Chapter Sixteen
sixteen
AUGUST 2024
DAY 4 IN THE HOUSE
LUCILLE stared straight ahead at the bookshelves.
It is exhausting being your daughter.
Her eyes smarted. She tried not to think of how wounded Madeline had looked. But was she wrong? What good could her daughter do? Hadn’t this all been to protect her?
Lucille sat down at the desk. She laid the magazines to one side and sifted through years of pamphlets, take-out menus, stamps, and newspaper clippings. A righteous fury consumed the sick feeling. Hadn’t her entire life been about trying to provide her daughter with the opportunities she herself had? What more could Madeline demand? The words swam in front of her. She felt a heavy pressure behind her eyes. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she picked up her phone and called Daniel.
Mā had liked her ex-husband. She barely acknowledged whatever Rennie’s marriage with that art collector was. Neither did Lucille, to be honest. But she had taken pains to do everything right. She met Daniel Wang at law review in their Stanford days, and from the moment she spoke to him it had been a meticulous battle of wills. He had a quiet, ruthless confidence, and Lucille fell faster than she could ever allow herself to admit. She went to his house for the holidays and his parents made her beef noodles. Lucille ached with happiness to see a Chinese family that still gathered around the kitchen table. She and Daniel both made partner at their respective law firms within two years of each other. They competed with each other, fought with each other, fucked each other with that same reciprocal ferocity. She liked that she was always trying to impress him, and vice versa. They’d raced each other to become their most successful and virtuous selves.
But recent years had strained them, her congressional campaign most of all. Missed school pickups and events wore on him. When she found out she had lost her county by a few points, Daniel turned away from her, tense with shame, before he reached out to halfheartedly comfort her. She’d shut herself away from him; she preferred to process her pain in private. They both did. She’d failed him and herself. It was unforgivable. Two months later, she discovered photos of his firm’s female partner on his phone.
Now he picked up on the second ring. “Lucy?”
She swallowed. “Am I a bad mother?”
“What?”
“I just want to know. Tell me. You were there. Did I never care about my daughter?”
He sighed. “What exactly are you trying to say? What did Madeline do?”
“Was I a monster who focused on her future career and nothing else? After all the years I put her through private school and all her extracurriculars? Is that it? Is that true?” She waited a beat. Already she was lining up arguments in her head to eviscerate his points.
But when he spoke his voice was gentle. “You’re just ambitious, Lucy. You know I loved that about you. I always have.”
She was taken aback by the tenderness of it. To her shock, tears spilled out.
“But you did…” He paused. “You had your own agenda. You always prioritized your achievements. I don’t know. Sometimes you did leave us behind. And that hurt me. And our kid.”
Neither of them spoke. She heard the background noise of his office through the silence. “It was the campaign, wasn’t it?” That ended us.
She heard him exhale hard through his nose. “In a way, yes.”
“So I’m responsible for everything that happened,” Lucille said icily. He loved her ambition and yet couldn’t stand her actually doing what it took to accomplish her dreams. “I ruined everything.”
“I’m not—”
“My ambition fucked your coworker and ruined everything we built between us. Right?”
“What—” There was a pause. His voice lowered. “Jesus, Lucy! What the hell? Are you okay? What’s going on? Are you still at your mother’s house?”
“Yep. I’m saving it for us.”
“Still? Are you serious? You haven’t called my contact? Or an actual estate lawyer? I can reach out—”
“ Don’t ,” she snarled. “I’ve got it under control. I can bring the case.”
“Right, but—it’s not that. Believe me, I know you’re good at what you do. But this is not that .”
Lucille contemplated hurling her phone across the room and imagined it splintering against the doors. Instead, she hung up and tossed it on top of the papers. She missed when she could snap a phone shut decisively or slam it onto the receiver. She sat for a moment, full of rage.
Focus.
She looked back at the desk. Her mother’s leather-bound address book lay in the far-right corner. There was a stack of papers wrapped carefully in a brown pocket sleeve. Lucille unwrapped it. The words on the title page were still legible, despite the paper being brittle:
ALL HAPPY FAMILIES
VIVIAN YIN
Lucille flipped through the papers. It was a screenplay. Mā had never shared it or talked about it, as far as she knew. It must have been locked away for decades. It was about a hundred pages. Lucille was just about to settle in and start reading when she noticed that the last pages in the stack were on different paper, smoother and thicker, and typed with a different font. They were letters. One read:
DEAR MRS. LOWELL, THANK YOU FOR SUBMITTING ALL HAPPY FAMILIES FOR OUR CONSIDERATION. I REMEMBER BEING INTRIGUED BY THE CONCEPT OF A FAMILY COMEDY WHEN EUGENE PITCHED IT TO ME.
HOWEVER, I AM NOT SURE THIS FITS THE TONE OF MY CURRENT SLATE OF PROJECTS. I FOUND MYSELF AT TIMES NOT BEING ABLE CONNECT WITH THE STORYLINE. FOR NOW I MUST PASS—
Eugene Lyman. Reid’s father, the producer. Lucille flipped to the next one.
I AM SO SORRY THAT—
WITH REGRET, I MUST PASS—
Rejection letters.
Lucille sat up. Mā had been a screenwriter. Why did she never know? Were there other scripts, too? Lucille could imagine Mā now, hunched over this desk, typing furiously on their old Smith Corona, and then on the word processor that replaced it.
The first letter was dated November 18, 1987. So she’d written the screenplay after she won the Oscar. Maybe becoming an actress had only been the beginning for her. She must have had her own dreams and private ambitions. Dad had always wanted to produce. He’d launched his production company in 1988. Two years before his overdose.
One last page was stuck to the back of the stack, and Lucille pried it away gently, trying her best not to crack the stiff paper. But as she slipped it out, she realized it wasn’t a rejection; it was a form. She scanned the letterhead.
PALISADES PSYCHIATRIC CENTER
She sat back. In clear handwriting below, Lucille read:
This recommendation for consultation is for: Vivian Yin.
Lucille didn’t move from her chair for hours as she read Mā’s screenplay. The light waned outside and she didn’t get up to turn on the stained-glass lamps, until finally, she put down the screenplay because it had gotten too dark to read. A few pages were missing here and there, but she could piece the story together. The script followed the dismal love lives of three cousins against the backdrop of a big San Francisco Chinatown family. It was full of dry wit and sharp characters. Studios would love it today, probably. But it didn’t matter. They hadn’t wanted stories like this back then.
Had Mā wanted to be a screenwriter? Was that why she gave up acting? Lucille remembered the buoyant joy she had felt when she watched her mother win the Oscar. Mā could have done anything after that night, it seemed. There were dinners with producers, and paparazzi that lingered wherever they went as a family. But she hadn’t booked many roles the next year, or the year after that. Instead, their mother drove out to auditions and came home and fought with Dad. They stopped watching TV or making weekend breakfasts together. Dad started coming home late and going on longer filming trips. When he was home, plates were broken and doors slammed.
Dimly, she heard voices and a knock at the library door, with Rennie asking if she wanted dinner. Lucille ignored it. When she finally shook herself out of her stupor, she returned to the last piece of paper. The printed letters were faded, the pen marks even more so, but she recognized her father’s large, looping scrawl.
He had been the one to recommend her. That summer. 1990.
Reasons for consultation: signs of erratic behavior, signs of paranoia, disturbed dreams. Exhibits signs of mental distress.
Lucille did have one stark memory of her mother throwing herself against the balustrade of the terrace during that summer. And then she’d left the house and driven away. Her parents had been arguing about the smallest things: which plane tickets to buy to France, the roles Mā should audition for, whether to send Rennie to a performing arts camp. It all seemed so minute now compared to what had happened. But had her mother been unwell? Was she agitated over her marriage? Over her screenplay? Or something else?
Signs of paranoia. Disturbed dreams.
She went back to the psychiatric facility recommendation and pulled the hospital website up on the computer. The homepage featured serene, smiling faces. She imagined her mother’s face among them.
She picked up her phone and called the number on the website.
“Palisades Hospital.”
“Hi. I’d like to inquire if you have history of patient records—”
“That information is confidential, ma’am.”
“I’m her daughter. My mother had a consultation scheduled?”
“Do you have the consent of the patient in question?”
“Well, my mother’s dead.”
There was only a short pause. “I’m so sorry to hear. You can request information only if you had the permission of your mother prior to her death.”
Lucille bit her tongue. “Thank you. Take care.” She hung up.
There was no point to this. The recommendation was given in 1990, thirty-four years ago. The likelihood that they could even access her mother’s records, if she had any, were slim.
She searched “Vivian Yin” on Google images. There were grainy photos of her in her signature silk red dress in 1986, the Oscar clutched in her hands. There were pictures of her dust-streaked face in Fortune’s Eye . Lucille scrolled further. There was a picture of her mother with other actresses; she recognized Daisy. Daisy had been Mā’s friend; she had talked on the phone with her all the time from the living room. Lucille searched for Daisy’s number in the address book and called.
A deep voice answered. “Hello?”
“Is this Daisy Rubin? This is Lucille Wang. I’m Vivian’s—”
“I don’t know who that is.”
She faltered. “Sorry,” she said shortly. “Wrong number.” She hung up.
She typed Daisy Rubin into the search bar and sat back. Daisy had passed away from breast cancer in 2015.
She pushed the keyboard away from her and started to panic. She rooted through the address book. There were screenwriters and producers and cleaning agencies and schools. She turned to the front. On the first page, in the rudimentary Mandarin that Lucille recognized, were the words for aunt: 姑姑 .
Lucille snapped up her phone again.
“Hello?” The voice was stiff and raspy with age.
She tipped forward. “Is this—”
“Mary Fang. Who is this?”
“I’m Vivian Yin’s daughter. Lucille. I was wondering if you knew my mother.”
The line went silent.
“Hello?”
“No,” Mary said bitterly. “No, we didn’t. Your mother made sure of it.”
Lucille frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“You know, I always wondered what it would be like to meet you.” Mary sounded spiteful. “Mā always talked about it. Our cousin she took care of. Who married and moved to Los Angeles in her fancy house with the wealthy actor and became too good for the rest of us.”
Lucille curled her fist around the pen in her hand.
“I heard you grew up with live-in nannies. Did you eat dinner on plates of gold? Have expensive paintings on your walls?”
“You seem angry. Did my mother do something to you?”
There was a long silence.
“You know, our mother used to call yours every year. Chinese New Year and the holidays. She’d send letters. She was worried. Your mother seemed alone, all isolated out there with him. But she stopped answering.” Mary paused. “Families look out for each other, you know. Mā cared for Vivian and took her in like she was her own daughter. But once she got where she needed to be, she cut the rest of us out. She chased her dreams and left us behind.”
“She—” Lucille’s words wedged in her throat. There was nothing more she could say, nothing that could move the conversation where she wanted to. “I’m sorry for bothering you. Take care.”
She hung up. Mary’s words grated on her. What, was it a crime to pursue your own career? No wonder Mā didn’t want to be involved with them. They seemed insufferable.
But at the same time, Lucille was coming to the realization that there was no one alive now who knew her mother, not any more than she and her sister did. There were no more connections. Her mother had died alone, truly alone, and all Lucille had was a screenplay, photos, magazine clippings, and a form from the psychiatric facility.
Lucille stood. Was she just hotheaded with anger or was this room warm? She wiped sweat from her forehead. She faced the bookshelves again and noticed that a new book seemed to be jutting out today. Someone had been touching them, and she hated the thought that it could be Elaine or Nora. Lucille reached out for Mā’s copy of 红楼梦 . Dream of the Red Chamber.
A pressed flower fell out, along with a few crumbles of dirt.
Lucille jumped back and slammed the book shut, scattering dust. She went to a different shelf and pulled out another. There, between the cover and title page, was a bright orange poppy that looked so fresh and vibrant, its colors seemed to bleed onto the page. She threw the book on the table. Now she was shaking. Even though she didn’t want to know, she couldn’t stop herself after that from taking out book after book after book.
Flowers were pressed in every copy.
There was no way.
Had she been here all this time? Was she living in this house right now, watching them? Slipping flowers between the pages just to mess with Lucille’s head?
Lucille picked up the next book and found a rose petal inside. She hurled the book across the room and it struck a wooden panel with a splitting crack.
She stood in shock. What was she doing? She rushed over and picked the book up, brushing the dirt off, she checked the inside cover again.
Nothing. No mark or residue. No flower.
She sat back on her heels, on the floor of the library. The wall panel that she hit had splintered and a corner had come loose from the wall. Had she really thrown the book with such force? She tested the wood like she would a loose tooth. It came away under the slightest pressure, and a rotten, fleshy odor oozed from the gap.
Lucille lurched back for a moment. Then, holding her breath, she probed farther into the crack, behind the back of the paneling. Her fingers met something spongy and warm.
Something crawled onto her arm. She yelped and scurried away backward on her hands and heels, stomping at the thing as it fell. She stared at her stained fingertips and then looked down at the crushed shell of a small bug.
These walls were packed solid—filled—with dirt.
Dirt trickled from the gap in the loose paneling. Something, a tendril, a vine—slithered out.
Lucille shoved the panel back in place, trapping the vine, and tried to force it to stick. The wood felt skin-warm, and she swore it pulsed for a second, bulged slightly, before it went still.
Panic seized her now. She stood and kicked it, once, twice, and finally it stuck.
Lucille stared at the wall, breathing heavily. Dirt in the walls. Dirt in the sink.
She wiped her hands on her pants. She felt hot and sick. She focused on holding back the revulsion that shuddered through her body. The smell lingered; that earthy, ripe, rotten smell.
She went back to her desk and paged through the books. Still no flowers.
Was she seeing things? She couldn’t stay in this room for another minute. It could be grief. Or lack of sleep. But above all, she needed to be able to trust herself. The address book was open in front of her, and she finally remembered what she was doing an hour ago.
Lucille stared at the name: Eugene Lyman. She called the number. A terrible screeching sound emitted from the phone; the line was long out of use. Finally, she called another number— the one she had saved only days ago.
“Hello?”
“Reid,” Lucille said, her voice cracking in relief. “Can we meet up?” She shut her eyes. “I want to talk to you.”
RENNIE returned to her room after scrounging up a dinner of leftovers from the fridge, accompanied by a few glasses of wine and some disapproving looks from Lucille. She felt sufficiently buzzed and sleepy now.
She opened the door and the first thing she saw across the room was the Oscar trophy.
Rennie scrambled for the light switch. Hadn’t she buried it back in the bottom of her mother’s vanity drawer? But even with the lights on, the trophy was still there.
Could she have some strange gap in her memory? Had she blacked out? Forgot that she carried it back? God, was she drinking that much?
Rennie shuffled forward uncertainly. She reached out her fingertips and brushed the surface. Then she grasped the trophy in her hand.
This had happened once before. Nearly forty years ago, the night she saw the broadcast of her mother at the Academy Awards. Rennie had sat so close to the television, nose almost pressed to the glass, that Edith later joked that it was like Rennie was about to jump into the TV itself. She didn’t tell anyone what had happened earlier that day. That she had sat in front of the mirror at Mā’s vanity, and for a moment, seen an older version of herself, all done up with makeup, clutching an award in her hands. That night she’d gone to bed vibrating with excitement after seeing her mother win the Oscar on live television. The next morning she had woken up to the same award perched on her nightstand. Her fate was there, laid out in front of her, sure as the turn of time.
It had been the beginning of her dream of becoming an actress. A dream that buoyed her through boarding school and all the way to New York City. She persisted through early morning wake-up calls and long audition lines, rehearsing until her voice went hoarse, hoping for it all to happen in due time. Rennie imagined her mother talking to her, hearing her voice as if she were right in front of her in the dressing room, fixing her costume before the community play. Chin up. Keep that smile. Look at a place beyond the crowd. I made you beautiful, 宝贝 . Go make me proud. She wanted to make it just like Mā had.
But somewhere along the way her dream sharpened into desperation. She remembered New Year’s Eve in 1998, on the cusp of the new millennium. Twenty-two-year-old Rennie had wandered home in the snow to her windowless apartment in the East Village with hallways that smelled like oil and old paint. She was alone and yet she felt held by this wondrous city and carried by its incandescent vitality. She remembered how anxiously she had waited for that call from her agent; oh, how badly she wanted to hear that she’d beat out the other two girls in the final auditions. She would have done anything to be able to call her mother and tell her she’d gotten the Scorsese role.
She had sat on the floor of that apartment, eating deli chicken in measured mouthfuls to stay slim in the heavy sequined dress she was planning on wearing to her friend’s party later that night. She thought about her family. Lucille was probably being boring and pre-studying for her next semester law classes out in California, in an apartment strung up with Christmas lights that she shared with her boyfriend, Daniel. Rennie wondered if she would ever find someone.
She spent that evening watching the landline for a call that never came. In another world, that moment could have been the start of it all.
Now Rennie sat on her childhood bed in her childhood bedroom, cradling her mother’s trophy in her hands.
The lights flickered.
“You always wanted this, didn’t you? Now it’s yours.”
Rennie’s head snapped up. In the reflection in the window, her mother stood behind her, her eyes drilling into Rennie’s.
The trophy fell to the floor. Rennie hunched over, squeezing her eyes shut.
She’s not there. It’s in your head. It’s all in your head, don’t you see?
Rennie stayed trembling on the floor, trying to focus on her breath, her pulse thumping in her ears. The room stayed quiet. She looked up. She was alone. But the room was dark.
Rennie ran to the light switch and flipped it. Nothing. The lights must have short-circuited again. She brushed dust and dirt off the light switch and walked back to her bed in a daze and sank into it. The Oscar was still on the floor.
Rennie felt a crushing ache in her chest and furiously swiped the tears from her eyes. She wanted to stomp the trophy and smash it against the walls. Instead, she picked it up and righted it on her nightstand. She was drunk and useless.
Even now, Rennie could recall walking into the cold that New Year’s Eve night, her cheeks hot, her agent’s words and the buzz of static ringing in her ears: Martin said you were luminous. He really did. You were second in line for the part. She could remember ducking inside that crowded dive bar on Second Ave and feeling the rush of being surrounded by strangers. She’d meant to go to her friend’s party, but ended up staying at that bar all night. She’d tipped back drinks and kissed someone forgettable, and the sting of the rejection had dulled. But this would all be redeemed in time, wouldn’t it? The city hurtled into a new year and Rennie made a promise to herself. The next time she had good news, she would call her mother.
She would call everyone.