by Ava Zavora
For some reason, an image of her mother came to her then, as she was in all the dreams Sera had dreamt. Her mother’s life had been cut short, all her hopes drowned.
Yet what had Sera done with her own life since leaving Andrew that first time? Nothing of consequence, it seemed. She had wronged the only man who had never hurt her, and her mother, in whose name she vowed to confront her feckless lover, still lay in some obscure grave, unavenged.
Coming to yet another decision, for there was no turning back now, Sera quickly changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She ran to catch the next train to 91st Street and Riverside Drive as if she did not want to be late for an appointment, when in reality, she had delayed this moment for many years now. She ran because she did not want to change her mind.
Like before, she stood at the edge of Riverside Park as she surveyed the elegant building at 1152 Riverside Drive. And as if by design, signaling to her that it was indeed time, a UPS truck pulled up. Quickly, she dashed across the street, and as the driver was buzzed in, she helped him with the door, smiling a friendly, guileless smile. She stepped into the cool marble foyer after him.
She was finally in.
Avoiding taking the elevator with the UPS driver, Sera mounted the velvet-covered terrazzo stairs instead, suddenly rejuvenated with the prospect of confrontation. Apartment number 11 was on the third floor, which was quiet and insulated with lush maroon Berber carpet. She tiptoed to the chocolate mahogany door and knocked.
Her heart beating wildly and palms sweating, Sera stood waiting, more and more anxious as she heard footsteps approaching the door. She could tell that the person on the other side was now looking at her through the peephole. An eternity passed, during which she could feel hesitation being weighed on the other side.
Then, thankfully, the relief of the lock being undone, the knob turning, and the door creaking open.
Sera gasped in horrified recognition.
It had to be a mirage borne of her guilt and sorrow, for whomever she had expected to meet at long last on the other side of this door—it was not the woman now standing before her like a distortion of her own reflection.
“Stella?”
Chapter 26
“Serafina.”
The woman at the door was guarded, yet resigned, as if the moment she had been dreading for a long time was now coming to pass. She did not flinch from Sera’s shock and staunchly met her eyes, but then she’d had ample time to prepare for this meeting.
She did not ask Sera to come in, perhaps as transfixed and stunned by the woman before her as Sera was. She bore the face which greeted Sera every morning-the same slanted brown eyes, the same full lips, the same shade of thick glossy black hair. Sera could have been looking at a mirror of her future self, the other resembled her so much.
Sera’s head started to spin and her knees threatened to give way.
“Are you alright?” Stella asked, awkwardly placing a hand on her arm.
Sera shook her head, trying to excavate words from the depths of her throat. “No, I’m not alright.”
Stella somehow led her from the door, touching her gingerly, then quickly letting go once Sera sank onto a chaise. Weakened, she closed her eyes and leaned onto its plush velvet back.
“I’ll get you some water.”
With her eyes still closed, Sera noted the musical quality of her mother’s voice; it sounded exactly as she had imagined it would or perhaps remembered from long ago-a voice meant for singing.
Some muffled movements and then the click of heels on tiled floors in another part of the apartment.
After an interminable span in which Sera waited for her head to stop spinning, she opened her eyes.
She was in a sitting room whose walls were painted in aubergine. Some chairs and the chaise lounge she was sitting on were upholstered in dark red velvet. A chandelier made of hundreds of Venetian crystal teardrops hung from the center of the room, as did giant green ferns in wrought iron planters. Behind the partly drawn drapes was a large window which probably overlooked Riverside Park. A quick glance around noted Tiffany lamps, velvet cushions, a center table made entirely of mirrored glass that reflected the crystal chandelier overhead. Thick, cloying perfume hung in the air.
Sera wanted to avert her gaze from the ostentation of the room, repulsed by its boudoir-like heaviness. So overwhelming was the assault on her senses that it took Sera a second glance to notice the wall towards which all the seating was angled. A fireplace tiled with colorful Moroccan mosaics of teal, cobalt, and red was in the center, but as exotic as it looked, it was overpowered by the dozens of framed theater posters hanging around it from top to bottom.
Sera walked over to the frames and examined them.
Some were Playbills that featured Stella Wood in some minor parts in West Side Story and the Flower Drum Song. Most, however, were of posters of her mother in the title role in Miss Saigon, as played in theaters in Paris, Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Rome, Sydney, on and on, in varied typeface and language, but with the same picture in each one, her mother luminous in her beauty, despite her costume of tattered gray, as the woman who commits the ultimate sacrifice so that her lover, who has married another, would take their child away to America.
Hysteria started building in Sera as she gazed at her mother’s picture, so convincing in its pathos, rising even more when she spied a poster of the off-Broadway production of Bleak House, the musical, with her mother barely discernible in the background as a veiled figure.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Stella approaching with a goblet in her hand. “Ah, Lady Dedlock,” she muttered as she accepted the water from her.
Better oriented than she had been at the door, Sera now looked fully at her mother, examining her from head to foot with an intensity that she knew was rude.
She was petite, smaller than Sera, with a youthful slimness. Her shoulder-length hair was perfectly set, and her expertly made up face was almost entirely devoid of any lines. She was dressed in a black velour pantsuit and high heels, and her wrists jangled with gold bracelets. She looked as if this was what she considered to be a casual, natural look.
She seemed uncomfortable under Sera’s scrutiny, but not because she was being watched. She had the air of a woman who has drawn and held watchers her whole life.
Stella sat down on one of the plush velvet armchairs and indicated that Sera do the same. Sera returned to the chaise opposite her mother and drank her water in silence, unable to determine how to voice the confusion, shock, and anger overwhelming her.
As if she were granting an interview, her mother raised a sylph-like, braceleted arm towards the Miss Saigon posters and said, “You know, another Filipina won the Tony for that role, but I’ve played Kim in more productions and in more countries than any other actress.”
Sera quickly gulped before blurting out, “So you’re best known for playing a mother who kills herself so that her child could have a better life?”
The graceful arm faltered, but Stella did not hesitate in replying coolly, “Yes, hard to believe, isn’t it? But then theater makes anything seem possible.”
She crossed her legs and laid her arms on either side of her armchair, in imitation of a grave queen.
“You get that from me. That mouth of yours,” she noted with a subtle intonation of pride. “Does it get you in as much trouble as it does me?”
“I think I can be forgiven for being rude, Stella,” she spat out in incredulity, unable to call the woman sitting across from her as mother, “Considering that I’ve been lied to all these years.”
“What, what, what?” she stammered, her sarcasm floundering in the chaos of inner revelation. “I’ve seen you haven’t I? You’re the woman with the hats and the sunglasses and the stilettos. And you’ve seen me watching this building. You’ve known all this time.” Rapid-fire thoughts were spilling out from her unbridled mouth.
“Yes, I’ve seen you. I could have stayed inside, but I deliberatel
y tempted fate and let you see me. I really don’t know why. I suppose I wanted this,” she made a vague gesture with French-manicured nails, “To be over with.”
“Lola kept your secret for you,” Sera said, just beginning to grasp the enormity of her betrayal.
Stella looked stern. “I forced her to. It was not her idea to keep this from you. I asked her to tell you I was dead, but she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. She’s incapable of lying. But she didn’t want to tell you the truth either, because she knew it would hurt you more.”
Sera remembered all the times she had questioned her grandmother, who would bury her face in her hands, unable to answer her. What she mistook for inconsolable grief was deep shame over her daughter.
“So she just let me think you were dead. It was you who sent the money. I assumed it was my father. I assumed lots of things.”
“Indirectly, yes.” Stella nodded. “He’s made it possible for me to live comfortably so that when I was working, I was able to send some money. I didn’t totally abandon you.”
“So you married my father and you both decided to abandon me?”
“Your father married his college sweetheart,” Stella corrected, her mouth curving in mockery. “They live in New Haven. You have two half-brothers.”
“But, your name--,” Sera’s head was beginning to reel again. “I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is what I read from your diary. Is everything made up? Has everyone been lying to me all my life?” She realized that she was shouting, but the woman across from her didn’t flinch from her outrage.
“So you found it.” Something in her manner, which was near self-satisfaction, made Sera alert.
“You left that for me, didn’t you? You wanted me to find it.”
“Because I wanted you to know the truth, Serafina. Whether you thought I was dead or not, I wanted you to understand why I did what I did.”
“Understand?” Sera asked, on the verge of hysteria, “Understand why you abandoned me, just like he did? I’m sorry, but nothing that has come out of your mouth so far has made any sense. I want to know the truth. Now.”
Stella breathed deeply. Sera unkindly observed that she appeared to be readying herself for a soliloquy on stage. All she needed was a spotlight and a violin playing softly in the background.
“My stage name is Stella Wood. It also happens to be my married name. I left you, Serafina, when you were less than two months old and ran away to New York with Daniel Wood. He was still in love with me, you see, and would have done anything I asked him to, despite the fact that I bore his brother’s child. I knew this and so I used him.”
Stella’s tone was flat. There was no artifice or theatricality in her manner. She might have been providing statistics to a census taker.
“He married me without his parents’ knowledge and we lived in a dump in the Lower East Side. He left after six months. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I was poor. I didn’t care that I was alone because I had escaped. I called home once and when your grandfather found out that I didn’t plan to ever return, he had another heart attack and died. So, I had his death on my hands, as well, among other things.” She paused to swallow, her brow creasing momentarily.
“I lived for many years without a break. Bit parts here and there. But I hung on. A career in the theater is hard for anyone, but most especially for an Asian woman. The irony that the fulfillment of my dreams came in the form of a selfless mother is not lost on me, Serafina.” Formidable brown eyes met hers, hinting that unusual strength had been needed to live a life revolving around make-believe.
Although she looked remarkably close to the image Sera had held in her head all these years, Stella’s cold reserve was nothing like what she would have expected. The mother she had mourned had been too fragile to survive her lover’s abandonment; the woman who sat across from her showed no weakness whatsoever.
Sera used to think that if her mother had lived, she would have been like Elise, generous, nurturing, and somewhat impetuous. Elise’s way of making everything seem magical and making her feel special reminded her of the girl in the diary. Now she saw that the comparison was completely farfetched. Whatever spirit and vivacity her mother’s diary had revealed had disappeared long ago, to be replaced by impenetrable self-control.
Pointedly surveying the wall of framed theater memorabilia, Sera countered, “I understand that you were unprepared for the reality of motherhood, but you could have given me up for adoption. Instead you ran out on me and your own mother. And you left a diary for me to find. You didn’t want to be my mother, but you still wanted me to mourn you, didn’t you?”
“I suppose it would make no difference if I were to tell you that I did more than contemplate suicide,” Stella replied quietly, “And that it was Daniel who offered me a way out.”
She lowered her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her. For the first time since she had opened the door, she seemed unsure.
Staring at her hands on her lap, she said, “I’ve rehearsed this moment many times, ever since your grandmother told me you were moving to New York. That was the only other time she would talk to me. She was worried that our paths would somehow cross. I told her that it would be unlikely in a city of eight million people. I realized why you had come once I saw you standing outside. I recognized you instantly, but you didn’t recognize me at all. I suppose you weren’t looking for me.”
Stella raised her eyes. “I wish I could say that leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“But it wasn’t hard, was it?” Despite her anger, Sera recognized something in her mother beyond their physical similarities. She understood her against her will.
“It was easier than you thought it would be. You thought it would hurt more, cutting yourself from your child, but you were just fine. And what’s more, if given the choice again, you would do the same thing.”
“Yes,” Stella admitted without apology. “You’ve turned out just fine, with no help from me. Or rather, inspite of me.”
“How would you know?” Sera exploded, “You know nothing about me!”
“I know enough, my dear,” Stella replied with maddening calm. “You have an ivy league education, financed partly with money I earned from playing Kim, I might add, and you’ve got some success writing articles.” Sera must have looked surprised. “Oh, I’ve followed your accomplishments, in my fashion. You’ve made something of yourself and it had nothing to do with me or your father.”
Sera shook with disbelief.
“Do you actually believe that because you have no regrets and because I graduated and have a job that you have no culpability? Do you know what it’s like thinking that your mother killed herself and that your father doesn’t want you?”
Stella lowered her eyes. “I do not know and I cannot imagine,” she said simply.
Sera looked at her mother in the midst of her extravagant apartment, wondering how she ended up here, sitting passively as the curtains were drawn open to expose that her whole world and everything she had ever believed in were mere smoke and mirrors.
“I don’t believe I can say anything that would satisfy you,” Stella said after a long silence.
She opened the drawer to a marble end table beside her and took out a pen and pad of paper. She tore a piece after writing something on it and held it out to Sera. It was an address in New Haven, Connecticut, with a phone number.
“Alex’s information. Although he has been adamant about not wanting to meet you in the past, I have a feeling he’s changed his mind. He was diagnosed with cancer last year. He’s doing fine,” she added quickly, “but the specter of mortality makes a man rethink his choices. And you are, after all, his firstborn and only daughter.”
“The two of you keep in touch?”
“Alex and I have a deep and unbreakable bond, Serafina.”
She felt nauseated at her mother’s tone, the first time she had displayed any softness. She was still in love with her father, despite th
e fact that he abandoned her and her child and was now married to someone else and had another family.
“He’s the one who got me this apartment. It’s mine for life. And he’s made some investments for me so that I will never have to worry about the future. That’s more than most actors can claim.”
“You’re his mistress?”
“No. What we have is an understanding. His wife comes from money. He’s provided me with security in exchange for...peace of mind.”
It took a moment for Sera to grasp Stella’s veiled admission.
“You mean...me? You got all this,” she waved a contemptuous hand at her surroundings, “In exchange for making sure his firstborn, his only daughter, doesn’t suddenly show up and disturb the peace of his moneyed wife?
“He’s not evil, Serafina. And whether you like it or not, you have benefited from his generosity to me. As long as you’re discreet, then I think that a meeting between the two of you can be arranged.”
Sera looked at the piece of paper in her hand, the letters and numbers translating as gibberish in her mind. She crumpled it up and threw it on the floor.
“It was never about him,” she said as her head cleared. “It was always about you.”
“Serafina, listen to me,” Stella commanded.
“No!” she shouted. “Your voice has been in my head all this time. I’m done listening to you! You made me believe it was my fault you killed yourself, that if I hadn’t been born, you’d still be alive! I’ve been living with guilt over your death and you knew it. You knew it and you just kept walking by and letting me think I was responsible for what happened to you.”
Stella rose, the veil of her composure tearing apart with Sera’s outburst.
“It was never my intention for you to feel responsible for anything but your own life. Whatever choices you have made are your own. Maybe someday you’ll realize what it would have been like, living with a mother who has watched her dreams die and then you’ll understand.”