My mother always claims my first memory of her is a false one, but I have never believed her. The memory stuck, and it stuck because it’s true. I was four years old; we were living in the apartment complex in Alhambra with crooked palms in the courtyard. It was my birthday. I wore my favorite dress and was seated in the kitchen with my father, the ice cream cake dotted with wax, and a pile of plucked candles. I don’t remember blowing them out, or what I wished for, or when I realized my mother was gone, just that my father asked me to find her and it felt like a game. Where did she go? Was she behind the radiator, where I once fell asleep during hide-and-seek? Was she crouched in the leaking shower or under the rose-printed bedspread or tucked into some corner of the pantry?
The apartment was small and it didn’t take me long to figure out she wasn’t hiding there. But I refused to return to my father as a failure.
I was in my bedroom when I saw her through the window. She was on the curb, watching the cars. Far enough away that when I knocked at the glass, I knew she could not hear. But still, a moment later, she turned and I saw that she was crying. Even as a child, I could read the look on her face clearly. She did not want to come back.
But she did.
For a long time, the memory was just a story I kept to myself and often forgot until my mother made a comment or looked at me in a way that dredged it up again. And then, the way she asked, What is it, anak? or the way she tossed her hair over her shoulder, would cast our otherwise unremarkable interaction with the tint of her leaving. I would look at her and see the face of the woman on the curb and wonder if this mother and that woman were the same. Maybe she did leave. Maybe this woman was not my mother.
Still, as I get older, I look more like her. When I walk through Los Angeles, I see her face reflected in the city’s hard, shiny surfaces, and each time I see her it takes me longer and longer to realize that I am looking at myself.
When I was a child, she liked to accuse me of resembling my father over her, as if this were a conscious decision. Alone together in the apartment, my father away at work, she liked to draw this line in the sand. Slivering onions for bistek, she kept her eyes on the kitchen counter as she asked me to tell her secrets. I told her about the girls in our building sticking Jolly Ranchers on the car windows of boys they liked, about my teacher coming back late from lunch with a bouquet of fresh marigolds whose stink filled the classroom.
No, she said, I want you to tell me a real secret. Tell me who you love more. Me or Tatay?
When I hesitated, she smiled a practiced smile and said, I knew you’d choose him.
In return for honesty extracted, she told me a secret, too.
As a child, her greatest wish was to be an actress. There was no movie theater in rural Leyte, where she grew up, but my mother’s youngest Tiya had a Manileño boyfriend who bought her an old Trinitron on which the whole family watched Darna and Damayan and censored reruns of Gidget. Above the set hung a wooden cross and a calendar with photos of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, their faces always beatific in the television’s light, as if they too were stars of the screen.
By the time my mother was a teenager, the Marcoses and their labor laws pushed everyone to leave the Philippines. Her Tiya left first, with the boyfriend, for Riyadh. And then the other sisters followed for jobs in Jakarta and Sydney and Toronto. Every year another cousin or aunt or uncle disappeared and sent back balikbayan boxes to be remembered by. It did not take long for my mother, her brothers, and her parents to settle in the San Gabriel Valley, where only the other displaced pinoys knew Darna from Adam. My mother put the dream away, but even now when people ask her if she misses home, the first thing she thinks of is the Trinitron and the pleasure she felt in its glow.
◆
I told a version of my mother’s story in the interview for my job as a casting assistant for daytime soap operas. What brought you here? the interviewer asked. We were seated in the room they used for auditions. It was cleared of distraction, holding only a few plastic chairs, a table you could fold up if you needed the space, a hastily cleaned white board on one wall, and, in the corner, a small television. This set was nothing like the one my mother spoke about. But still, I thought of her.
My mother was a failed actress, I said. She was the one who inspired my love of television. We watched General Hospital every afternoon and she taught me how to recognize a great performance.
How is that?
I looked around the room for another object to inspire an answer but there wasn’t anything to latch on to, so that is what I said, Nothing. You need to be nothing. You must give everything about yourself up to the role.
What I could not say was that I was twenty-two and wanted a better apartment, fewer roommates, and enough money that I could buy iced lattes whenever I felt like it. I got the job.
I love the auditions. There is a moment that I think of as a kind of turn, when the actor moves between their self and their role. Sometimes it is obvious, more so when the performance is mediocre. But even when they are good, or even occasionally great, if you’re paying attention, you can catch that little shift in the body, that switch in the mind, as they usher this other self into the room. One day, when I leave, I will miss being the one to catch that turn.
◆
Now, I am twenty-nine, the same age as my mother when I saw her on the curb. My life is very different from hers. I live alone, I have no partner, I have no children. I have cleaned out my life so that someone else can fill it. But I’m making a plan to do what my mother would—or could—not. It’s the longing to leave that we have in common, my mother and I. It’s how I know I am her daughter.
◆
My plan came from an actress. She seemed like all the rest: a pearly smile, a neatly cut nose. Her bleached hair was collected in a bun so tightly shellacked to her scalp that at some angles it looked like she was bald. I was still an assistant then, tasked with preparing the room, printing the scripts, taking notes. While I set up the camera, she and the casting agent made the usual small talk: she was from the Valley, had mostly worked as a catalog model until recently booking a few roles in commercials. I did not pay her much attention until the audition began and she read her sides. A few moments passed before I realized that I had missed her turn. I was distracted, or maybe I was tired. I had been working longer hours than usual because one of the other assistants had recently gotten engaged to an actor and quit. I looked closer at the actress, examined her performance. She was reading for a small part, a character’s estranged sister who emerged from a seven-year coma and was looking for love, and in everything she did I saw the woman she was playing. Even as the agent pushed her to re-read a line quicker, or with more cynicism, or more solemnity, the actress shifted seamlessly. And then, she was herself again, smiling as she shook our hands and thanked us for our time.
Thanks, in part, to me, the actress got the job. As a gift, she sent me an orchid that sat prettily on my desk, until eventually all its petals soured and sank into the black peat, and only the bare stalk remained.
◆
One more of my mother’s secrets. For a short time before marrying my father, she went to auditions. It was a lark, she told me. She was successful in her own way, with a string of bit parts for local TV spots, but eventually the leads dried up. She left her old dream behind and got married.
But then in those early, stifling years of her marriage to my father, she tried again. She wanted to be something other than daughter, immigrant, woman, wife, mother.
Still, the roles were as limited there as they were in her life. She tried lying, going for parts she was not a fit for. But at every audition, she was found out. Who would mistake my mother for the lead role, the star? No, anak, she told me. No one ever called me back.
When I got news that the actress had died in a car accident, I thought of how strange it was that her character had been killed off in the same way. But in the show, she had been brought back the next season as the character’s estranged twin sister for a six-episode arc that won her Best Supporting at the Daytime Emmys. Over the years, we met occasionally about possible new roles, she auditioned again and again, but nothing was ever the right fit. I was surprised when she eventually retired from acting at thirty-seven and married an angel investor who–if appearances can be trusted–seemed to truly love her.
I was surprised, too, when I got the call from her lawyer that she had left me a large sum of money in her will. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. A colleague recommended her cousin who worked as a financial advisor in North Hollywood. His office was spare, decorated in shades of gray. When I sat down before him, he leaned forward in his chair. You know what kind of money this is? he said.
No.
You can spite someone with this money, he said. You can really fuck someone with this.
◆
I looked for an actor to play me. To take my life, to be me at least for a few years, perhaps for as long as they liked. They could keep just enough of my old life to build something new for themselves. They could go to my work, they could live in my apartment, they could drive my car through the streets of the city and say they are me, whatever that meant to them. Maybe they take my name only, and reinvent the rest. Or they take up every existing element and keep my old routines, buy the same bags of frozen dumplings on Mondays, go to the same laundromat by the Goodwill on Sundays. Perhaps they’ll just change one thing: take down that Pissarro print from the living room wall, kill all the plants in the bathroom. Or they could blow it all up. Ruin it. Make it new.
And then, I could take what I want of myself—which is not much, no, it’s really very little.
◆
The first person I approached was an actor I had rejected for the role of a nurse tending to the ailing heir of an oil fortune. When I called her to discuss a new opportunity, she said yes. This is what I love about actors; they are so predictable. We met at a cafe near our offices. After I told her what I was looking for, she sipped her drink before asking, What about your family?
I’m estranged from them, I said, although this was not quite true.
She was quiet. Perhaps she wanted more money. I would give it to her, for the right terms.
It’s an interesting role, she continued, studying my face. I don’t go up for those often. And to get to shape the character how I see fit—I can already see the possibilities.
But would I have to give up my own life?
No. I pulled out the contract from my bag, and flipped it open to the page marked Paid Time Off.
I can cover healthcare, too, I said.
What would happen to my life?
What do you mean?
I have a full life. Why should I give it up to be you?
It’s a job, I said. I’m paying you.
She looked at the contract again, What if I change my mind? Can I contact you?
No, I said. I’ll be gone.
Where?
Now, it was my turn to be quiet. I had to keep some things for myself.
I’m sorry, she said. I don’t think I can do this.
I was disappointed. It was strange to be on the other side of this equation—to be rejected instead of breaking the news. She offered to send a couple of her friends who were also looking for work my way, if I was interested.
◆
I left home at eighteen and did not return for a long time. I thought it was because I needed to protect myself, but now I think it was because I was a poor actor. And when you can only ever be yourself, well, then you are not well equipped to be someone’s daughter.
I don’t live very far from my family, but I am far enough that my occasional visits suffice. I see them on weekends, every few months, and the trips are all the same. My father retreats to the living room to watch TV and I am left with my mother.
It was on one recent visit that I asked my mother about the memory again. The first time I brought it up, she had ignored me. The second time, she said it never happened. The third, she said it was impossible for me to remember that far back.
This time, I could tell she was furious.
Why are you doing this? she asked.
Doing what?
Making up stories. Saying I’m a bad mother.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just asking a question.
No, you’re not. You want me to be a bad mother and blame all your problems on me.
I’m not talking about my problems.
You think I have problems, but it’s you who has problems. When I call, you don’t pick up. And when you do, you’re either at work or at home.
So?
Your life is empty.
I did not know what to say. No it isn’t, would have sounded childish.
You have no one, she said. You have me and you have your father, but you don’t appreciate what we’ve done for you.
What have you done for me? I said. I knew I sounded bitter.
Anak, she said. You shouldn’t even have to ask that question.
◆
My mother tried to leave again and again. In parking lots and bedrooms and car rides and restaurants. I remember every attempt. And I remember that when my father found me in my bedroom watching her on the curb, he closed the curtain shut. And I remember the sound of my mother’s voice at the door, asking him, How can I leave when my daughter is watching me?
I feared her and I pitied her and I never wanted to become her. I only ever wanted to become myself.
◆
After the rejection from the actress, I posted an ad on Craigslist. I left flyers in coffee shops and bakeries and bars. A Role of a Lifetime, read the copy. Non-Union. Salaried. With Benefits. I wrote the script for the audition. I sketched scenes for each stage of my life: my childhood, my adulthood, the future that they will make of me is theirs to write. I was looking for someone who could hold all that. Or at the very least, would be willing to make the room.
Once my preparations were complete, all that was left was to wait.
I held the auditions on a weekend, when no one else was in the office. I sat waiting at the front desk waiting for anyone to buzz in. Nobody came for a long time.
Finally, the buzzer rang. After I let them in, the front door clicked open, and the flat, flapping sound of sandals approached. When I looked up, I saw my mother.
I’ve come to audition, she said. She was holding the flier with the character description. Immigrant daughter type role was circled in red ink.
When I did not reply, she pushed toward me, handing me a USB on which she’d written Lorna Reel.
I was an actor, she said. I told you.
Who’s Lorna?
My stage name. She spoke to me the way one speaks to a child.
You never told me that.
It was a secret.
She had a cool, unreadable expression on her face. There was no one else in the office, and in the sterile, gray hallway, it was possible to believe that there was no one else in any of the buildings around us. There was only ever the two of us.
Well, I said. Follow me.
◆
One last secret. My mother tried to leave so many times but she never asked me to join her. Sometimes I think that’s all I’ve ever wanted: for her to ask.
◆
We sat on two plastic chairs in the center of the room. Between us was the table, with the script I had written for the audition. There were three short scenes. She held the print-out with the lines of her character highlighted in yellow. We sat in silence for a few minutes as she read it over, flipping the pages back and forth until finally she cleared her throat and said she was ready.
We began with Childhood.
And then, I watched her turn—the slow unknotting of her shoulders, the creep of her attention from the room to some other place, some place inside her that I could not see. Every move methodical, made with a care I hadn’t witnessed before.
She was no longer my mother. She was me.
◆
I played the mother. Between us was a window, invisible but present. I turned away from her.
Mommy, she said in a voice that sounded like my voice. Where are you going?
I could not hear her. I looked at the road.
Where are you going?
She stood up and circled the room. I turned to watch her as she approached me. She sat down beside me on the curb, her knees knocking against my own.
I have to leave, anak, I said. In auditions, I reminded myself, my job is not to act, but to read the lines so the actor can perform. But still, I felt the part of me that was reading the lines was filling up the space in my body, pushing out the rest.
Don’t go. She touched my hand.
Go back inside, I said.
Please, and here, her voice had the whine of a child—Please stay. If you go, then I’m going too.
I had no more lines, but she pressed her hands into mine and I held her close.
I love you, said my daughter. I love you so much.
Was this in the script? I could no longer remember, or even read the words on the paper in front of me.
And then, she said, I want to tell you a secret.
This was not something I had written.
I know you don’t want to leave because of me. I know you’re too afraid of what will happen to me. She was whispering into my ear. But I’ll let you go.
How?
You can do it when no one is watching, she said. I’ll close my eyes and count to ten. And then you can go. I watched as she closed her eyes and her lips began to move, ten nine eight, and I couldn’t help myself, I closed my eyes with her and saw myself standing up from the curb and letting her go. When I heard her count one, I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer. I heard the slap of her sandals. I heard the door click close.
When I opened my eyes, my mother was gone.
The only sign that she had been there was the USB left on the table. I plugged it into my laptop. The scenes were from the cheaply produced Public Access shows and side characters in PSAs about teenagers and drunk driving. During some scenes, I had the feeling I was watching myself. We had the same thick, dark hair, the same smile. Then she moved and was herself again: that woman who could be no one other than my mother. When I touched the screen, I could feel the soft warmth of its surface.
The reel ended and the screen went black. Where did my mother go? I stepped out into the empty hallway, the empty parking lot. It was still bright out, one of those days when the smog and sun cast the city in their alien light, light that tricked the eye so that the houses and buildings I drove past had the look of cardboard facades. I drove for a long time looking for my mother, looking and losing her and looking again, so I could finally tell her that she got the part.