Lynda Curnyn - Bombshell

“We are all tied to our destiny and there is no way to liberate ourselves.”

—Rita Hayworth

I stopped at Zabar’s on the way home, feeling a burning need to chop, sauté and simmer. It wasn’t often that I cooked, and on some level, I knew its value for me was more therapeutic than culinary. I had decided on stir fry, mostly because I understood that after the emotionally harrowing events of the afternoon, I would have to chop a gardenful of vegetables to soothe what ailed me. And chop I would, having picked up three peppers, a monstrous eggplant, a head of broccoli, a slew of mushrooms and more garlic than one should consume on Friday night if one hopes to find oneself in the company of others. But I had already decided I didn’t want to socialize. Claudia had pressed me for a post-work cocktail on my way out of the office, but I didn’t feel like standing at some bar, listening to my more-bitter-by-the-hour boss rail against the injustice of Courtney’s sudden rise to the right hand of the Dubrow family, especially when the place she had taken in Michael’s heart still stung. And how it stung. Even more so when I saw the way Dianne embraced the happy couple, welcoming Courtney to the family in a way that filled me with a strange longing. I knew now why I never felt a part of the Dubrow “family.” Because I wasn’t. And never would be.

That thought sent me straight to the liquor store after Zabar, to pick up a bottle of wine. I had felt a determination to make this evening alone just as pleasurable and relaxing as it might have been had I spent it with someone else. I even splurged on a French Bordeaux.

So it was with a bag of produce and a bottle of wine that I sailed through my front lobby. I even winked at Malakai, my ever-friendly and ever-accommodating doorman, who graciously held open the door, eyeing my purchases as I glided through. “Is my tall friend coming by?” he asked cheerfully, referring to Ethan. Malakai always referred to the men in my life by some physical characteristic. My last boyfriend, Drew, had been his “blond friend.” Even Michael, despite the fact that his visits were few and far between, had earned the moniker of Malakai’s “blue-eyed friend.”

This was the problem with doormen. You couldn’t hide your love life—or lack thereof—from them. Though we only had one and he only worked five to midnight, Malakai’s shift covered that crucial period of the evening when everything did—or didn’t—happen in a woman’s life.

“No, no one’s coming by,” I said, with a bracing smile as I transferred my bags to one arm and headed for the line of mailboxes at the other end of the lobby, trying to escape Malakai’s inevitable teasing comment about how he would never let me spend an evening alone if he were twenty years younger.

I knew he meant well, in the way that aging uncle of yours meant well when he sang you the Miss America song when you were six. But I just wasn’t in the mood.

Once at the mailboxes, I slid my key in, then grabbed out the handful of catalogs, bills and credit card offers that were my daily due, when a letter caught my eye, the return address as familiar to me by now as my own.

K. Morova. Brooklyn, NY.

I knew that handwriting, though I did not know the writer herself. Had traced my finger often enough over the signature that had come back on the return receipt for the letter I had sent Kristina Morova, all those months ago.

My mother, at least in biological fact.

The woman whom I had believed, up until this moment, had no interest in meeting me.

I ignored the pulse of pure fear that constricted my throat and quickly slid the letter between the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog, as if to protect myself from its contents, then headed for the bank of elevators that flanked the lobby.

“Finally getting that nice cool weather,” came a voice, startling me out of whatever scattered thoughts I was having. I looked up to see Mrs. Brandemeyer, who lived a floor below me and had been a tenant of 122 W. 86th Street since the sixties. Her long-term residency, combined with her elderly status, seemed to give her certain inalienable rights. Like laundry room usage (you always forfeited the remaining dryer to Mrs. Brandemeyer, who was “too old to be riding up and down, up and down”) or the proprietary air she took when it came to Malakai. She had treated me rather suspiciously when I had first moved in six years earlier. “I don’t like loud music,” she proclaimed just moments after she had learned I was not only single but living in the apartment above hers. Once she discovered that I wasn’t going to be having raucous parties every weekend, she immediately bestowed upon me neighborly chatter about such subjects as the weather, the number of menus she received underneath her door on any given day or the condition of the carpeting in the hallways.

I was never one for small talk, and this evening it seemed especially burdensome, when I had something large looming between the pages of the shopping catalog I held. So I just nodded and smiled while she speculated about the sudden drop in temperatures.

“It’s going to be a cold, cold winter,” she said with satisfaction as she stepped off, leaving me to ride that last story alone.

I felt a momentary surprise when I stepped into my apartment and discovered it was exactly the same as I had left it that morning, except for the fading evening light that was now slanting through the gauzy ivory curtains. Outside the city glittered, and I took solace in the fact that regardless of whatever Kristina Morova had decided to write in her letter to me, New York City would still be just outside my window, waiting for me like an old friend.

Maybe it was that letter and its unknown contents that sent me into the next flurry of activity: putting the produce in the kitchen, hanging up my coat, straightening the stack of magazines that I had yet to review, wiping down the kitchen counters. Then curiosity must have won over the fear throbbing through me, and I found myself slipping out of my shoes, curling up on the couch and taking that letter in hand with the sense of fatalism that had been subtly stalking me ever since I had sent my own letter seven months ago.

I carefully broke the seal on the envelope, pulled out a single sheet of ivory stationery decorated with flowers at the top. My first thought was that it reminded me of the stationery my grandmother used. The second was that there was only one page of loopy scrawl. I briefly wondered at that, then settled in to read.

Dear Grace Noonan,

I thank you much for your letter some months back and I write to tell you how sorry I am that I did not make my reply sooner but so much has happened. I have news of my sister, Kristina Morova, to share, but I am so sorry to tell you it is not good. My sister died this past December, of breast cancer. I am sorry to bring you such sad news but I know my sister would want you to know.

I also write to tell you that you have a sister, Sasha, just sixteen years old. She is with me now, in Brooklyn.

I am not sure if you still want to meet with us, but I want to honor my sister’s wish and I want to invite you to come to our home. I give you my number in Brooklyn and hope to hear from you about this matter.

Sincerely,

Katerina Morova

I read the letter three times before the contents sank in. Before the cruel truth beneath that shaky cursive and stilted grammar broke through.

She was gone. Kristina Morova was gone.

I felt a momentary relief that at least there was a reason for all the silence of the past months. Followed by a disappointment so keen, tears rushed to my eyes.

Gone. Gone.

Still, no tears fell. Maybe because for me, she had never really been there. Could I really mourn someone I did not technically know?