Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, welcome to the studio, Cluilihold.
Speaker 2: I've been welcomed to this studio so many times.
Speaker 1: We're going to be listening to an encore presentation of
Speaker 1: The Marshes.
Speaker 2: This is one of my favorite episodes.
Speaker 1: What is it about it that you think makes it
Speaker 1: a favorite?
Speaker 2: Part of it is just Steve. I think he is
Speaker 2: like such a lovable, enjoyable person to hear from, but
Speaker 2: also just like it's one where I felt genuinely emotional
Speaker 2: in the reporting at what was unfolding, and then my
Speaker 2: hope is that we translated that into the episode itself.
Speaker 1: And this is an episode that you produced. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is with your own bare hands, well in the computer
Speaker 1: brick by brick, Yeah, I mean this was years in
Speaker 1: the making.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was at the time, it was the longest
Speaker 2: production of an episode.
Speaker 1: I think this was the first episode that we did
Speaker 1: not name after an individual but a group of people
Speaker 1: because we I don't know. By the end of the story,
Speaker 1: it felt like every single person brought something unique to
Speaker 1: it and it was everybody's heavyweight in a sense.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: All right, well, great, let's give it a listen. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to it's been a while. This is the Marshes,
Speaker 1: and I should say that at the very end of
Speaker 1: the episode, we return all these years later with an
Speaker 1: update from Steve marsh. It's not going to be what
Speaker 1: you expect. Stick around and find out. Wow, you're not
Speaker 1: going to believe what you find out. You're not going
Speaker 1: to believe what he looks like today.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what he looked like originally.
Speaker 1: But first I invite you to listen to these choice
Speaker 1: words from our sponsors that as a doctor, would you
Speaker 1: write me a reference letter for medical school?
Speaker 3: Yes, I would write a reference letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what would it say in it?
Speaker 2: It wouldn't necessarily be favorable, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a little bit favorable.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 1: Let me get you started, Okay, to whom it may concern,
Speaker 1: go ahead, you take it over.
Speaker 5: Go ahead.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: You would be a terrible doctor, the worst ever.
Speaker 3: You don't listen and you just keep going on and on.
Speaker 3: You'd be doing all the talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a doctor has to ask questions to find
Speaker 1: out the symptoms.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but you wouldn't actually listen to the answer because
Speaker 8: you don't listen. You'd be arguing with patients, talking about yourself.
Speaker 8: If you're just thinking about something else like whoa.
Speaker 1: Alex just liked one of my tweets from Gimblet Media.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is heavyweight today's episode The Marshes.
Speaker 1: I first met Steve marsh at my brother in law's wedding.
Speaker 1: In conversation that night, Steve was given to making soulful
Speaker 1: observations punctuated by the word man. Steve is a big guy,
Speaker 1: shaggy haired, and comfortable in his own skin. He's a
Speaker 1: little like the dude no matter where he is or
Speaker 1: what the occasion, he gives off the impression of wearing
Speaker 1: a comfy bathrobe flung open wide to the world. It's
Speaker 1: perhaps also worth mentioning, though, while Steve wasn't invited to
Speaker 1: the wedding per se, all the guests were both happy
Speaker 1: and unsurprised to see him. Of course, Steve would be there,
Speaker 1: and his entrance fell like a lovable Saint Bernard had
Speaker 1: just wandered into the reception hall. Would you send a
Speaker 1: wedding invitation to a Saint Bernard? Of course not, but
Speaker 1: would you be darned pleased to see one show up? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: The next time Steve and I crossed paths was at
Speaker 1: another wedding. While everyone was inside drinking and eating, I
Speaker 1: found Steve outside, standing by the Hudson River, looking preoccupied.
Speaker 1: It was there, smoking from his pack of Menthols that
Speaker 1: Steve told me about his mom and a secret she'd
Speaker 1: been carrying around in shame for almost forty years. Steve
Speaker 1: said the only reason he even knew about it was
Speaker 1: because it had slipped out by accident, and now that
Speaker 1: it had, he didn't know what to do about it.
Speaker 1: So after the wedding we set aside some time to talk.
Speaker 5: How's father had gone.
Speaker 1: Man, it's great, it's really great. Before getting into it,
Speaker 1: Eve and I catch up, he's just gotten engaged, and
Speaker 1: because he's Steve, their proposal he made was an elaborate production,
Speaker 1: involving a ring baked into a cake and an entire
Speaker 1: restaurant of people cheering. His fiancee crying makes regular guys
Speaker 1: like me look real bad.
Speaker 5: I know, man, her brothers are pissed at me too.
Speaker 5: They're like, great, job, dude.
Speaker 1: With the pleasantries out of the way, we get to
Speaker 1: the unpleasantry. His mom's secret. Steve says he first learned
Speaker 1: of it in two thousand and eight, on the fourth
Speaker 1: of July.
Speaker 5: I was riding my bike and my phone was going
Speaker 5: off like NonStop, and I thought it was like a
Speaker 5: girl or a drug dealer. It was like late, you know,
Speaker 5: it was like two in the morning. So finally I
Speaker 5: pulled my bike over and I saw I was my sister.
Speaker 5: My sister had called like fifteen or sixteen times, you know.
Speaker 1: Steve's sister, Megan Marsh was up at the family sprawling
Speaker 1: trailer lot in rural Minnesota, a place they call Marshland.
Speaker 1: On summer holiday weekends, it's tradition for the entire Marsh
Speaker 1: clan to head to Marshland to drink, hang out and
Speaker 1: just be the Marshes. Seeing all the calls from Megan,
Speaker 1: Steve worried there was trouble up at Marshland.
Speaker 5: So I called and I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 5: And she was hysterical, you know, like if you knew
Speaker 5: that we had And I was like, wait.
Speaker 3: Hold on, I'm trying to get all this out, and
Speaker 3: I'm crying and hysterical.
Speaker 1: This is Steve's sister.
Speaker 5: Megan.
Speaker 1: Between violent sobs, she explained to Steve what had happened
Speaker 1: up at Marshland. Steve's parents had gone to bed, but
Speaker 1: Megan continued to hang out with a handful of people
Speaker 1: around the bonfire.
Speaker 3: There's kibly like five seven of us sitting around the fire,
Speaker 3: and we start talking about Wigi Bords.
Speaker 1: So to keep up her end of the conversation, Megan
Speaker 1: tells the group an anecdote about her mom. How o
Speaker 1: ouiji board had accurately predicted the main facts of her
Speaker 1: mom's life. It had prophesied her future husband's initials p
Speaker 1: M for Pete Marsh as well as the amount of
Speaker 1: kids or mom would have three.
Speaker 3: And my aunt is sitting, you know, all three feet
Speaker 3: away from me, and my aunt said, well, she had
Speaker 3: four kids. And initially I'm confused. You know, I've been
Speaker 3: drinking a little bit, so it's slowly coming into my brain.
Speaker 3: What's happening. I looked down at my fingers and Cony, Stephen,
Speaker 3: me Kevin, what what are you talking about? And then
Speaker 3: I look up around the fire. Everybody stopped. Everybody's silent,
Speaker 3: and they're all staring at me.
Speaker 5: So standing in this park talking to my sister on
Speaker 5: the fourth of July, she told me that my parents
Speaker 5: had another child, that we had another sibling that they
Speaker 5: gave up for adoption years before they married.
Speaker 1: The Marsh kids were full grown adults when they learned
Speaker 1: of their full sibling, a little girl one hundred percent
Speaker 1: Marsh that their mom had named Lisha. When Steve's parents,
Speaker 1: Geene and Pete, started dating, it was just a fling,
Speaker 1: and when Jeane became pregnant, they decided to put the
Speaker 1: baby up for adoption. The unusual thing, though, is that
Speaker 1: after that, Jeane and Pete ended up staying together. Seven
Speaker 1: years later they had Steve, and now they've been married
Speaker 1: for almost fifty years. But all the while, neither of
Speaker 1: Steve's parents ever spoke of their eldest child.
Speaker 5: In my family is like shockingly open, so that the
Speaker 5: fact that they sat on this secret it was wild.
Speaker 1: It's now been years since the truth came out, and
Speaker 1: the Marshes want to do something with that truth. But
Speaker 1: Steve says procrastination is a family trait, and in this case,
Speaker 1: decades of his mother's shame has turned that procrastination into
Speaker 1: total inertia. But Lisia is never far from any of
Speaker 1: their thoughts. Megan wonders what it would be like to
Speaker 1: finally have a sister, and Steve's younger brother, Kevin wonders
Speaker 1: if Lesha's redhead like him, Kevin scans every room for
Speaker 1: red hair. And then there's Steve's dad. A few days
Speaker 1: after the secret slipped out, Steve met up with him,
Speaker 1: as he does every week.
Speaker 5: My dad is a retired truck driver and kind of
Speaker 5: a tough guy, and every Monday night we shoot shotguns
Speaker 5: together in the summertime.
Speaker 1: In the car on the way to go shooting, Steve
Speaker 1: asked his dad how often he thought about Lesha.
Speaker 5: And he said every day. And we drive it's like
Speaker 5: a half hour drive on the freeway, and about halfway there,
Speaker 5: I no, shit, man, this is like a short story thing.
Speaker 5: It's almost too corny. But there was two ducks, like
Speaker 5: two adult ducks and three little baby ducks crossing the
Speaker 5: freeway and my dad dipped like deep into the shoulder
Speaker 5: of the freeway and then recover the car, and like
Speaker 5: we waited a while and he's like, did you see
Speaker 5: me miss those ducks? And I was like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And it's one of the few times I've seen my
Speaker 5: dad cry.
Speaker 1: But as much as the Marshes think about Lisha, when
Speaker 1: it comes to actually trying to find her, they're all
Speaker 1: waiting on Steve's mom.
Speaker 5: I think my dad for as much of an alpha
Speaker 5: tough guy. I think my mom runs his shit, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: So it's kind of up to her, and I think
Speaker 5: she is scared about what maybe she'll find out, like
Speaker 5: if Licia has hard feelings about this, or if Alicia's
Speaker 5: life didn't go as well as it could have, or
Speaker 5: how Lesha will feel to meet her family that's intact
Speaker 5: and went on to have three more kids, like wouldn't
Speaker 5: that be weird?
Speaker 1: Sure, the family's intact, and as Steve explains, the marsh
Speaker 1: kids are all close and doing well now. Megan has
Speaker 1: a career as a nurse, Steve writes, and Kevin repairs
Speaker 1: home appliances. But growing up there were a lot of
Speaker 1: drugs and a lot of trouble. Kevin had a serious
Speaker 1: meth problem, and Steve and Megan drank too much. Steve
Speaker 1: almost flunked out of high school and Kevin and Megan
Speaker 1: both dropped out. There was one Christmas the Marsha's spent
Speaker 1: visiting Kevin in treatment, and one weekend Steve spent in
Speaker 1: jail because he and Kevin got into a brawl over
Speaker 1: a beastie boy CD.
Speaker 5: Just wondering, like Leisha who was raised in a totally
Speaker 5: separate environment. I just wonder what she's like. You know,
Speaker 5: our house was so loud when growing up and h like.
Speaker 5: I always thought my family's kind of weird. Like they
Speaker 5: drink windsor seven up, like it's gonna be vanishing from
Speaker 5: the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: So what what is windsor seven up?
Speaker 5: That's the Marsh family drink?
Speaker 1: Man, I pardon my ignorance.
Speaker 5: Seven and seven man. It could be seagrams too, Canadian
Speaker 5: whiskey and lemon lime soda.
Speaker 1: But finding out whether Lesha is like a Marsh steeped
Speaker 1: in windsor and chaos isn't so simple.
Speaker 5: So the hospital no longer exists.
Speaker 1: The hospital where your mom had her.
Speaker 5: Right and it was a close Catholic adoption, like my
Speaker 5: parents never met the couple that adopted Lesha.
Speaker 1: Steve has no information about where Lisha ended up. He
Speaker 1: had a friend with connections run the name Lisha Marsh
Speaker 1: through an FBI database but found nothing. It's almost certain
Speaker 1: Lisha's name isn't even Lisha anymore. Because it was a
Speaker 1: closed adoption, the only way to reach her is through
Speaker 1: the adoption agency. Steve's mom has to write Lisha a
Speaker 1: letter asking to make contact, but whenever she's trying to
Speaker 1: write in the past, her sense of shame gets the
Speaker 1: better of her.
Speaker 5: Like she wants to do it, she said she would
Speaker 5: do it, Like what do I do? You know? Like
Speaker 5: how do we make this happen?
Speaker 1: And this is why Steve has come to me. He
Speaker 1: needs a spur to action, someone who isn't a marsh
Speaker 1: to make sure the letter gets written.
Speaker 5: We could use some help. It's almost like when you
Speaker 5: want to like go to the gym or something, just
Speaker 5: like have somebody else who's going with you, like some
Speaker 5: kind of a on ability because when we talk about
Speaker 5: it as a family, and we do whenever we get together,
Speaker 5: like my parents are all game for it, but then
Speaker 5: it just doesn't happen. And it hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: Do you need to really kind of show up with
Speaker 1: a pad of paper and a pen and place it
Speaker 1: on the table in front of her.
Speaker 5: Right, like, let's do this now.
Speaker 1: And so, in a bid to do this now, I
Speaker 1: tell Steve to phone his mom and tell her to
Speaker 1: clear her schedule because his wedding friend Jonathan is boarding
Speaker 1: a plane to Minnesota and heading straight to their house
Speaker 1: to make sure she writes that letter.
Speaker 5: I just think we need a little help, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well what you need is your mother to get
Speaker 4: off her ass.
Speaker 8: Who is this guy?
Speaker 6: Just tell me again?
Speaker 1: After the break, this guy pays a visit to the
Speaker 1: marshes Hi in Minneapolis. I picked Steve up in my
Speaker 1: airport rental and we head to his parents' house for
Speaker 1: some letter writing. He's nervous, which is not helped by
Speaker 1: my economy sized car. Do you have a you have.
Speaker 5: An up room?
Speaker 1: How tall a man are you? Steve struggles to shoehorn
Speaker 1: his body into the passenger seat. If you want to
Speaker 1: send the backseat, you could. I'm sorry, but I'm so good.
Speaker 1: Although Steve says it's all good thanks to my Minnesotan
Speaker 1: to American translator app, I know that he's in fact,
Speaker 1: deeply resentful. You're gonna have to direct me because I
Speaker 1: don't know where your parents live, but wouldn't be read
Speaker 1: if they did. We arrived at Steve's parents place. It's
Speaker 1: a one story rambler, cluttered and cozy him. We settle
Speaker 1: in around the kitchen table. Pete makes his way through
Speaker 1: his daily two pots of coffee, and Jean quietly stares
Speaker 1: down at a blank piece of paper to help spur
Speaker 1: her letter writing. I ask how she and Pete first met,
Speaker 1: and Jeane becomes animated, telling me about a party at
Speaker 1: which Pete stumbled in late with a group of friends.
Speaker 1: They were all drunk.
Speaker 9: I can't remember if he kissed me on the knee
Speaker 9: and bit me in the ankle, or vice versa.
Speaker 1: That's like what the serpent did in the biblical story.
Speaker 9: I think so, and I should have never eaten that apple.
Speaker 1: Soon after, Jeane moved into a new apartment building where,
Speaker 1: in a delightful sitcom twist, Pete was living right down
Speaker 1: the hall. That Thanksgiving, Pete stopped by Jean's place drank
Speaker 1: her entire bottle of Windsor, then drunkenly proceeded to show
Speaker 1: the dinner guests is gun.
Speaker 3: Guns are no big thing for me, because I got
Speaker 3: them laying all over the place.
Speaker 1: To illustrate, Pete reaches on top of the kitchen cupboard
Speaker 1: and pulls down a forty five automatic. He places it
Speaker 1: on the table next to the pie that Steve brought.
Speaker 1: How many guns do.
Speaker 5: You have hitting around the house. There's one over on
Speaker 5: the fireplace downstairs.
Speaker 1: The party, the bottle of windsor the gun. These are
Speaker 1: all parts of the marsh family origin story that Steve
Speaker 1: knows well. But the part of the story that Steve
Speaker 1: has never heard is house parents went from a casual
Speaker 1: fling to a decade's long marriage.
Speaker 5: Him.
Speaker 9: I'm pregnant. I went home and told my mother and
Speaker 9: she flipped out on me. I remember leaving and I
Speaker 9: woods down the basement with my mother in the laundry room.
Speaker 9: I just remember running up the stairs and crying and
Speaker 9: getting in the car and driving back to my apartment
Speaker 9: because I was trash in her mind.
Speaker 1: Jeane came from a strict Catholic family. When she got pregnant,
Speaker 1: her mother told her she could only visit home after dark,
Speaker 1: carrying a coat in front of her stomach. At one
Speaker 1: point during the pregnancy, Jean slipped on the ice and
Speaker 1: had to go to the hospital for hemorrhaging.
Speaker 9: And my mother came into the hospital and said, you
Speaker 9: can't even have a baby, right. I mean, she was
Speaker 9: so disappointed in me. I don't think she ever forgave
Speaker 9: me for that. That's the one thing I said to
Speaker 9: her before she died, is I am sorry for disappointing you.
Speaker 1: Lisia was born premature, so the doctors kept her at
Speaker 1: the hospital for a week. This meant Jean ended up
Speaker 1: spending a week with her newborn daughter.
Speaker 9: I remember holding her and crying and telling her, you
Speaker 9: know that I hoped she'd have a good life and
Speaker 9: said I'm sorry that I couldn't keep her.
Speaker 1: After that week, Jean signed away her parental rights.
Speaker 9: I didn't think I could raise a child by myself.
Speaker 9: But she never said what. He never said, hey, let's
Speaker 9: get married and raise this baby or and I never
Speaker 9: said it either, But his mother, Alice, just took me
Speaker 9: in as this. You know, I felt like I was
Speaker 9: part of the family. So I felt this family loved
Speaker 9: that I wasn't getting from my own family.
Speaker 1: You know, Pete's mom told Jean how much the whole
Speaker 1: family liked her. I hoped she would be the one,
Speaker 1: and that painful time brought Geene and Pete closer. They
Speaker 1: ended up really falling in love, and eventually they did
Speaker 1: get married, and all this time, Lesha, responsible for them
Speaker 1: growing into love together, having three more kids, being a
Speaker 1: family for going on fifty years, was out there somewhere,
Speaker 1: living a different life with a different family.
Speaker 9: And I don't know that Dad and We've never sat
Speaker 9: down like this and talked about it. It's just kind
Speaker 9: of something that happened forty eight years ago.
Speaker 1: For forty eight years, gene Is quietly marked Alisha's birthday
Speaker 1: by repeating the same silent prayer. I hope she's having
Speaker 1: a good life. And it's that hope that ironically made
Speaker 1: Jeane think twice about ever searching for Lesia. She told
Speaker 1: herself that if Flicia was happy, I didn't need to
Speaker 1: disrupt that happiness by introducing her to the Marshes. And
Speaker 1: they're chaos.
Speaker 9: Our family was so loud and so you know, drug
Speaker 9: use and you know, not going to school, and it
Speaker 9: seems like there was always so much going on. Did
Speaker 9: I really want to bring somebody else into that? It
Speaker 9: was problems that I was bringing her into more problems.
Speaker 5: It was hector.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it was more than hectic. See, And I'd go
Speaker 9: do my avon door to door and somebody would say,
Speaker 9: would you like to come in for a minute, and
Speaker 9: I'd sit down, And I always said, it was like
Speaker 9: I was sitting down in their beige. You know, they
Speaker 9: had this peaceful house, neet, nothing out of place. And
Speaker 9: then I'd walk in here and it'd be like jangled.
Speaker 1: So while Steve's motivate for seeking out Lesha is pretty simple,
Speaker 1: he has a sister and he wants to meet her.
Speaker 1: For Jean, it's more complicated. Her greatest hope is that
Speaker 1: Lisha is happy and well, that she did the right
Speaker 1: thing in giving her up. But if Lisha is good,
Speaker 1: didn't fall into drugs, did do well in school, and
Speaker 1: had a good life in the Beije, then trouble wasn't
Speaker 1: something genetic, a fate that runs through the marsh blood.
Speaker 1: It was the Jene's thinking something in the parenting, her parenting.
Speaker 9: I just want I want the kids, more or less,
Speaker 9: to be prepared that she may not want anything.
Speaker 5: To do with us.
Speaker 9: I'm open to meeting her. I'm open to just pictures,
Speaker 9: open to having her tell me I'm a piece of shit.
Speaker 9: That's fine. I'm willing to do whatever she wants. It's
Speaker 9: because I feel the ball is in her court. Worst
Speaker 9: case scenario would be if sh had passed away and
Speaker 9: I never.
Speaker 1: Tried.
Speaker 5: Did you want to have pie?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 5: Should I get the ice cream? You want? Ice cream?
Speaker 1: Steve serves the mixed berry pie that he brought and
Speaker 1: turns us to the matter at hand.
Speaker 5: So do you want to try the writing the letter? Yeah,
Speaker 5: we should do it now.
Speaker 9: So yes, because your mother is a procrastinatory Oh I
Speaker 9: am too, but you probably got it from me.
Speaker 5: If Lisia's the percassionaire too, that's the only way we'll know.
Speaker 1: Jeane finds it easier to talk than to write, so
Speaker 1: Steve offers to type the letter as Jeane speaks it aloud,
Speaker 1: then she can copy it down by hand. Jean stares
Speaker 1: down at the table, trying to get started.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to say.
Speaker 9: I feel bad because we stayed together, right, and I
Speaker 9: feel like it's been forty eight years now. Why you're
Speaker 9: coming around now.
Speaker 1: Is what she'll be thinking.
Speaker 5: Oh, just say hi, how are you?
Speaker 9: I remember your name, I remember your birthday. I remember
Speaker 9: holding you and telling you that I wanted you to
Speaker 9: have a good life. Lisha. I'm stumbling for words, wondering
Speaker 9: how to, probably because it's been so many years.
Speaker 5: Wondering how to, I mean, how.
Speaker 9: To explain the fact that I haven't tried to contact
Speaker 9: you all.
Speaker 5: The I don't think we need to get that heavy.
Speaker 5: Your mom will give me a call, but also you
Speaker 5: do want to you want to acknowledge why this was
Speaker 5: meaningful to you. You know, you're like, it's tough.
Speaker 9: God, three years after you were born, your father and
Speaker 9: I were married or got back together, while we got
Speaker 9: back together right after. Oh god, see now it's all
Speaker 9: seems so stupid, but.
Speaker 5: Like you can't change the past, and you needed to
Speaker 5: live through this in order to have perspective on it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so three years after you're born, your father and I were.
Speaker 9: Married and now have two sons and a daughter who
Speaker 9: are open to make a contact, or it does open solo.
Speaker 5: I think all of us would like to meet you if, if,
Speaker 5: when you're ready. I don't think maybe it needs to
Speaker 5: be any more than that. That's good.
Speaker 9: And then just put our names.
Speaker 1: And we all watch as Gene copies the letter over
Speaker 1: by hand.
Speaker 5: He did good. Gee, thank you.
Speaker 1: Steve and I head back to the rental for a while.
Speaker 1: We just sit there. I think that they're going to
Speaker 1: get those forms off.
Speaker 5: It's going to happen this week, for sure.
Speaker 1: Really you think so?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen in the next month
Speaker 1: or the one after that, partly because Steve hasn't been
Speaker 1: spurring his mom since we all sat down in Jean's kitchen,
Speaker 1: Steve has developed second thoughts about contacting Lisha.
Speaker 11: I'm just nervous that she's like angry about the way
Speaker 11: things turned out, and I'm nervous, so like what kind
Speaker 11: of impact I'll have on my mom. I've had some
Speaker 11: conversations with friends. It's like, what are you doing this for?
Speaker 11: I don't know, like there's real potential for sadness.
Speaker 1: Two more months pass and I'm having trouble being a
Speaker 1: spur to Steve's spurring. Hey, Steve, it's Jonathan speaking, just
Speaker 1: calling to check in. I can't get a hold of anyone,
Speaker 1: mister and missus marsh this is the man who came
Speaker 1: over to your home some time ago. Another two months
Speaker 1: go by and still no movement, and so I decide
Speaker 1: that maybe it's better to just leave them be. Maybe
Speaker 1: the Marshes would rather just forget the whole thing and
Speaker 1: go back to being the same Marshes they always were.
Speaker 4: Hello, Gene, Yes, High Jonathan.
Speaker 1: And then, after a half a year of foot dragging,
Speaker 1: I unexpectedly get word that Gene has mailed the letter
Speaker 1: and the application. From there, a social worker was assigned
Speaker 1: to the case. Her job to find Lisha and ask
Speaker 1: if she's open to receiving Gene's letter, And not long
Speaker 1: after that, the social worker gave Jane an update.
Speaker 4: She got a call from Alesia and she said she
Speaker 4: was very open to seeing my letters.
Speaker 1: Okays on coffee, Yeah, I'll have a coffee, Mom, I
Speaker 1: brought Canola's and back at the Marshes to catch up.
Speaker 1: Once Alicia said she was open to seeing Jeane's letter,
Speaker 1: the social worker mailed it onto her, but after that
Speaker 1: Jean heard nothing for months. Then one afternoon at work,
Speaker 1: Jean got an email from the social worker, the subject,
Speaker 1: having read the letter You've been waiting for. Attached was
Speaker 1: a scanned copy of a letter from Lesia.
Speaker 9: Dear Jean and Pete, thank you for your patience while
Speaker 9: I formulate my first response to your letter. My name
Speaker 9: is Natalie and I grew up in a suburb of.
Speaker 1: Lesha is now Natalie, and it turns out she grew
Speaker 1: up just twenty miles from where the Marshes lived. Her
Speaker 1: adoptive parents are even graduates of the same high school
Speaker 1: as Jeanne. Growing up, Natalie always knew she was adopted,
Speaker 1: and she loved the parents who raised her Natalie is
Speaker 1: now married with two kids.
Speaker 9: The best advice I've received since I opened your letter
Speaker 9: was to take it slow. And then she sent a
Speaker 9: picture when she was a little girl.
Speaker 1: Do you see a resemblance.
Speaker 5: Oh, she's definitely a marsh man.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Dear Natalie. Pete and I were so happy to
Speaker 9: receive your letter and picture. It was truly an answer
Speaker 9: to my prayers. Let me know if you have any questions,
Speaker 9: I will try to answer them to the best of
Speaker 9: my ability.
Speaker 1: And so a correspondence begins.
Speaker 9: Your Gene and Pete. Dear Natalie, who did I get
Speaker 9: my auburn hair from? Hee was a redhead? Can I
Speaker 9: thank my una brow? When I was young? Grandfather had
Speaker 9: very bushy eyebrows, so he's probably the culprit now love
Speaker 9: Jean and Pete.
Speaker 1: Natalie is taking its low. She's cautious and Gene is
Speaker 1: following her lead. But sometimes you can get overwhelming.
Speaker 9: Dear Natalie, we want to wish you the happiest of
Speaker 9: birthdays on the seventeenth. I've wished it every year since
Speaker 9: you were born, and I'm so happy I can finally
Speaker 9: tell you. I hope someday we can meet, but until then,
Speaker 9: no You've been loved, Pete and Jene.
Speaker 1: Natalie's responses are gracious.
Speaker 9: Dear Jeane and Pete. My kids constantly asked me about
Speaker 9: the day they were born. We moms think about those
Speaker 9: moments always. Someday you will have to tell me about
Speaker 9: our day.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of some days, no specific plans.
Speaker 1: Even after months of correspondence, Gene and Natalie are still
Speaker 1: going through Stacy the social worker. They don't exchange phone numbers,
Speaker 1: they don't even know each other's email addresses. It's tentative.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean I've had a relationship with these three
Speaker 9: kids for forty years, you know, and I haven't had
Speaker 9: that with her. And sometimes that's sad, you know that
Speaker 9: we don't have that. But I think we'll get there.
Speaker 1: You want to get there? Yeah, I would like to
Speaker 1: get there. Gene finds herself staring at Natalie's picture while
Speaker 1: she's at work, idly thinking about what the little girl
Speaker 1: in the photos childhood was like, and then comes the
Speaker 1: guilt in not having been able to give her what
Speaker 1: she needed. And all the while Natalie is so close,
Speaker 1: why don't you call her up and say come out over?
Speaker 9: No, because she doesn't want that then we all don't
Speaker 9: live it to be a.
Speaker 5: One hundred years old the same time, that's true, you
Speaker 5: are going to run out of time pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Well, for Pete, it's pretty straight ahead. For Jane, it's
Speaker 1: more complicated. Jane wants Natalie to enter her life, but
Speaker 1: at the same time she worries about what Natalie will
Speaker 1: make of that life. How will Jeane be able to
Speaker 1: have Natalie over to her home. In Jeane's mind, the
Speaker 1: place is always so untidy, the grouting in the bathroom unfinished,
Speaker 1: the tiles in the entryway in need of repair. So
Speaker 1: while Jeane's wait for Natalie is filled with hope, it's
Speaker 1: also filled with fear. Time ticks by. Natalie and Jeane
Speaker 1: continue to exchange letters, and eventually Natalie decides they don't
Speaker 1: have to go through Stacy the social worker anymore. They
Speaker 1: can email each other directly, and a few months after that,
Speaker 1: Gene asks Natalie for her phone number. I just want
Speaker 1: to be able to hear your voice sometimes, Gene says,
Speaker 1: and Natalie says yes. Steve's wedding is a month away.
Speaker 1: It's been a full year since Natalie received that first letter,
Speaker 1: and Steve wants to invite her to the wedding, but
Speaker 1: Jeane doesn't think a big family event is the right
Speaker 1: setting for everyone to meet for the first time, so
Speaker 1: Gene asks Natalie if they can all go out for dinner.
Speaker 1: Natalie writes back and says, I think we can make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 4: Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1: Doggie? And today's the day. I arrive at Steve's house
Speaker 1: as he gets ready to meet Natalie for dinner. His
Speaker 1: fiance Maggie and his brother Kevin are there too. Nice
Speaker 1: to see you. I'm Jonah, Kevin, how are you good?
Speaker 1: Steve is ly Kevin a pair of jeans because Kevin
Speaker 1: was wearing shorts and feared they might not be appropriate
Speaker 1: for meeting your sister for the first time. Steve is
Speaker 1: still getting dressed.
Speaker 5: This is my only pair of clean pants at the moment.
Speaker 5: I don't want my new sister to smell me, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. That'd be awful, right, So I
Speaker 5: want to appear to be clean.
Speaker 1: Since the Marshes are worried about making a good impression,
Speaker 1: they barred me and my microphone from the dinner. This
Speaker 1: in spite of my important work documenting and interloping. Instead
Speaker 1: of saying, all of you rotten folks. I tell Steve
Speaker 1: that it's all good. Hey, I'm getting pretty good at
Speaker 1: this Minnesota talk.
Speaker 5: I think we should.
Speaker 10: Leave in five or ten minutes, okay, and we should
Speaker 10: not spoke we.
Speaker 2: Earlier.
Speaker 5: I took emon Ye've got it turns out very off.
Speaker 1: Steve has made a reservation at a pizza restaurant. On
Speaker 1: the drive there, he worries, but as usual, it isn't
Speaker 1: for himself.
Speaker 5: I worry about my mom.
Speaker 1: The worry has always been twofold. Firstly, what if Natalie's
Speaker 1: life hasn't turned out well and it's all Jeane's fault
Speaker 1: for having given her up. But based on Gene and
Speaker 1: Natalie's correspondence, Natalie has a nice husband, sweet kids, and
Speaker 1: a career that keeps her busy, flying to far off
Speaker 1: places like Mexico City and Singapore. So now, with that
Speaker 1: first worry allayed, the second worry rears its head. What
Speaker 1: if Natalie is not only not in bad shape, but
Speaker 1: in great shape, all due to Jane's lack of parenting.
Speaker 1: In other words, Steve's now worried that, as far as
Speaker 1: Jean might believe, it isn't the Jeans, it's Gene.
Speaker 5: A person with the same genetic makeup as your three kids.
Speaker 5: Who did I get all these things? So? Yeah, there's
Speaker 5: I think there's some pain there, man, Like there's some
Speaker 5: pain with my mom, like that she failed us or something,
Speaker 5: or that we failed her. Oh shit, it's six eighteen.
Speaker 5: Are we gonna make it?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Hoday, isn't it supposed to be six forty five? You
Speaker 1: guys are reading thirty six thirty? Oh but your folks
Speaker 1: will be there, are they?
Speaker 5: Our family is free, disposed towards me and late all
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 1: A few blocks from the restaurant, Steve drops me off
Speaker 1: at the side of the road. He says, they'll let
Speaker 1: me know how it goes. Okay, by you guys have fun.
Speaker 1: Later I'll learn that Pete, Jean and Megan were uncoaracteristically
Speaker 1: on time and are there to greet Natalie and her husband.
Speaker 1: When they arrive, Gina hugs Natalie and introduces her to Megan.
Speaker 1: Natalie and Megan stare at each other. They look so similar.
Speaker 1: I wish I could wear my hair like that, Natalie says,
Speaker 1: and Megan smiles. Steve, Maggie, and Kevin arrive as the
Speaker 1: table is being prepared. While they wait, they all make
Speaker 1: nervous small talk. Pete fills the silence by talking about
Speaker 1: how old his shoes are. About fishing. The others join in,
Speaker 1: talking about goldfish they've owned, the relative merits of pac
Speaker 1: Man versus misspac Man restaurants they like. They compare their heights. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the host leads them outside to a round wooden table
Speaker 1: built around a tree. The group orders pizza and wine.
Speaker 1: They all cheers. Everyone has questions for Natalie. They don't
Speaker 1: totally understand what her j but it has something to
Speaker 1: do with selling accounting software all over the world. They
Speaker 1: get the impression that she's in charge of things. Natalie
Speaker 1: has a confidence. She sits beside Kevin, who shows her
Speaker 1: a photo of himself coming in second in a hot
Speaker 1: dog eating contest. Natalie seems impressed. During the salad course,
Speaker 1: Jeane tells the story of how when Steve first found
Speaker 1: out about Natalie, he joked, thanks for keeping me mom.
Speaker 1: It's not too late. Natalie interjects, you could still be abandoned.
Speaker 1: Everyone laughs. Natalie shares the Martia's dark sense of humor.
Speaker 1: It looks like Natalie is coming to Steve's wedding. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of night where it seems like it could
Speaker 1: rain at any minute, so Jeane grabs the check. Steve
Speaker 1: sees the look on her face as she glances it
Speaker 1: over Mom. He says quietly, so Natalie won't hear. We'll
Speaker 1: help you. The kids all go home that night and
Speaker 1: request Natalie's friendship on Facebook. Jeane and Pete drive home,
Speaker 1: with Jeanne smiling all the way.
Speaker 12: When we came home that night, Pete was opening the
Speaker 12: door and I just put my hand on his shoulder
Speaker 12: and I said, you know, Dad looked out for her
Speaker 12: all these years, and so we've been blessed, We truly have.
Speaker 12: It was joyous. All the kids are so comfortable. Everybody
Speaker 12: was asking questions. There was a lot of laughter. There
Speaker 12: was a lot of you know, joking and talking, and
Speaker 12: it was very emotional.
Speaker 6: And there's still a lot of thought process there that's
Speaker 6: gonna maybe be with me all my life. But I
Speaker 6: know that she had a good life and she's got
Speaker 6: a wonderful life now. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Speaker 6: I really couldn't have.
Speaker 1: You felt like you wanted Natalie to have a good life,
Speaker 1: but that was complicated because you felt like it might
Speaker 1: reflect on your parenting in some way, So I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about that?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 7: You still have guilt, But I think I just realized
Speaker 7: that no matter what I did or didn't do, they've
Speaker 7: all grown up to be wonderful human beings and we
Speaker 7: can move on.
Speaker 1: All the things Jean had worried about, that Natalie might
Speaker 1: resent her, that the family might be too much for her,
Speaker 1: in the end didn't matter. That night at the restaurant,
Speaker 1: things were simple. They were all just happy to be together.
Speaker 1: But there's still one thing. For months, Steve's priority has
Speaker 1: been his mom's feelings, the effect all of this is
Speaker 1: having on her. All the while, though a feeling of
Speaker 1: his own was slowly taking shape. At the pizza restaurant,
Speaker 1: Steven wanted to say something to Natalie all night, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't find the words.
Speaker 10: What I really wish I would have told her is
Speaker 10: thank you man, Thank you for you you existing, like
Speaker 10: your miracle of coming to the world and the way
Speaker 10: it happened, like brought my parents back together.
Speaker 1: But then, how do you thank someone a stranger for
Speaker 1: giving your family life, for giving you life?
Speaker 5: Hey, how are you good?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: In my role as loyal spur, I've invited Stephen Natalie
Speaker 1: to my office so Steve can at least give it
Speaker 1: a try. It's the first time Steve and Natalie have
Speaker 1: gotten to talk one on one since this all began.
Speaker 13: I never thought I never thought someone would search for me.
Speaker 1: This is Natalie.
Speaker 5: Wow, He's never he never even considered that.
Speaker 1: Steve explains that during the search, the marsh is worried
Speaker 1: that they might not live up to Natalie's expectations.
Speaker 5: You know, you're you're such an accomplished person.
Speaker 13: Well, gosh, my LinkedIn profile is really doing its job
Speaker 13: of a pr major.
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, like you seem like such a funny,
Speaker 5: like even keel person, you know, like like you have
Speaker 5: a wicked sense of humor. It's just it's cool. It's cool,
Speaker 5: Like you're funny. You know, you're wearing you have an
Speaker 5: iPhone watch and you're killing it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 13: That was a gift. Everything's a gift, my husband, that's all. No,
Speaker 13: but don't put me on a pedestal. I don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: Natalie's uncomfortable with her life being held up as a
Speaker 1: success story. She tries to explain that her house had
Speaker 1: its own share of chaos. Her brother faced some of
Speaker 1: the same challenges with drugs and other troubles that the
Speaker 1: Marsh kids faced. It feels like what she's trying to
Speaker 1: say is blood parenting. I don't know why things turned
Speaker 1: out the way they have, but Steve is undeterred in
Speaker 1: his effort to offer Natalie credit, and so tentatively he
Speaker 1: gets to the thing he's been trying to say for
Speaker 1: a while now.
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like it's weird to thank somebody
Speaker 5: who didn't elect to be adopted, But like, maybe my
Speaker 5: parents would have never gotten back together if it wasn't
Speaker 5: for you. You brought them together. Like I think it
Speaker 5: was kind of a fling kind of situation and it
Speaker 5: turned into a like a forty five year marriage, you know,
Speaker 5: a fifty year Like I don't know the exact stats.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 1: Natalie can see that Steve is struggling. But she's struggling
Speaker 1: to if Steve is trying to say thanks for my life,
Speaker 1: how does she simply say you're welcome. So instead, Natalie
Speaker 1: offers thanks of her own in the way of a
Speaker 1: story about Steve's mom. In her mom, when my mom.
Speaker 13: Was around, she and I were really really close. She
Speaker 13: wanted to think, you know what you know? I wish
Speaker 13: I could think her, She kept saying, I just wish
Speaker 13: I could think her. Oh right, And when she passed
Speaker 13: away in two thousand and four, she couldn't. Yeah, So
Speaker 13: the first thing I wanted to do was do the thinking.
Speaker 13: That decision set the trajectory of my life. I'm so
Speaker 13: so lucky to be where I'm at.
Speaker 1: In the end, Steve and Natalie are both grateful for
Speaker 1: the same thing, the family that they ended up with.
Speaker 1: Everyone always asked.
Speaker 13: Well, have you ever thought of reaching out? I always
Speaker 13: had the answer, I'm like, no, I'm good. I have
Speaker 13: a great family. You know, once I open that door,
Speaker 13: I can never close it. When I received the letter,
Speaker 13: I can honestly say I didn't have this figured out,
Speaker 13: and I thought about what my path would be and
Speaker 13: if I'm on a crossroad of do I pursue this
Speaker 13: or do I let it go.
Speaker 1: As Natalie speaks, you can see a thought flashed across
Speaker 1: Steve's face. All this time, he's been trying to thank
Speaker 1: Natalie for something she didn't even decide, rather than for
Speaker 1: the thing that she did decide.
Speaker 5: When you put it like that way, when you put
Speaker 5: it like that, like you did have a choice here
Speaker 5: whether to even talk to us, you know, like like
Speaker 5: you could have been like no, you risk you open
Speaker 5: the door, like and and so yeah, I guess Natalie,
Speaker 5: I do thank you for that, man. Like the way
Speaker 5: that you've been with my mom has been super cool man,
Speaker 5: And I I thank you for that. Oh well, I
Speaker 5: like she kind of deserves like uh, I think like
Speaker 5: cool stuff in life, you know, and like you've been
Speaker 5: really cool man, that's choice.
Speaker 1: It's been two and a half years since the search
Speaker 1: for Natalie began, and in that time, Natalie's interactions with
Speaker 1: the Marshes have been based around occasions Jean's birthday, Steve's wedding.
Speaker 1: But today they're all just hanging out. Steve and his
Speaker 1: new wife, Maggie wanted to have everyone over for a
Speaker 1: backyard barbecue, even me. On our way to the yard,
Speaker 1: Steve gives me a quick tour of the house, his
Speaker 1: shelves loaded with the books. His plans is that indigenous
Speaker 1: to this area.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: Natalie shows up with her husband and two kids. Pete,
Speaker 1: the tough guy who thought about Natalie every day for
Speaker 1: almost fifty years, is there to greet them.
Speaker 5: Well, how you guys, been. Oh good, here, I gotta
Speaker 5: have a hawk absolutely oh.
Speaker 1: Shortly after, Kevin shows up with a bottle of vodka
Speaker 1: and a big bag of Frisbees.
Speaker 5: Who dotesn't play frisbee? Hey?
Speaker 1: And then Megan, who heads straight for Natalie. But there's
Speaker 1: one person who's running late.
Speaker 11: Should I call your moon and see who she is, sir?
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Jeane is still stuck at the
Speaker 1: grocery store buying some last minute stuff for the party.
Speaker 1: Classic Steve says the Marshes are unorganized, chronically late, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. Or maybe Jeane is pacing the aisles procrastinating,
Speaker 1: nervous about what Natalie might make of how the Marshes
Speaker 1: live with their ayahuasca plants and vodka Frisbees. But in
Speaker 1: the end, Jeane doesn't wait years, weeks, days, or hours.
Speaker 1: She's only late by fifteen minutes. Maybe Jeane wasn't procrastinating
Speaker 1: at all. Maybe she wanted to show up late to
Speaker 1: be the last one to walk into the backyard with
Speaker 1: everyone already there and see the whole family hanging out,
Speaker 1: joking and talking, everyone just happy to be together.
Speaker 14: Oh my god, Now that the fernitures rip turned.
Speaker 1: To its Goodwill Home.
Speaker 14: Now that the last months, Rand is scheming with the.
Speaker 10: Damage to pos take this moment to.
Speaker 1: Say he felt around for though from the baby's exit.
Speaker 5: And I got a message from Natalie yesterday. I got
Speaker 5: a text happy sibling Day. It was a sibling day yesterday.
Speaker 1: Are you guys in regular touch?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Like we have a family text thread named
Speaker 5: after the episode. It's called the Marshes. But uh, like,
Speaker 5: just my mom was over to babysit Monroe last night,
Speaker 5: your son, my son. Yeah, and uh my mom was
Speaker 5: just like on the phone with Natalie and there's Natalie.
Speaker 5: You know, they're talking about Natalie was talking about work,
Speaker 5: like they're It's just cool to see, man. You know,
Speaker 5: like my mom has a relationship with her. I have
Speaker 5: a relationship with her. I went to her son's basketball
Speaker 5: game and brought my son.
Speaker 1: It's really nice. So you're doing stuff like that.
Speaker 5: I wanted to knit our families together, you know, in
Speaker 5: a way. And I asked Natalie if she would be
Speaker 5: Monroe's godmother.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's so nice to hear. What would she say?
Speaker 5: Yeah, she was down. You know, she's like a late
Speaker 5: in the game kind of gift from the universe.
Speaker 1: That's really nice, Steve.
Speaker 5: It worked out, man. It turned out to have a
Speaker 5: really happy ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're friends as a result.
Speaker 5: And then we're friends as a result. I live here
Speaker 5: now and now you guys live in our neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, we do.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Do you want a babysit Monroe on Tuesday? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Always, that'd be great. Thanks to everyone who helped put
Speaker 1: this episode together. We'll be back next week with another
Speaker 1: Encore presentation and along with it, another update from our guest.
Speaker 1: If Emily's Emily, I mean chances are yeah, if we're round,