Sit­ting on a bench in Prospect Park, Cyrus felt a heavy weight set­tle in his chest as he lis­tened to the voice­mail from Sang, Orkideh’s gal­lerist and for­mer wife. The news of Orkide­h’s trag­ic pass­ing left him reel­ing, despite the fact that his time with her had been short-lived. In the age of instant noti­fi­ca­tions, death had become just anoth­er item on a list of dai­ly updates, but for Cyrus, this loss felt pro­found­ly per­son­al. Still, he found him­self strug­gling with the con­flict­ing feel­ings of dis­tance and dev­as­ta­tion, lead­ing him to dial Sang’s num­ber, seek­ing some kind of clar­i­ty or under­stand­ing.

When Sang final­ly answered, her voice sound­ed lighter than in the voice­mail, but the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion quick­ly became clear. She informed him that Orkideh had made the deci­sion to end her life, a rev­e­la­tion that left Cyrus grap­pling with a wave of dis­be­lief. He couldn’t help but think back to his father’s old beliefs about sick­ness and death, and the famil­iar chill of those mem­o­ries crept up his spine. As he lis­tened, try­ing to process the truth, the con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed toward Orkideh’s thoughts on Cyrus and his grow­ing inter­est in learn­ing more about her. Sang, who had been close to Orkideh for many years, spoke in a way that revealed a deep­er emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to the deceased, mak­ing Cyrus feel like an out­sider to a his­to­ry he didn’t ful­ly under­stand. Despite offer­ing his con­do­lences, the words felt inad­e­quate, unable to bring any com­fort in the face of such an over­whelm­ing loss.

As the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ued, Sang shared more about Orkideh’s life choic­es, includ­ing the cer­tain­ty with which she approached her deci­sion to end it all. Cyrus felt a tor­rent of emo­tions stir with­in him—anger, con­fu­sion, and a pro­found sense of loss as he processed what Sang was reveal­ing. With­out think­ing, he asked her why she had specif­i­cal­ly called him, his voice betray­ing his des­per­a­tion for answers. Sang’s response hit him like a punch: she revealed her anger towards Orkideh, an emo­tion Cyrus had not expect­ed to hear, and it res­onat­ed deeply with him. The emo­tion­al impact of this con­ver­sa­tion esca­lat­ed, espe­cial­ly when Cyrus asked, almost invol­un­tar­i­ly, “Was Orkideh my moth­er?” The raw­ness of the ques­tion shocked him as it left his lips, shat­ter­ing every­thing he thought he knew about his own iden­ti­ty.

A long silence fol­lowed, as if the weight of the ques­tion had frozen time. Final­ly, Sang revealed that Orkideh had planned to tell him the truth about their con­nec­tion, but per­haps the oppor­tu­ni­ty nev­er arose. This rev­e­la­tion dev­as­tat­ed Cyrus, as he real­ized that he had been liv­ing in igno­rance about his true ori­gins, a truth that had been with­held from him for rea­sons he didn’t ful­ly com­pre­hend. Sang con­tin­ued, explain­ing that Orkideh had rec­og­nized him years lat­er, which only deep­ened Cyrus’s con­fu­sion and sor­row. As he absorbed the shock of this infor­ma­tion, he turned to his phone, scrolling through pho­tos of Orkideh, des­per­ate­ly search­ing for some sign of famil­iar­i­ty or con­nec­tion in her fea­tures. But even as he stared at her images, he strug­gled to rec­og­nize him­self in her, as if the bond he had hoped for was a dis­tant, intan­gi­ble thing.

The con­ver­sa­tion turned to the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of their loca­tion, and Cyrus found him­self reflect­ing more deeply on the impli­ca­tions of every­thing Sang had shared. With each word, his world was shifting—what he thought he knew about him­self, his fam­i­ly, and his iden­ti­ty was all being called into ques­tion. Moments lat­er, Sang promised to come and meet him, offer­ing a glim­mer of sol­i­dar­i­ty amidst the emo­tion­al storm that Cyrus was expe­ri­enc­ing. This ges­ture marked the begin­ning of a new chap­ter in his life, one that was bound to be filled with new rev­e­la­tions, ques­tions, and an evolv­ing under­stand­ing of his place in the world. As the chap­ter closed, Cyrus was left with the weight of his new real­i­ty, uncer­tain of what lay ahead but deter­mined to con­front the truth about him­self and the fam­i­ly he had nev­er tru­ly known.