I stiffened. “Actually, my mother is Bulgarian. I don’t really speak the language. I understand a bit but can’t—”
“No worries,” Anna said. “I’ll come with her. You work at the Met, right?”
“Yes, but I am . . .” I hesitated. Could I really tell a mother who’d just lost her only child that I was too busy at the moment to see her? “Sure, no problem,” I said. We agreed to meet at the Starbucks on Madison in twenty minutes.
I had plenty of time but the air in the office felt stale all of a sudden. I grabbed my purse and left. A short walk around the block would help me calm down. I was already outside when I realized I should have brought along my jacket. What had started as a sunny day had turned gray and breezy. I walked briskly to keep warm. My mind was racing. What could I tell Katya’s mother? I didn’t really know your daughter? I actually stalked and befriended her just a few days before her death? Or worse: I left her in a club with a stranger. Oh, and by the way, I’m pregnant with her eggs.
I halted midstep as it dawned on me that, genetically speaking, I was carrying this poor woman’s grandchild.
* * *
Penka Dimitrova may have been a beautiful woman at one point, but when I met her in the afternoon at Starbucks, she looked old and shriveled in her outsize black T-shirt and worn-out jeans, a ghost of a person. The black scarf around her neck only accentuated her pallid complexion. In reality, she couldn’t have been that much older than me. Having experienced the grief of miscarriage, I couldn’t even begin to contemplate what it must be like to lose a child. Your only child.
Katya’s mother didn’t speak a word of English. Anna, the young woman I’d talked to on the phone, explained that Penka hadn’t traveled much outside Bulgaria and wouldn’t be able to manage on her own. She couldn’t navigate the subway or even take a taxi, let alone deal with the police, the morgue, and all the necessary arrangements for the funeral. “Poor woman,” Anna told me in a hushed voice. “She can’t afford to fly the body back to Bulgaria. It costs a fortune.”
I wondered about the fee Katya had collected for her egg donation. She must have been paid right after the retrieval. Where had all that money gone?
Anna went on to explain that Penka was hoping I could tell her a bit about Katya and her life in New York.
I rested my elbows on the table, entwined my fingers, and looked at Penka. “Your daughter was a wonderful young woman,” I said. While Anna translated, I nodded, recognizing most of the words.
I went on to tell them how smart and mature Katya had been for her age. How much fun. I explained how we’d met—omitting when—and how excited Katya had been to learn about my Bulgarian mother. Penka stared at me as I spoke, as if trying to decipher the meaning of the English words from my face, impatient to wait for the translation. Her eyes—already red and puffy—teared up and she took time blowing her nose to calm herself. A couple of times she reached into her purse but her hand came out empty. I knew what she was looking for. I could smell the cigarettes on her from across the table.
As we parted, she hugged me and thanked me for being Katya’s friend and for looking after her. I felt like such a fraud. I only hoped I’d at least given Penka some peace of mind that her daughter had been loved and had had a good life in America.
“Feel free to call me if there is anything I can do,” I said, and handed Penka my card while Anna translated. “Dovizhdane,” I added, mangling the pronunciation for sure, but Penka took my hand and squeezed it.
“Dovizhdane,” she said, not letting go of my hand.
That was when I knew I had to tell her. After she’d had some time to grieve and I’d passed the dreaded three months, I would have to tell her about my baby. Her grandchild.
* * *
They headed east on 86th Street toward the subway station. I stood in front of the coffee shop, watching them. Penka was a thin woman and from the back, in her jeans and T-shirt, she could pass for a twenty-year-old. But her steps were heavy, labored; her shoulders slack, weighted with grief. The thin black scarf she wore around her neck flapped behind her. The wind had picked up. There was a rainstorm in the forecast for tonight. I sighed and walked back to the Met with a lump in my throat.
I had no idea how I would make it through the Visiting Committee meeting tonight. Having just met Katya’s mother, I had a hard time summoning the excitement needed to “dazzle” the trustees with our upcoming Parmigianino exhibit. I didn’t dread the presentation as much as having to make small talk during the cocktail hour, laughing at people’s stupid jokes, or, worse, trying to sweet-talk them into giving us more money. Luckily, Caitlin would be there with me, I thought as I started up the front steps of the Met.
“Lana,” a familiar voice called out behind me. I turned. Detective Robertson and a woman I hadn’t seen before stood in front of me. My muscles clenched, my heart sped up.
“This is my partner, Detective Sanchez.” Robertson motioned to the woman. She was about my age, no makeup, dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.
I nodded, then glanced over my shoulder to make sure none of my colleagues were around. There were fewer people hanging out on the steps today, maybe because of the strong wind blowing along Fifth Avenue. Even the pigeons seemed to have gone. I felt exposed, standing there with two NYPD detectives, as if on a stage for everyone to see.
“Would you mind coming with us to the precinct?” Robertson said before I could get my bearings. “We have a few follow-up questions for you.”
“Now?” My mouth went dry. “It’s really not a good time. I have a presentation—”
“We could come up to your office,” Sanchez said, with a tight little smile. “But I don’t think you’d want that.”
The smell of hot dogs wafting from the cart vendor was nauseating. “You haven’t been to my office already, have you?”
She took her time before finally shaking her head.
I let out a sigh and looked at my watch. A few minutes to four. I had three hours until the presentation. Beads of sweat ran down my back as I started to panic. Would I have enough time to stop home after the police station, shower, and change, before heading to the event? But what choice did I have? The cops must have found out who Katya was to me. Dear God, how was I going to explain our chance meeting? The fact that I’d followed her?
Luckily, I’d already laid out my outfit: a classic black cocktail dress, green strappy heels, and a clutch to go with my silk medieval millefleur scarf from the Met store that was the perfect conversation starter at events like this. With light makeup, I could be done in thirty minutes if I had to.
33.
TYLER
NOW
I sat in my office in the dark, my head propped in my hands, staring out the window at the solid gray sky. It was only four in the afternoon but my office faced north, and on cloudy days like today, it felt as if it were already dusk.
Goddamn Katya! I pulled up her last text: U motherfucker, don’t think you can get out of it so easy. U fuck with me—I fuck with you.
The phone rang in my hand. Lana’s mother. I thought of letting it go to voice mail but reconsidered. She would keep calling until I spoke to her. I might as well get it over with.
“Tyler, honey, what’s going on between you and Lana?” she said when I picked up. Natalia Kuzmanova was not one to bother with small talk.
I ran my hand through my hair. “We just need some time to work things out. That’s all.”
“Can’t you work things out while you’re together?”
It was hard enough trying to explain it to my sister. Talking to Lana’s mother about it made me feel like a first-class jerk. Maybe that was precisely why she’d called. I was surprised it had taken her this long.
“It’s complicated,” I said. Natalia let out a deep sigh and I rushed to comfort her. “I promise, it will be all right. Just give us some time.”
&
nbsp; Natalia was the kind of woman who made you want to please her, to impress her, to take care of her. Lana thought that, like all men, I’d fallen under her spell, but I had yet to meet anyone—man or woman—who said no to her. Lana kicked and screamed but even she, in the end, did what her mother wanted. Except, of course, marrying me.
“So where are you living now?” Natalia asked.
I hesitated. “I found a cheap sublet not too far from the university.”
“But Tyler—”
“Just for a couple of months,” I said, realizing it had been the wrong answer. What she’d wanted to hear was that I was crashing on a friend’s couch. “Please, don’t worry,” I said, but she snorted in response, made me promise we’d talk again soon, and hung up.
In the dark, the phone screen glowed in my hand with Katya’s text. I could hear her voice in my head as if she were shouting at me from the morgue—U motherfucker. A shiver ran through me. I shook my head and deleted the message. Took a deep breath before I got up and turned on the light. I stuffed my papers into my bag and left. I needed a drink.
34.
LANA
NOW
Detective Robertson leaned across the table and locked me in his stare. “So tell us again how you know Katya Dimitrova?”
His partner, Detective Alicia Sanchez, sat quietly, nodding here and there as I went over my story: Katya’s fall, rushing to help her and then clicking over our Bulgarian roots. I didn’t linger on details. I had no time. Before walking in, I’d set my phone alarm for six, an hour before the start of the Visiting Committee. It was the latest I could leave. If I skipped going home, I could still make it to the Met in time. My mother would be appalled to know I was contemplating showing up for an event of that scale in a skirt and a blouse, but it was better than being late. And hopefully I would be out of here long before six.
“From what we’ve gathered,” Robertson said, his cold eyes piercing through me, “Katya wasn’t particularly well liked. Many might have wished to see her gone.” He paused. Leaned even closer. “But you have the most to gain from her death.”
“What?” I snapped back in my chair. “What are you talking about?”
The small “interview” room where Robertson and Sanchez had suggested we go “to find some quiet” seemed to close in on me. Bare brick walls painted over in gray, cement floor, a metal chain-link panel over the window to my right and what I could only assume was a one-way mirror across from me. I didn’t need to look at the ceiling to know that there would be a camera. What the hell?
Sanchez stood and, with a couple of slow graceful movements, came around and sat on the table next to me, blocking the window. She was a tough-looking woman with a hard smile and calm, intelligent energy. In different circumstances, I might have liked her. I admired women working in male-dominated fields.
“Without Katya, the baby is yours,” she said, looking at me with exaggerated compassion from her perch on the table. “Isn’t that right, Lana?”
“But it is mine,” I shouted, and stood up, pushing back the chair. Startled by my own outburst, I breathed in slowly, breathed out, looked at Sanchez, then Robertson, and finally sat down. “I’m pregnant from a donor egg cycle,” I said. “The baby is mine. This is not like with adoption where—”
“And you forgot to mention to us that Katya is your donor?” Robertson asked.
“It was a weird coincidence. Katya didn’t even know who I was and I didn’t see how that would help you find her.”
Sanchez, who seemed to be playing the “good cop,” smiled. “Okay, let’s backtrack for a moment.” She walked around the table and slid into her seat. “How exactly did you two become friends? Because according to the agency, you did an anonymous cycle, right?”
I looked down at the metal table, ran my thumb over the sharp edge. “I was curious,” I said. “It was stupid, I admit. But it’s true. She wasn’t just a stranger I helped on the street. I knew she was my donor.”
“You did?”
“I recognized her on the subway and . . .” I hesitated. “And I followed her.”
“Interesting. And why would you do that?” Robertson asked.
“I wanted to get to know her. To learn more about my baby’s genes.”
“Of course,” Sanchez said. Then turning to Robertson, she continued, “I’d like that, too, if I were in her shoes.” She paused, looked back at me. “But then, Katya was not an easy person. She had no filter. She said and did infuriating things. And your pregnancy and the baby, well, it’s a painful topic. Things got heated.” She bit her lip. “Of course, you didn’t mean to . . .”
I gaped at her. “You can’t possibly think . . . This is madness.” I shook my head and pushed my chair back again. I’d watched enough crime shows to know that I’d come here voluntarily and could leave at any point. I didn’t need to talk to them unless they arrested me and read me my Miranda rights. At which point, I’d need a lawyer. But really? Were they at such a loss that they were suggesting I had anything to do with it? I stood up.
Sanchez followed suit. She was a couple of inches shorter than me but could still stare me down. “Okay. Let’s say we believe you,” she said, and, pressing her palms on the table, leaned forward. “Who, then, would want to get rid of her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I worried maybe that guy—”
“How about your ex?” Robertson interrupted.
“Tyler? He doesn’t even know that I’m pregnant.”
“Ah, but you see, his reasons have nothing to do with your pregnancy.”
“No?” I sat back in the chair. “Then why?”
Sanchez returned to her seat, shuffled the papers in front of her. Finally, she said, “Two days before Katya disappeared, she went to the Ombuds office.”
“She wanted to know how to file a complaint against Professor Tyler Jones,” Robertson added.
I looked at him, then Sanchez. My head felt heavy, loud with static as I tried to make sense of what they were saying.
“She’d tried to end the affair,” Robertson continued with a smirk, “but lover boy wouldn’t have it. He’d been waiting for her in front of the dorms, threatening her.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got it all wrong. Tyler doesn’t even know Katya.”
“It’s hard not to know one of your students, don’t you think?”
I felt like I’d been punched. Gripped the chair. Took a string of fast breaths.
Robertson glared at me. “Let’s cut the bullshit. As you can see, we’ve done our homework.”
I wanted to defend myself, to explain that I had no idea about any of it, but the static in my mind had only grown louder.
“Good,” he continued, taking my silence as an agreement. “So we come to the second reason why you’d want to get rid of her.” His eyes burrowed into me. “The young and beautiful girl whose baby you’re carrying is sleeping with the father of said baby. Who had just left you.”
Sanchez cocked her head and asked, “How did you find out? Did you see them together?” She said it with pity, a woman-to-woman kind of thing. An empathic Aren’t men such pigs? expression on her face.
I ran my hands through my hair, pulling it back at my temples as reality finally sank in. Tyler and Katya were having an affair. The stale air in the room was making me dizzy. I took a sip of the water they’d brought me in a plastic cup.
“Did you worry that they would take their baby from you? Leave you alone and empty-handed?” Robertson asked.
“Of course she’d worry about that,” Sanchez said, screwing her face into that concerned expression again. “I would be terrified. After all that hard work to get pregnant.”
“So you stalk and befriend her and then, when she trusts you, you take her down.” Robertson looked at me, eyebrows up as if to say, Am I not right?
Continuing his thought, Sanche
z added, “You reclaim your motherhood on Mother’s Day.”
I just sat there, staring at them, my ears ringing, the room swirling in front of my eyes.
My phone started beeping, the jarring sound echoing off the walls of the empty room. The thought of the Visiting Committee floated into my brain and I felt the prick of tears at the realization that I was most likely not going to make it. I turned the alarm off and slumped into the chair, blinking hard to prevent the tears from spilling. A beautiful young girl lay dead in the morgue, my ex-partner had been having an affair with her, and the cops were insinuating that I was somehow implicated in her death. Against that backdrop, persuading a bunch of rich folks to give money to the museum seemed trivial at best. But I couldn’t afford to lose my job. Not with a baby on the way.
I inhaled, exhaled slowly, and quickly typed up a text to Caitlin to take over the presentation for me.
35.
LANA
NOW
“What the hell’s going on?” Angie said when she released me from her hug. Then, before I’d had a chance to open my mouth: “Never mind, we’ll talk in the taxi. Come.”
She took my arm and together we walked down the precinct steps.
It was drizzling outside. The sidewalks shone wet in the glow of the streetlamps. I paused and looked up and down the street, took a few moist breaths. I’d spent four hours inside the police station, but it had felt like days. I would have preferred to walk and stretch my legs after being cooped up in that suffocating room, but the rain seemed to be picking up so I let Angie steer me to the taxi waiting for us. It was stuffy inside, smelling of sweat and cheap perfume, one of those awful air fresheners that New York cabbies are fond of. I cracked the window on my side, preferring to get wet rather than nauseated. Angie gave my address to the driver and turned to me as the car started down the street.
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