Altarpiece

By Christie B Cochrell

She’d come to pray for her fitful old mother, as usual not asking anything more for herself than patience and a decent piece of fish for their supper, when his green eyes knocked her off course. The young Venetian waiting at the cold stone altar took her by surprise—and the unholy conflagration between them, flame and molten gold, consuming all their fatal differences, impossible vows.

And after, she went from him, Titian’s resplendent prince, his lucent eyes watching her hesitate a moment before stepping out into that gray eternity of rain, of words recklessly sworn. ‘Til life do us part.