Daughter, Mother, Daughters: A Play in Seven Acts
By Angeline Evans
@angelineinmiami
ACT I
I’m 7 years old and for the fourth day in a row, I wear pink stirrup leggings and black velvet boots with gold studs. My mom tries to talk me into clean clothes and more playground appropriate footwear, but I use every tool in my arsenal to protest. I scream. I slam doors. I run out of the house. She holds her ground. So do I. My younger brother, unfazed with his shoes tied and backpack on, waits by the door for us to finish. It is far from our first battle, or our worst. I wear the leggings and boots to school.
ACT II
I’m 17 and applying to colleges. My biggest consideration is not the school’s caliber, culture, or cost, but the weather. I hate bundling up in our mild coastal Southern California winters; there’s no way I would survive anywhere else.
A year ago, when I told my mom I wanted to study music, she didn’t try to convince me to choose something more conventional or stable. Instead, she upgraded me from the Yamaha upright she bought when I was four to a shiny black Kawaii grand piano.
I get rejected from my dream school and I’m devastated. It comes down to two institutions, both locally in Orange County. My mom has a few opinions on where she’d like me to go. The bigger school will have more options if you change your mind, she says. She gets her way by telling me I can move into the dorms at the public university, but I have to live at home if I choose the private college. I can’t move out fast enough. I spend the next four years hopping between apartments and roommates, despite a free room only 25 minutes away.
ACT III
I’m 21 and plotting an escape from suburbia. I have switched college majors twice, finally landing on environmental analysis and design. I work part-time at an engineering firm, writing traffic impact studies. After graduation, I turn down a job offer in my field to pursue my dream of being a magazine writer and editor. I apply to five graduate programs, all in or near big cities. I am accepted into a few, including the prestigious school up the freeway in Los Angeles.
My mom and I make plans to visit a program in upstate New York. She books flights, takes time off work, and arranges to borrow her sister’s car for the drive from New Jersey, where we’ll squeeze in a visit with family. When the acceptance letter from the school in NYC arrives, we cancel on the upstate school and spend a day in the city instead.
In August, my mom helps me move into a studio in Greenwich Village. We go to Flushing, Queens, for Chinese food afterward and hug goodbye. No tears are shed, she flies back to California, and I’m surprised she let me go. I spend two winters in the city. Turns out cold weather isn’t that bad.
ACT IV
I’m 23 with a diamond ring on my finger. My fiancé lives 500 miles away, two years into his own five-year graduate program. I’ve finished my master’s degree, and with eight months to go until the wedding, I’m back in my old bedroom, working temporarily as an editor for a local city’s publications. My mom cooks, and my dad and I carpool to work together. I join them at my childhood church every Sunday.
Wedding planning coasts along with a few bumps, but my mom didn’t get much say in her own big day 30 years ago, so I indulge some of her preferences. Two days after the wedding, my new husband and I load up our cars for my move north. My 17-year-old car springs a leak in the driveway. My mom hands me her keys without hesitation and mails me title transfer paperwork a few weeks later. I drive the car for the next six years.
ACT V
I’m 30 with a newborn in my arms. I can see the ocean from my hospital room, though it is a different ocean than the one I grew up near. My mom meets her first grandchild a few hours after her birth, then spends the rest of our hospital stay cleaning our small one-bedroom condo and cooking Chinese postpartum foods in preparation for our return. She learns to navigate our downtown neighborhood with a little help from a friend. They remain friends on Facebook.
It is my first surgery ever, and recovery is rough. Back at home, my mom brings me chicken soup with red dates and dried wolfberries in bed and cuddles my daughter as I nap. She tries to hold her tongue when I wash my hair and drink iced water, both forbidden in Chinese postpartum tradition, and sometimes succeeds. She stays with us for one month, sleeping on an air mattress in our living room, which doubles as an office.
ACT VI
I’m 37 and mothering a 7-year-old and baby during a global pandemic. We’ve spent more than 14 years living away from my parents now, but it’s been two years since we’ve been home to California and seen my mom in person. I’m working my dream job, with lots of opportunity ahead. My older daughter has started virtual piano lessons, practicing on the upright piano from my childhood, now in my living room. When she has to interview an older relative for a school assignment, she picks her po (my mom). They spend almost an hour talking about my mom’s childhood in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
My daughters video call with family often, so my mom gets to watch them grow up. They share a common language and love for each other. I watch their relationship bloom, one closer than what I had with my grandparents, growing up an ocean and culture apart. The first thing my parents do after getting vaccinated is buy plane tickets to Miami.
ACT VII
I’m 38 and have celebrated my second birthday during the pandemic. I’m back in my office part-time and working from home on the other days. The kids started camp and daycare this summer, to ease the transition to the new school year. It feels a little something like normal, but not quite, with a second child’s schedule added in.
When my mom and dad visited in the spring, they took the baby for walks every morning while I worked. They read with the big kid after virtual school. My husband and I slipped out for a lunch date, our first outing alone since before the baby was born. We left the little one with my mom and spent some two-on-one time with the big kid, surprising her with an early birthday present of pierced ears. My mom tells me they would love to be closer to help out more, all I have to do is ask.
On a brisk September Thursday while running errands, I picked up the phone and made a call. “Mom, were you serious about moving here?” I held my breath. I waited for a response. Then I heard my mom say, “Yes.”
Guest essay written by Angeline Evans. Angeline is a mom to two spirited girls, a full-time nonprofit executive, and a sometimes playdate host. She is an eternal optimist and always up to try something new. She likes to cook because she loves to eat. She has a master’s degree in journalism, but personal essays are a new genre. You can find her on Instagram.
This essay was first started in the Freewrite Workshop through Exhale Creativity.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.