“I don’t?” My mother leaned closer to me and said in a low voice, “It’s been very hard for me to find love because I lost my roots. I wanted to have company when I was in Vienna or London or New York. I made some bad decisions, too. I tried to keep them away from you, but I know I didn’t do the best job. But I was lonely. I want you to learn from me—from my mistakes.”

I let the fork clatter onto my plate. I grabbed my Diet Coke and almost dropped the slippery glass. My fingers were trembling.

To my shock, my mother reached out and took my hand in hers. “Look at me,” she said. Her face was flushed, her eyes focused fiercely on me. “This is important,” she insisted, squeezing my hand tightly.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wished I could end this conversation as easily as I could end a phone call.

“You need to find someone who loves you for who you are,” she said. “You’re a beautiful girl. Many men will want to be with you. But most of them will be wrong. You need to wait for the right one. Andrew is the first Chinese man I’ve ever been in a relationship with. I don’t know why I’ve waited so long. He speaks my language. I want you to find someone who speaks your language.”

—

My mom’s hotel room had a stunning view north toward Coit Tower and the bay. I stood at the window, gazing down at the city in miniature, while Mom searched through her bag for the photos she wanted to give me.

“Here they are,” she said triumphantly, pulling out a white envelope. She sat down on the padded bench at the foot of the bed, and I took a seat beside her while she opened the envelope.

There were two photos: one in black-and-white, the other in color. She handed me the color photo first, which showed a group of people gathered around a white cake on which Happy 60th Birthday Lily! had been written in red frosting. Mom was on the edge of the group, and she looked both younger and a little softer.

“This was in 1997,” she said, “when I went to Los Angeles to audition for the LA Opera.”

In 1997, I’d been two years old, and my parents had still been married, living in an apartment in Cambridge while Dad finished his PhD. She must have left me with him to fly across the country for the audition.