Rosethorn (42 page)

“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 the 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.”

Sera shook her head at the stranger facing her with her features.

“I don’t want to listen to you anymore. It was all a lie. Everything. All I've done since I found your diary was try to make up for something that didn't even happen. I’ve made a mess of my life, hurt myself, those I love because of a lie.” Horror struck her. “Oh, my god, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Sera whirled around, stumbling over the chaise in her hurry to run to the door. The woman behind her called out her name, but she didn’t stop to listen.

Despite the traumatic revelations she had brought about, her significance rapidly receded into the past, like a shadow dissolving into the darkness of an empty stage.

Sera ran several blocks to catch the train back to her apartment, her heart ready to burst in agony. Mind working feverishly, she tried to figure out when she could take the next plane out and if a phone call
would be enough to save what she had surrendered.

“Please,” she repeated over and over again during what seemed like the train ride of eternity.

She pushed her way out the subway doors, knocking into people as she did so, but she didn’t care anymore. Time would not wait for her, so she ran up the stairs of the subway station, weaving in and around the slow-moving crowd.

She felt like Eurydice escaping the underworld as she surfaced into sunshine, hurtling down the pavement lighter than ever before because with each step she was dropping everything that had ever held her back in darkness. Whatever happens now, whomever she hurt and despite the chaos that would ensue from the mistakes that she might make, her choices would be her own, with no other voices of guilt and regret to influence her.

She would travel the thousands of miles, she would beg for forgiveness, she would leap into the uncertainty of only air above and air below because this was the only true thing worth the risk.

She was flying down the streets of New York City as if she was already aloft into the future, so fast that it took longer than it should have to recognize the figure sitting on her front stoop.

Appearing not a moment sooner than he should have, she realized, but at the exact right time when she needed him the most. Even when seen from a distance, she was astounded by how blue his eyes were.

Andrew stood up, his hands in his pockets, wary and uncertain.

She stopped a foot from where he stood, afraid to find out that he might just be another mirage she had concocted in her head.

"I couldn't stay away, Sera. Not even if I tried. I’m here because this is what I should have done years ago. But if it’s too late, I’ll accept it, I guess. I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what if.”

It was always meant to happen like this, so she pulled him to her and kissed him as if she had been drowning and just now had finally found the air to breathe.

“It’s not too late.” 

As if in answer to that question posed ages ago, she knew that if she were to choose, it would be this hour that she would keep with her for till the end of her days, when what she thought had been forever lost to her was finally returned.

The Beginning

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Dear Adam

Tuesday, November 12 7:39 PM

From: Eden Espinoza

To: Eden Espinoza

Dear Adam,

I'm going to keep this alive here. Where it started. In e-mails, in the ether, in my head.

I will continue writing to you as if you will read this.

Maybe it will help me. I don't know.

Here, you're real. Just as I believed you to be for three months. Here, I can pretend that you did love me, and love me still.

It's difficult for me to stop writing to you. There are still so many things I want to say, despite the fact that I wrote to you every day, spoke to you every day.

I gutted myself this time, didn't I? No one did it but me. I am flayed, my insides out.