Pinky

“Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?” I asked my mother, as I had done all of my life. She was an immigrant, deeply Catholic, Filipino woman, and I had grown up completely Americanized. To make matters worse, I was educated at Girls Preparatory School, then Agnes Scott College, where the women are taught to think critically and question everything. Let’s just say I got in trouble with my mother a lot.

“You’re not in trouble. I’ll see you in two hours,” she said curtly and hung up.

The two hour wait for her arrival was utter torture.

She finally pulled into the driveway, but I was already at the end of the walkway, where I had been for twenty minutes, pacing.

As soon as we were inside, she said, “I brought lumpia. We eat first. You’re always too skinny.” Lumpia is the Filipino egg roll. It’s basically heaven rolled in a thin, crispy dough and deep fried. You can add ground pork or ground beef, or make it vegetarian and just have beansprouts and cabbage. But the dough wrapping is the key.

Mom fed everyone. If you came to her house and did not eat, you were disgraceful and disrespectful. So, you starved yourself for two days before you went to her house to ensure a good appetite.

After we ate and cleaned up, she turned to my sister, “Peachy, go watch TV in the living room.” Then to me, “Let’s go upstairs to talk.”

We climbed the stairs and sat on the edge of my bed. My comforter was hunter green and burgundy, in distinctive 1990s decorating style. I had made the matching throw pillows myself. Mom gave me her sewing machine my junior year in high school and I used to sew things, usually with straight lines only like pillows, because I didn’t really know how to sew, but I wanted to sew. I had bought the fabric for my throw pillows at Forsyth Fabrics on Huff Road…oh, excuse me, “West Midtown.” In 1994, my mattress and box spring were on the floor. I couldn’t afford a real bedroom set yet. But I had a skinny waist and perky butt, a college degree and two jobs. So what if I didn’t have real furniture?

She spits it out, “I’m not your mother.”

“What?! Did Dad have an affair? I mean, another affair…before Gloria?”

“No. He’s not your father either. You’re adopted.”

All the oxygen left the room. I was hot and cold at the same time, so I shivered. And then, I blinked. The identity crisis crashed all at once, and yet, everything suddenly made sense. The sensation of never feeling like I quite fit in with the rest of my family was finally explained.