21.10.08 - 10:43 a.m.

after my grandmother moved to the united states, she ran into a distant former in-law at a deli in the bronx. the woman said she'd cursed my grandmother the day she left. cursed my mother, cursed my uncle and cursed their flight - the fleeing kind, not the flying kind - from italy.

my grandmother believed this curse to hold and affect us all. she attributed to it every untimely death, broken bone and most missed opportunities and disappointments that seemed in opposition to her best efforts.

she told me over an entenmann's coffee cake one saturday morning that i would, as she had, as my mother had, ruin people's lives. she said it without malice, between sips of coffee.