“Sophia, Maria chose your son to be a statue to rever her beauty. he should feel honored. And since you feel so sorry, I’ll use your grandmother to make another statue of Maria!”
He told the bodyguards to hold me down and not help anyone. Then he gently hugged the ideal woman and softly sang to her unborn baby.
With all my strength, I pulled the iron net apart with my hands and held my son and my grandmother, who had already died.
I knelt in front of Mrs. Lombardi and said, “The five-year agreement is over. It’s time for me to go.”
——
The bodyguards kept pushing me down again and again, but I got back up each time, trying to save my family. They didn’t let go of me until my grandmother stopped moving and the surface of the mud pond became still again.
The clay workers standing nearby watched it all with pity in their eyes.
“What a terrible sin,” one of them whispered.
“How can you use a living person to make a statue? Aren’t they afraid of being punished by God?”
“Quiet,” another warned.
“For the sake of his ideal woman, Mr. Lombardi takes blood from the child’s heart every day. He says it helps calm his baby with the woman and gives her peace.”