless. What was even better was when she would sit next to him that way on the sofa. She would let him stay up late on Fridays to watch Victoria Principal-that woman on Dallas who was so pretty, and who the boy named Christian thought looked just like his mother. On one such Friday, when the boy named Christian asked his mother why she did not sit with him that way when his father was home, his mother explained that it was a secret: a special secret from God that was to be kept only between mother and son; a secret that if anyone else knew, not only would the boy’s father kill himself, but God would kill her-would turn her into a statue just like Mary in the church.

And so the boy named Christian never understood why, all of a sudden one day when he was nine, mother and son stopped going to church. But it wasn’t too long afterward that the beatings began, and later, worst of all, the cold baths. Even though he did not like the beatings, the boy named Christian always understood why his mother knocked him on the head; he always understood why she slapped him then locked him in the bathroom with the spilled bleach. That only happened when he was bad-like the time he drank some of her wine, or the time he tore out some pictures from her old college history books.

But always-when he was super naughty as his mother used to call it-when the boy named Christian went down face first into the tub of icy water, he had no idea what he had done to set his mother off. The cold baths came only once every month or so; they were always late at night when his mother had been drinking. “Out!” she would say, bursting into his bedroom-her breath foul with the smell of wine and cigarettes as she yanked him by the hair into the bathroom. The baths were always the same, but the boy named Christian never got used to them. He was sure that every time he went under that this time would be the last; he was sure that, as he began to choke, as she pushed him under once more he would never see his beloved father again.

But always, just as he felt that icy tingle down in his chest, his mother would pull him out of the tub. And later, as he lay shivering naked in his bed in the dark, she would crawl under the covers with him-one hand stroking between his legs while she pleasured herself with her other-the warmth of her bare breasts against his skin indescribably magical in its consolation to him.

“A mother’s love,” she would whisper over and over. “A mother’s love.”

This too was a secret just between them-a secret with dire consequences for their whole family if revealed.

When he was a little older the baths and the beatings stopped, but his mother would still crawl naked into bed with him at night. She would stroke his penis longer, until the boy named Christian “blew his load” as his friends at school called it. And when he was older still, just before his father sent him off to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Christian’s mother began putting his penis between her legs, instructing him with her hands and her body how to make love to her.

“A mother’s love,” was all she would say. “A mother’s love.”

And so the boy named Christian wrestled with his mother’s love for a long time-never told his father, never told anyone. What made it even more difficult for him was that he was so very bright. He understood what it meant when his counselor in elementary school said he tested at the “genius” level. He understood every single thing his teachers at Phillips threw at him, even the technology behind the patents his father had developed for his booming software company. Yes, all that kind of stuff came easily to the boy, to the young man named Christian. But the one thing he could never wrap his mind around was his mother’s love.

That is until he read Slumbering in the Stone.

The Sculptor, however, would argue that it all began with his return to St. Bartholomew’s. It was a week after his mother’s funeral, on the very same day the eighteen-year-old Christian spoke with his father’s lawyer-a kind old gentleman who would facilitate the sale of his father’s software company and make The Sculptor a millionaire many times over. It was then that the lawyer explained to him the details of the accident and about his mother’s affair at the country club with a tennis pro named Damon Manzera-a once promising young player whose career was cut short by injury, and who the lawyer said was only a few years older than Christian himself. Thus, it was after his meeting with the lawyer that the young man named Christian wandered without thinking back to St. Bartholomew’s, searching like a zombie in the fog for something to guide him.

And so it was that-even though he was nowhere near to understanding the bigger picture of it all quite yet-the young man who would one day become The Sculptor had his first awakening before the Pietà, standing there gazing down at Michelangelo’s masterpiece as he had done in his mother’s arms so many times, so many years ago. However, it was not the statue itself, but the plaque at its base that-like a chisel to a block of marble-cracked Christian’s mind with the understanding of why fate had brought him there that day.

Dedicated in memory of Filomena Manzera

Manzera. Damon Manzera.

Yes, how many times had the boy named Christian sat in that very same church with his mother, listening to Father Bonetti assure the congregation that our time in this world served some greater purpose of which together we all played a part, that all of mankind’s lives were intertwined, that “Everything was connected.” And after some poking around, the young man named Christian learned that the family who had bestowed upon St. Bartholomew’s their gift of the Pietà was in fact the same family who had bestowed upon the world the tennis pro Damon Manzera-the tennis pro who had killed his mother and turned his father into a vegetable.