Requests
“Any requests?” my daughter asks from the backseat of the car. I’m driving up Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway to drop her off for her first year of college. She plays DJ while my husband and younger daughter count passing Teslas. Through New Jersey and over the GW Bridge, we listen to their mix of Phoebe Bridgers, Kimya Dawson, and Big Thief. We’re all a little nervous, unsure about what life will be like once we say goodbye.
“My request is ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,’ please,” I reply immediately. There’s an audible family moan. This song looms large in their consciousness because every time I have the chance, I ask to play it.
“Really?” my older daughter snidely asks.
“With Elaine Page,” I quickly specify, so she does not mistakenly play Patty LuPone or even worse Madonna’s version. My husband is a career stage-manager. His whole professional life is managing actors’ flitting desires, calling lighting and scenic cues, and knowing when to step in and when to step away. We affectionately nicknamed him “The Best Diva Handler on the Planet” because intuitively and compassionately, he knows just what to say and when to say it. Right now, he knows well enough to stay out of this conversation. My other daughter, a beautiful mezzo-soprano, happily hums in the back seat, not quite sure what is about to happen.
When I hear the first notes, I snap. “That’s not Elaine Page!”
In 1978 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita world premiered on stage in London’s West End. Elaine Page originated the role as Evita with David Essex as Che Guevara. My parents saw the production and loved it so much, they bought the album. I was seven when I first heard Elaine Page sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” Mesmerized by the fictionalized historical story of Maria Eva Duarte, who escaped rural poverty and married Argentina’s President Juan Perón and became the larger-than-life Eva Perón, one of Argentina’s most beloved and mourned heroines, I memorized every word of the soundtrack. For years, I was Evita. I acted, sang, and danced all the parts. I was the youngest in a family that moved around a lot, so I was always looking for approval, affection, someone to notice me. Singing and performing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and choreographing a dance to “Buenos Aires” with my neighbor friend, I created a stage in the living room, equipped with a pedestal, and invited my sisters and parents to come and watch. I mistakenly believed that knowing all the words made me smart and talented. Really, I just wanted to be adored.
As Patty LuPone’s voice lingers in the car, I know I am right, but I do not want to behave how I had earlier that morning. Over the last few months as my daughter and I shopped, prepared, and planned for her to go off to college, we have been fighting. She would ask me a question and without thinking, I would answer with what I thought was best. She’d ponder my answer for a split second then spit back, “You’re wrong.” I had been trying to be patient and understanding with my daughter’s anxiety about leaving for college. Most of the time I remembered this was part of the natural separation process—her desire for independence—but I was having a hard time hearing “you’re wrong” over and over. And earlier that morning, we’d had a blow-out fight. Ten minutes before our departure, she had still not finished packing her pillows, a framed picture of the family, and a hand-painted wooden box I had brought her from Mexico. Raised to “be ready” way before the time called, I was angry and frustrated that she was not adhering to my unspoken timeline. As usual, she asked me what to do. I barked, “Fold the pillows. Put the breakable items in their folds. Let’s go!”
She started to say, “No, you’re wrong,” but I could not take it anymore. I shouted at her and finally after I felt like I had said all of the words of my unspoken fear, I shouted, “I’m done.” I threw my hands in the air, huffed out of the room, and halfway down the steps shouted, “You finish your way.”
As a young woman, I never dreamed about having children. Holding babies made me sweat, and I was a terrible babysitter. Children were so needy and taking care of them felt tedious and boring. When my first daughter was born and I held her for the first time, all those thoughts and ideas disappeared, and I was filled with pure love. When she looked up at me as I was nursing her, I thought to myself I am adored. I had never felt anything like it. But even though my parenting life comes with a stage manager, it does not come with a script. In the most important role of my life—parts of which I had nailed and parts of which I had flopped— I did not want her to go off to college feeling angry or disappointed with me.
“Yes, it is!” she huffs from the backseat.
I say nothing. In my head, I hear my therapist friend’s advice, “Stop digging in your heels. It’s ok for her to figure this out on her own. Show up for her. Let her know she can do this. Go back in. Say you’re sorry. Hug her...” but I am sad, nervous, and scared. Silence is all I know how to do. I stare straight ahead and focus on my driving. I take a deep breath and instead of thinking about what life is going to be like while she’s away at college, I imagine myself as Evita standing alone on the balcony overlooking the Argentinian people, my arms outstretched, singing.
“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” opens Act Two of Evita. Narrated by a disapproving Che, loosely based on Che Guevara, Evita begins with “Requiem,” a Latin chant by the people mourning Eva Perón’s untimely death at thirty-three from cervical cancer. The musical then flashes back to deconstruct Eva Perón’s rise, and ends with “Lament,” an eerie reminder that even though there was a monument built in Eva Perón’s honor, her body disappeared for seventeen years.
Throughout the story, Che wags his finger at Evita’s ambition, criticizing her meteoric rise to fame and power and rags-to-riches hypocrisy. By the time she sings, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” the audience is under Che’s spell, so much so, that the anthem becomes mythic, apocryphal. In this moment, Evita is a breathtaking contradiction—a symbol of hope and empowerment with a “do whatever it takes attitude”—and yet, here she is apologizing for wanting to be more than poor, for creating a self that is worthy of love and adoration. She loves Argentina, and she hopes they love her back.
“Oh sorry.” You’re right. Hold on, let me find the right version,” my older daughter chirps. My husband and younger daughter exhale, and I can feel the tension in my body immediately dissipating. I do not have to tell her “You’re wrong” or “I told you so.”
Being a mother is not about sweeping gestures, emotional speeches, or pithy narrators revealing my hypocrisy. I do not live in a tightly scripted and beautifully orchestrated musical theatre piece. I live a messy, emotional life, and although I do not feel like any woman needs to apologize for who she is, as a mother, I do want to have enough clarity to name my flaws and be loved. Understanding my contradictions and complexities as a mother is a slow and arduous process. I wish I could say I had a revelation in that moment, but I did not. I am still learning how to “go back in.”
Finally, though, I see what’s happening, how afraid we have been to say goodbye, how unsure I am about her living life on her own, and how unsure she is about going to college. It dawns on me that she is the breakable stuff folded in the pillows.
Soon and without fanfare or applause, this part of my mothering life will be over. Questions swirl: What had I done or not done? What truths was she taking with her? How many times had I not shown up? Shown up? How many times had I hugged her and said, “I’m sorry”?
Near the end of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” a quick musical shift happens, and Evita plaintively asks the audience if she has gone on too long. Elaine Page has the vocal skill to sound simultaneously strong and vulnerable. As a seven-year-old, I remember dipping my voice at this part, revealing my imagined pain to my yawning audience. Then, just as quickly, Elaine Page secures her place as Evita—musical theatre’s most beloved and doomed heroine. The song ends with a dizzying orchestral flourish. Evita had done her best, and I had to believe, so had I.
And after a minute or two, my daughter lovingly says, “Ok, Mommy. This is for you!”
Elaine Page’s voice fills every inch of our car barreling toward a new and unknown future. Since we know the words, we join voices and sing along. My husband spreads his arms like he is on the balcony, and my younger daughter hits every note. My voice is flat, like usual, but I don’t care. This moment is pure joy.
Jenny Burkholder is a writer and teacher who lives and works in Pennsylvania. Her creative nonfiction and articles have appeared in Intima, Gramercy Review, Months to Years, Epiphany, The Healing Muse, and So to Speak, among other publications. She is the Creative Nonfiction Editor for Philadelphia Stories. And co-host of OVERexpressed & OUT, a podcast that amplifies Philadelphia-area pioneers--women transforming their communities.