WEBVTT - 90 Miles 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.640 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.240 Once upon a Time I disappeared. I was one person 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.360 one day and the next someone else, both the same 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:17.600 woman I'd always been, and also utterly eerily unfamiliar. There 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.640 was a story in this, I felt, one built around 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.040 a universal question, how do you know who you are? 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.400 Answers would be grounded in the body and bound to memory. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.320 But for many years I could not write it. I 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:37.000 couldn't figure out where to begin, and I had no ending. Moreover, 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.040 trauma had scrambled my understanding, the need to make meanings. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.239 Stymied by an inability to see, I was unable to 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.600 sink beneath the surface of events down to the truth 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.040 of who had done, what and why. 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.640 That's Karen Palmer, author of several novels and the memoir 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:02.400 She's Under Here. Karen's a harrowing story of a vulnerable 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.920 young woman who finds herself in the wrong place, at 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.080 the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, without the tools 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.480 or experience to recognize the danger she's in until finally 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:19.440 she does. It's also a story of extraordinary resilience and 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:37.800 the power of love to transcend seemingly impossible odds. I'm 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.800 Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.360 are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:46.959 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.360 I am an adopted only child, and my parents were 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:02.960 transplanted New Yorkers. They were both children of Irish immigrants 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.720 who moved to New York City, probably around the turn 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.520 of the century. And both my parents grew up during 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.399 the Depression, and my father went off to World War Two, 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.880 and my mother, who was I guess about five years 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.960 younger than him at the time he left the neighborhood 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.520 in New York. She was still in high school and 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.320 he kind of knew her from seeing her around, but 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:28.840 he didn't know her know her. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:30.359 By the time he got. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.760 Back after the war, she was all grown up and 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.680 she had a job as a secretary down on Wall Street, 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.520 and she caught his eye as a returning serviceman. He 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.720 was still wearing his uniform and going out drinking, you know, 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.679 with his friends. And my mother used to tell this 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.639 story that when she first saw him, she was very disdainful, 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.840 you know, she called him, oh, those flyboys, you know 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.320 that they were showing off in their uniform, and she 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.880 was at the time engaged to marry a navy guy, 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.480 and within two weeks of having met my father, she 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.679 broke off her engagement and was wildly in love with 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.600 this man that she thought was not for her on 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.560 first sight. My mom was the youngest of seven children, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.320 and my grandmother raised all the kids on her own 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.520 because her husband had run off with another woman in 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.120 the middle of the depression. So, you know, these kids 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.640 lived in Hell's Kitchen in you know, in a small apartment, 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:38.600 all seven of them. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.120 The boy that was just above. 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.560 Her in age died when he was seven years old. 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:48.000 He fell down an elevator shaft in the building, and 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.120 so there was, you know, there was a certain amount 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.160 of that kind of Irish tragic aura to her family, 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.360 whereas my father's family was more what they used to 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.119 call lace curtain Irish, so they, you know, my mother 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.840 would have put it that his family put on airs. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.320 There were only three children in his family, which was 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:14.000 quite unusual for that era to only have three. So 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.359 they had they had different kinds of upbringings. And after 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.479 the war, my dad was very ill. Towards the end, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.960 he came down with something that they thought was Hodgkins lymphoma, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.160 and Walter Reed gave him these massive doses of radiation 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.680 to treat it. When it turned out that wasn't what 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.839 he had, but it had the side effect of making 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.640 him sterile, which they didn't know for many years. You know, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.360 in those days, they didn't put the lead apron over you. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:47.000 They just you know, blasted you. So they tried for 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.240 ten years to have a baby and couldn't, and then 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:56.120 they adopted me. So I was brought into this this 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.680 situation where my dad, who was a fairly serious alcoholic, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.720 cleaned up his act for a couple of years while 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.440 they were adopting me, you know, because they had social 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.599 workers come around and interview them and all that. My 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.200 mom was very hopeful that the marriage, which had gotten 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.599 rocky over those ten years, would get back on track, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.640 and he cleaned up for the adoption, but as soon 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.440 as it was all over, he was a heavy drinker again. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.640 He was a binge drinker, so you never knew when 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.560 he was going to go off. He would be fine, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.279 and then all of a sudden he'd be holed up 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.960 in the bedroom, you know, with bottles of whiskey and 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.479 wouldn't come out for two weeks, and the situation in 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.120 the house was tense and there was a lot of fighting. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:47.279 And my mother was extremely religious and wouldn't have gotten 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.040 a divorce because she believed, you know, you get married, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.039 you make the value in it for life. But she 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.240 was extremely unhappy in the marriage, so she put a 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:03.120 lot of her attention on me as her child and 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.560 the only one in the house that she could talk to, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.120 because she and my father had really a very bad marriage. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.880 And you were in la by that time, right, Your 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:13.960 parents had moved west. 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.120 Yeah, my parents moved west right after the war, and 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.560 then ten years later they adopted me. They were the 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.919 only ones in their families to move. Everybody else stayed 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.280 back east. Everyone and my dad wanted to be a 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.640 newspaper man. He had a brother in law who worked 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.200 for the Washington Post, and he admired this brother in 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.159 law so much that he thought that what he wanted 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.800 to do after he got out of the service was 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.080 worked for a newspaper. So he faked his graduation from 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.559 high school for his mother's sake, so that he could walk, 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:50.680 you know, in the auditorium up on the stage and 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.400 pretend to get his diploma. When he did not in 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.920 fact graduate, because he had ditched so much school as 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.679 a youngster. But when he got out of the army, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.240 he went on the GI bill to Columbia for a 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.680 year and study journalism, and rather than go all the 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.200 way through a degree program, he was very impatient, and 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.400 he thought the best way to get a job on 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.440 a newspaper would be to first work for a small 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.120 town paper, which after my parents got married, they lived 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.640 for a year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he got 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.200 a job working on their newspaper, and then from there 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.320 they moved to Los Angeles, and he went through this 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:36.000 series of maneuvers, you know, with phony clips and you know, 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.000 all this stuff in order to get a job at 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.640 what was then called the Herald Express, which was kind 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:48.920 of a slightly yellow newspaper, very sensationalist, and that was 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:50.320 his first newspaper job. 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.240 Karen grows up on a steep hill in Silver Lake, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.960 Los Angeles, as an only child in a neighborhood without 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.560 many other kids. She learns early how to keep herself company, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:09.320 building elaborate inner worlds to fill the quiet. Her mother's 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:14.200 attention is intense consuming, her father's is almost non existent. 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.760 Karen lives in the space between too much and not enough, 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:25.760 and then at fifteen, everything shifts. She becomes pregnant. In 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.280 her Catholic family. During that era, there is no debate 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.400 about what will happen. She'll carry the baby, and the 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.480 baby will be placed for adoption, and so forms a 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:37.599 certain symmetry. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:43.280 She was very volatile during that time. On the one hand, 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.320 she was supportive in her way, given that there was 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.520 only one outcome for this, but she was you know. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.560 She early on took me to the doctor and she 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.280 was kind, which was very unexpected. I expected her to 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:06.800 be furious. But as the pregnancy progressed, she became obsessed 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.319 with what she termed my lack of remorse. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:11.280 You know. 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.679 It's like she was looking for something from me that 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.640 she wasn't seeing. And part of the form that that 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.600 took was that because I was adopted myself, and because 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.000 the implication of that was that my birth mother had 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:29.719 also had sex. 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.319 Outside of marriage, you know, So. 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:38.120 I always felt that she at that point it was 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.079 when she first started to think of me as less 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.200 her child and maybe more related to the woman who 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.480 gave me up. It's like she didn't understand me once 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.679 I became a teenager. We were very close to when 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.599 I was a child, but once, you know, the hormones 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.360 hit and the rebellion and all that normal teenage stuff. 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.840 She was beside herself and wanted desperately to control me 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.240 and I wasn't having it, and so she didn't know 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:06.600 what to do. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.080 Yeah, that makes so much sense. And then you're sent 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:16.120 to this institution called Saint Anne's where you're going to 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:21.040 have the baby. Do you know at that time that 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.760 you were also adopted from Saint Anne's. Did you know 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:27.640 that that's where you started out your life? 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:30.840 Yes, yes, I did know. 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.760 One thing my parents did about my adoption is I 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.679 don't ever remember not knowing, so they must have told 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:45.080 me really early on. And I was raised to feel 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.480 that I had been chosen and that it wasn't that 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:54.480 somebody didn't want me. It's that my adoptive parents wanted 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.240 a child so badly that they, you know, they went 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.920 and picked me out of all the so their children, 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.880 and that was kind of the fairy tale that they 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.040 constructed for me. I knew I had been born in 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.520 Saint Anne's because it was not far from our house, 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.080 and I think my mother must have talked about it 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.520 so that when I got pregnant, it was, you know, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.880 rather than look for some home for unwed mothers that 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.120 was at a distance, which I got. I have never 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.760 thought about this before. That might have made more sense. 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.400 She just picked this place where I had myself been born. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.360 They had a hospital ward in this facility, so it 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.520 wasn't just dorm rooms in a place to live while 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.839 you were waiting out your pregnancy. You also gave birth 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:42.800 on the premises. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.040 Karen gives birth to a son when she's just sixteen. 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.880 She holds him for only an hour, an hour that 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:57.160 feels both infinite and unbearably brief. The decision to relinquish 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.400 him has already been made. Verurse reassures her that it'll 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.480 be fine. She'll have other children. The nurse tells her. 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:10.040 Karen receives one polaroid snapshot of her child, the only 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.280 trace of him once the door closes. In the meantime, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.679 unbeknownst to her, another loss is looming. Her father has cancer, 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.240 information that's been kept from her until after she returns home. 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.120 When he dies soon after his illness is revealed to her, 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.920 she is suddenly a teenager carrying two profound absences at 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.800 once and all. Before finishing high school, Karen takes a 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.959 part time job at an office supply company. She's seventeen, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.679 her boss, Gil is thirty six. Here with Gil, her 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.760 vulnerability becomes a kind of magnet. She is raw from 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:57.040 all she's endured, grief, secrecy, shame, and Gil steps into 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:01.600 that space. There is an intoxicating world of attention and attraction, 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.120 a heady combination that distracts Karen from a sense that 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.560 something might be a miss, And in those early days, 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.320 what happens between them begins to shape the rest of 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.719 her life. 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:20.800 I was drawn to him initially because after the experience 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.600 I had with the pregnancy and giving up my son, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:30.000 I could no longer deal with teenage boys. It's like 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.240 they were a completely different species to me now. And 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.120 he was older, and he had a business, and he 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.120 was so interested in me, you know. It's like he 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.480 wanted to know what I had to say, and I 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:51.080 was so grieving. Something that I have thought since is 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:55.160 that I mistook grief for maturity. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:56.400 You know. 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.439 I thought I was a way more mature person than 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.959 I was because I had had this hard experience, and 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.800 so I didn't see the age difference. Clearly, when I 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.800 look back on what he was doing now, it seems 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.520 very clear that it was grooming. I would not have 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.560 had the language for that at the time at all. 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.600 And then also, it was the seventies and you had 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.960 Roman Polanski and you had Jack Nicholson, and you had 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:33.120 all these semi famous men running around with teenagers and 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.880 nobody thought anything of it. So there was also this 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:43.520 atmosphere of anything goes and a level of promiscuity that 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.880 disappeared once the AIDS crisis hit. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.840 So this was just ahead of that. 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.160 And again I had been through this experience and I 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:59.000 thought I was perfectly prepared to step into a life 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:00.720 with someone this month than me. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.360 So how long before you marry him? 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:11.360 Well, we lived together for I think six years, so 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.640 it's like we were married, but we didn't actually do 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.400 this ceremony until I was twenty two. 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.840 And how did your parents feel about it? Your mom, 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:23.240 because your dad had passed away. 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.760 Yeah, I think my mom. See this is sort of 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.280 a terrible thing to say about her, but I think 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.400 my mom, who never really liked him that much, she 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.040 you know, she recognized him. He was also a New Yorker, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.640 he had moved from New York to California after being 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.080 in the service, and I think she felt like she 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:49.080 had his number, but he was older. She thought he 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.880 would take care of me, and she also thought that 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.520 he would understand this experience I had gone through and 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:01.400 not think of me as spoiled goods, you know, because 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.320 I think that's the way her mind ran is she 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.920 you know, some part of her was like, well, no 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.120 man is ever going to want her like what she did, 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:15.040 and so she swallowed it, even though she was wary. 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.080 But Karen doesn't feel like spoiled goods, not at all 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.040 for starters. She feels very mature and also does not 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.560 believe her teenage pregnancy to be a disqualifying thing. Besides, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.480 Gill is intoxicating sexy. He also tells her that he'll 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.240 take care of her always, that he'll be there for 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.600 her no matter what, that as long as she's with him, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.600 she'll be safe. There are red flags waving all over 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.800 the place, but she's a teenager and she doesn't see them. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.640 There's a word I ran across when I was working 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.680 on the project that it's like the frog the boiling 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:04.000 frog metaphor, But to me, it's more specific it's called mithradatism, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:10.720 which is the process of ingesting self administering small amounts 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.280 of poison so that when you get the full dose 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:21.000 it won't affect you. I feel like I participated in 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.320 some of the things that I saw in him that 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.159 should have been huge red flags, like you know this 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.360 this sort of petty criminality, and you know, selling stolen 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:37.480 goods and having multiple identification and I thought, oh, this 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.240 just makes him interesting. He's kind of an outlaw. And 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.080 I went from seeing him that way to as I 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:50.400 got older and I had children and I grew up, 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.760 then it became clearer and clearer to me that he 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.320 was actually a very dangerous person. And I spent fourteen 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.679 years learning that lesson. So it is a long time. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.320 Karen and Gil are seven years into their relationship when 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.040 their daughter, Erin is born. Erin is followed four and 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.760 a half years later by another daughter, Amy. Gil already 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.280 has kids from his first marriage, and Karen sees him 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.080 as a loving and involved father, a huge draw given 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.800 her own father's emotional absence, so she ignores a lot 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.639 of things. There's the fact that he denies owning a gun, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:39.680 a lie. There is physical violence. Gil is regularly unfaithful, 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.200 and Karen is diagnosed with numerous venereal diseases. Even as 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.359 Gil gaslights her, telling her she must have picked them 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.000 up on toilet seats, but then he goes too far. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.960 He locks her in a broom closet. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:19:01.360 There was a breaking point because that particular incident actually 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.280 happened during a phase in which things were pretty good 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.760 between us. You know, he had gotten a new job, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.760 and he was doing well in the job, and the 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.119 kids were at a really fun age, and you know, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.520 it was cyclical. Things would be good and then they'd 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.560 be bad, and good and then bad, but they were good. 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:24.200 We were living in Marin. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.080 County and we were due to go into San Francisco 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.800 that day with the girls, just to spend the day 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.040 in the city, and they were out in the car. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.119 I was getting some stuff ready in the house to 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.880 bring in the car, and he came back in and 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.240 shoved me in the broom closet and locked it and left. 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:47.760 I cannot remember that it was precipitated by something. Perhaps 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.679 it was, but I really think it was just casual cruelty. 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.159 You know, he was annoyed for some reason that I 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.760 wasn't aware of. You know, he was always telling me 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.439 things like, get your head out of your ass. You know, 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.040 you're being dumb, you're stupid, you know, all those kinds 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.600 of criticisms. And so he, for whatever reason, did this 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.640 and then left me in there for several hours. And 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.800 I had a lot of time to think. When I 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:17.760 was in there. You know, I was a young mom. 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:19.920 I had these two young kids, I had a job, 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.240 I went to school. I never had any time to myself, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.600 and I had some time to myself in this closet. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.160 And by the end of my time there, what occurred 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.520 to me, because I couldn't think of a precipitating event, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.400 was that he didn't love me. You know, I thought, oh, 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.480 this is a revelation, he doesn't love me. But the 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:48.520 more important thing that I came to after that event 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.360 was that I realized I didn't love him anymore. And 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.440 that's what changed everything, was my falling out of love 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.480 with him. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.560 An other important revelation is soon forthcoming when Karen and 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:05.800 her family take a trip to la and stay with 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:07.679 their friends, Vinnie and his wife. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.800 We had been friends for such a long time, and 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.600 because we knew each other while we were involved with others, 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.760 we never thought of each other as for us. I 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.840 thought he was wonderful, I thought he was interesting. I 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.640 thought he was very sexy guy, very smart. I never 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.160 thought of him as someone for me, and I don't 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.640 think he necessarily thought of me as. 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:34.280 Someone for him. 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:36.920 Like I used to joke around with him that of 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.640 all my husband's friends, he's the only one that never 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.520 made a pass at me. So we didn't see each 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.920 other that way. And then on this trip, I don't 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.000 remember for sure what was going on with him and 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.680 his wife. Things weren't good between them. He was really 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.760 unhappy and I was really unhappy. And we took this 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:58.920 walk in the middle of the night because we were 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.280 making too much noise talking and we were told, you know, 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.600 or get out and go talk somewhere else, so we did, 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.520 and at some point over the course of this walk, 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:12.800 we just kind of looked at each other and it 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:18.840 was like, oh, you you know, we had no idea, 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.000 and it was really just like it was the thunderbolt. 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:28.760 And after that thunderbolt, fairly quickly you're both resolved that 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.880 you have to be together, and you both end your marriages. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:40.119 And this is when Gil, who already was such a 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.399 dangerous human. This is when he sort of kicks into 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:50.119 high gear. Yeah, and it seems like he's willing to 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:55.159 let you go, but he is definitely not willing to 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:56.920 let you go with Vinnie. 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:57.520 Right. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.560 Although I sometimes if I think about this, it was 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.480 worse because it was Vinny, but I think it wouldn't 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.119 have mattered as soon as there was somebody else in 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:11.720 the picture. 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.320 He would not have tolerated it. 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:16.879 It was a thousand times worse because it was a 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:22.280 friend of his, So that had the effect of accelerating 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.920 every awful thing he did in his effort to get 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:27.920 me to do what he wanted me to do. 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.840 So there's this night that you're on the phone with 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.960 Vinnie and you're making plans and you think that you're 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.280 in a safe space to be talking to him, and 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.040 that it comes clear that Gil has been lurking right there, 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.920 and you know, it's very sort of chilling moment. There 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:51.200 are so many places where it feels like this could 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.080 just be it right here, and you know he's kind 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.120 of like you hang up and he's muttering like what 0:23:57.160 --> 0:23:59.560 to do? What to do? What should I do? And 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:03.720 you ask him what are you thinking? And he says 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:08.040 snakes and filths, baby snakes and silts. What did that 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:09.520 mean to you? 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:13.760 I think what it meant to me is that what 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:19.440 went on in his head was so much worse than 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:23.760 anything I could have imagined. It wasn't just him him 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:26.240 lying there. He was lying on the floor with his 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:29.680 head partly into the room, and the room was dark, 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:32.440 so I didn't see him. So he had been lying 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.520 there listening, and I thought it was okay to talk 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:39.560 because he had gotten very drunk and passed out, so 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:44.520 I assumed he was asleep. And it's not like he 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:47.560 could have said to me, you know, you did this 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:51.600 terrible thing to me, or you're betraying me, or it wasn't. 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:56.760 I'm hurt, you know. I we're married and you're my 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.640 wife and we have children, and I'm hurt to discover 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:01.560 that you're doing this. 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.359 It was you're going to pay. 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:09.080 The stuff that's running through my head is all about 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:15.280 how you're going to pay. 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:29.080 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:34.760 Karen does what she has to do. She gets her 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:39.160 daughters and goes drives hours and hours away to Carlsbad, 0:25:39.440 --> 0:25:41.760 where her mother is now living in a mobile home. Park. 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:46.280 It's a kind of practice run, a rehearsal for leaving 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:51.000 Gil for good. When they arrive, her mother's reaction is blunt, 0:25:51.240 --> 0:25:55.320