Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, Jonathan, Hi, come on in. You should make
Speaker 1: yourself at home in the studio because it is like
Speaker 1: a sec you've been spending so much time in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually sometimes just sleep in here. It's just
Speaker 2: easier than having to go home.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you should be telling me that
Speaker 1: this might be a conversation out with hr Yeah, what
Speaker 1: are we listening to today?
Speaker 2: Speaking of the studio, Today we're going to revisit an
Speaker 2: episode that started with us sitting around in the studio.
Speaker 2: It's called a Lease.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course I love this episode.
Speaker 2: It's a really good one that came to us, as
Speaker 2: you'll hear, in an unconventional way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were trying something new. We were trying to
Speaker 1: do a call in show, but in our case that
Speaker 1: basically failed, but it succeeded because we wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: this story without it.
Speaker 2: And we have a check in with Alease at the
Speaker 2: end about what's happened since. And truly some of the
Speaker 2: wildest updates I would say of any of these update conversations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, do you have a tendency to to
Speaker 1: to skew towards clickbait, But in this case it's true
Speaker 1: it's very eventful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What else is there to say to quote?
Speaker 1: To quote?
Speaker 3: Jay Z?
Speaker 1: What more can I say?
Speaker 3: Hello?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I thought you left the studio. Yeah, let's lean.
Speaker 2: Back, let the story unfold and let.
Speaker 1: This story take us away. Oh but before any of that,
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. Hey, how is it that
Speaker 1: a seal keeps balls on their nose?
Speaker 4: Go?
Speaker 1: Now, no, no, I have something serious.
Speaker 4: If I happen to groceres in the house and I've
Speaker 4: got to paint the doors.
Speaker 1: So you're painting the door to your house? Yes, it
Speaker 1: pays the door red.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be very nice.
Speaker 1: But you know what a red door symbolizes, right, No,
Speaker 1: le rouge, there is a bordello. You're kidding, right, That's
Speaker 1: how sailors would know. They would have them down by
Speaker 1: the viewport and they would be able to know where
Speaker 1: they could kidding make whoopee for for money?
Speaker 5: Sorry, who's that?
Speaker 6: That's my neighbor.
Speaker 1: Could you ask him about the red door?
Speaker 5: Zach?
Speaker 2: I need this.
Speaker 1: From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight
Speaker 1: Today's episode, ilise.
Speaker 5: So now what happens They're just gonna call We'll see.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, get ready. For a while back, my producers
Speaker 1: and I decided to try a phone in episode. Larry King,
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh and other Goldstein esque personalities had found success
Speaker 1: with them. So why, I wondered, from the depths of
Speaker 1: my ignorance, couldn't die and so full of hubris and hope,
Speaker 1: we open the phone lines and invite the whole world
Speaker 1: to call in with a small moment from their past,
Speaker 1: something to revisit and resolve, all during the course of
Speaker 1: a five minute phone call. This is why I got
Speaker 1: into this business, the know the feeling of live radio.
Speaker 1: As I'm to learn the thing about a phone in
Speaker 1: show is that you need people to phone in and
Speaker 1: nobody is.
Speaker 2: Cause everyone's day.
Speaker 1: But just as I'm starting to wonder if Gimblet Media
Speaker 1: has forgotten to pay its telephone bill again, Oh here
Speaker 1: we go.
Speaker 2: We're answering.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 1: Hello, this is Jonathan speaking.
Speaker 4: Hi Jonathan, how's it going?
Speaker 1: It's going okay? Is this uh? What's your name?
Speaker 6: Elise?
Speaker 4: This is You're very surprised I got through. This is
Speaker 4: so exciting.
Speaker 1: I guess you really lucked out. Elise is a longtime listener,
Speaker 1: first time caller from Washington, d C. And As it
Speaker 1: turns out, her call proves not only the first of
Speaker 1: the day, but also the last. And this is not
Speaker 1: just because we don't receive any other calls. It's because
Speaker 1: I completely drawn in by the story at least tells
Speaker 1: me about herself and her dad. What's his name, Billy? Billy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I guess I basically I am estranged from
Speaker 4: my father.
Speaker 1: When Aalise was a kid, Billy was the fun parent,
Speaker 1: the one who always had hours to play with her,
Speaker 1: the guy who, in spite of being something of a
Speaker 1: macho man, gave himself over to playing beauty salon, even
Speaker 1: allowing Elise to paint his toenails. Before the estrangement, Billy
Speaker 1: and Elise were really close, which is why not having
Speaker 1: any relationship now hurts the way it does.
Speaker 4: She was my dad, Like our idea of a family
Speaker 4: vacation was to like show up in a country with
Speaker 4: no plan and like rent a car and just like
Speaker 4: drive around. And it was amazing, Like that's what that's what.
Speaker 7: Life with dad would like. It was like every day
Speaker 7: was an adventure.
Speaker 1: Even the way Billy met Alisa's mom was like something
Speaker 1: out of a movie. The first act of a film
Speaker 1: noir Billy was an Englishman driving through Chattanooga on a
Speaker 1: tourist visa when he got into a terrible car accident,
Speaker 1: and the physical therapist assigned to him was Elisa's mom.
Speaker 1: Billy was still in a wheelchair when he talked her
Speaker 1: into sneaking him out of the hospital for their first date.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon after they got married and had Elise, Billy
Speaker 1: never went back to England. Instead, he stayed with his
Speaker 1: family in Chattanooga and became a successful used car salesman.
Speaker 4: I have a lot of things in my upbringing in
Speaker 4: life with him to be very grateful for. In addition
Speaker 4: to all the craziness.
Speaker 1: In reference to her dad, Elise brings up craziness a lot,
Speaker 1: like the crazy way Billy ruined her credit by opening
Speaker 1: a business in her name, or the crazy time he
Speaker 1: drove home a brand new car only to have cops
Speaker 1: come looking for it with their guns drawn, or the
Speaker 1: crazy way he destroyed his twenty four year marriage with
Speaker 1: a series of affairs. There's one Christmas where he bailed
Speaker 1: on the family only to spend the holiday with another woman.
Speaker 1: And for all of these things, no matter how jarring
Speaker 1: or painful, Elise is found it in herself to forgive
Speaker 1: her father, but there's one thing she hasn't been able
Speaker 1: to forgive.
Speaker 4: About five years ago, he moved out of the country
Speaker 4: without telling us.
Speaker 1: Us is Elise and her mom. Elise's parents had been
Speaker 1: married her whole life, but had recently separated around the
Speaker 1: time of his disappearance. Her last good memory of her
Speaker 1: dad is watching him wave from the crowd as she
Speaker 1: crossed the stage at our college graduation. Days later, he disappeared,
Speaker 1: and disappeared is the word for it. Elise says that
Speaker 1: when she went over to his house, she found food
Speaker 1: rotting in the refrigerator and all the furniture still there.
Speaker 1: For a week, Aleist had no idea what had happened
Speaker 1: to her father, and then she received an email. It
Speaker 1: simply said he'd be gone for a little while and
Speaker 1: that email was the best way to stay in touch.
Speaker 1: There was no further explanation. The next time she heard
Speaker 1: from him was on her birthday six months later, a
Speaker 1: Christmas note. And that's more or less been the pattern
Speaker 1: for the last five years.
Speaker 4: On holidays and my birthday and stuff like that. His
Speaker 4: emails are very short, like three sentences or less, sort
Speaker 4: of happy whatever holiday it is I hope you're well,
Speaker 4: love Dad.
Speaker 1: At first, at least tried responding. She'd express some of
Speaker 1: her pain and anger in hopes of provoking a more
Speaker 1: substantial dialogue, but Billy would refuse to engage. So after
Speaker 1: an email pressing her father for answers, a few months
Speaker 1: would pass with no response, and then an email would
Speaker 1: land and Elisa's inbox wishing her a happy whatever holiday
Speaker 1: it is and hoping she's well. Love Dad, as though
Speaker 1: nothing was ever expressed and nothing was ever asked of him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Alice stopped responding to his emails entirely.
Speaker 4: We don't have a mailing address for him. I don't
Speaker 4: know if his phone number. Like the only connection I
Speaker 4: have to him is a Comcast email address.
Speaker 1: Do you do you know where he's living.
Speaker 4: He's in the Philippines, and that's all I know. My
Speaker 4: mom has a pinpoint into like a region. But like
Speaker 4: there was ever, like he never told me where he
Speaker 4: was going or why he never he never explained why
Speaker 4: he left.
Speaker 1: And this is what Elise wants, an explanation for his departure,
Speaker 1: an emotional, honest conversation where she can ask him why
Speaker 1: and what happened, Because in the five years since she
Speaker 1: last saw him, a lot has happened.
Speaker 4: He started a new family, he also has like a
Speaker 4: wife and a kid. Uh huh, And then he actually
Speaker 4: named his new daughter my name Elise.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I.
Speaker 4: Just find it so insulting. It's just such a transparent replacement,
Speaker 4: like I moved to a country and like made a
Speaker 4: new youth.
Speaker 1: So when people search for Elise on Facebook, the first
Speaker 1: result that comes up is new Elise and the page
Speaker 1: Billy made for her, which means old Elise is forced
Speaker 1: to constantly explain that this is her dad's new daughter
Speaker 1: from his new family, who also just so happens to.
Speaker 4: Have her name, Like, he just wants me to like
Speaker 4: love him and be happy with him again. But the
Speaker 4: elephant in the room is that he's living mysteriously somewhere
Speaker 4: for half a decade and we've never discussed it.
Speaker 1: At least feels like she and Billy are living in
Speaker 1: two different realities. She in the one where her father
Speaker 1: abandoned her, and he in the one where he did
Speaker 1: nothing wrong. She wants her dad to validate what she's
Speaker 1: seen and felt to understand. Otherwise, how can they move forward?
Speaker 1: Are you wanting to have a relationship with him.
Speaker 4: Pardon me, is because he's also he's like diabetic, and
Speaker 4: like he's just kind of old and sick and might
Speaker 4: die and I might never know. He's sixty five and
Speaker 4: possibly working a very physically taxing job. She was working
Speaker 4: on containerships when we first moved over, And I've been
Speaker 4: passively choosing the root of not having a relationship. But
Speaker 4: the fear and the guilt gets worse with time, and.
Speaker 1: What would what would pursuing a relationship look like?
Speaker 4: That's what I'm That's what I'm trying to figure out.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, I mean, he's my dad and I
Speaker 4: feel like he's trying to maintain a relationship with me,
Speaker 4: and I just don't know how to work past it.
Speaker 1: I know I can sometimes come across as something of
Speaker 1: a meddler, but I only decide to get involved in
Speaker 1: the business of upturning people's entire lives after hours, sometimes
Speaker 1: even days, of careful consideration. But then, I've never hosted
Speaker 1: a call in show before, and so adrenalized by the
Speaker 1: single flashing light on my switchboard and the imperial perch
Speaker 1: of my slightly elevated swivel chair, I dive in would
Speaker 1: you want me to call him up? And I say this,
Speaker 1: by the way, like with the idea that this could
Speaker 1: be a terrible, terrible idea, I'm not championing this idea.
Speaker 1: This could be a stupid idea.
Speaker 4: It's better than any of the ideas that I've had
Speaker 4: for the past five years. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 4: think it would be helpful.
Speaker 1: My idea is to serve as Elise's emotional advance scout,
Speaker 1: to call up her dad and see if he might
Speaker 1: be ready after all this time, to talk to Elise
Speaker 1: and offer some answers. Given what Elise has told me
Speaker 1: about her dad, I can't say I'm optimistic about that.
Speaker 1: But then again, I can't say I'm optimistic about anything.
Speaker 4: Good luck for the rest of your calls.
Speaker 1: No one's gonna call anyway. So no, this was a
Speaker 1: good call in show. And so it comes to pass
Speaker 1: that I email Billy. As I await his response, I
Speaker 1: imagine various scenarios. Maybe Billy will treat me like a
Speaker 1: student loan officer. Sorry, sir, you've got the wrong Billy,
Speaker 1: he might say. Or perhaps he'll try to convince me
Speaker 1: I have the story all wrong, that Elise and her
Speaker 1: mom are the real Villains. After a week and a half,
Speaker 1: I finally hear back from Billy, and his actual response
Speaker 1: is more surprising than any I might have imagined. It's
Speaker 1: just a simple note apologizing for the delay. Billy explains
Speaker 1: it's the rainy season and the Philippines and it's been
Speaker 1: messing with his Internet. But he says he really wants
Speaker 1: to talk to me. To be honest with you, He writes,
Speaker 1: you are the only hope I have of communicating with Elise. Hello,
Speaker 1: oh hi, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking.
Speaker 8: Hey Jonathan.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible evening here again, thunder and lightning. As
Speaker 3: I told you, rainy seasons.
Speaker 8: So but anyway, so Elise contacted you.
Speaker 1: Although Elise's last mine memory of her dad was at
Speaker 1: her graduation ceremony, Billy has a different final memory, and
Speaker 1: as he describes it, it was one of the most
Speaker 1: painful moments of his life. He was in the midst
Speaker 1: of the separation from Elisa's mom.
Speaker 3: I was walking out of the garage carrying a box
Speaker 3: and you can see straight into the house from the driveway.
Speaker 6: And Elise was in the dining room.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 6: When she saw me, she.
Speaker 3: Darted back into the living room, and kind of hid
Speaker 3: herself so I couldn't see her. But I know for
Speaker 3: a fact that she saw me because we made eye contact.
Speaker 1: I get that this had to have been painful for Billy,
Speaker 1: but as Elisa's interlocutor, I tell him this isn't about
Speaker 1: his pain. It's about his daughter's pain in her anger,
Speaker 1: and if they're to speak, he should be prepared for that.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that something Billy wants to hear, and
Speaker 1: I'm worried how he'll react.
Speaker 3: As far as her feeling anger on her mother's behalf,
Speaker 3: that I can assure you is completely understandable.
Speaker 1: Once again, Billy has managed to surprise me.
Speaker 3: I basically putn't it bluntly shit all over that woman
Speaker 3: on many occasions. He was one particular Sunday morning that
Speaker 3: she was up cooking breakfast and the phone rings and
Speaker 3: there's a woman on the phone. And the woman says, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is Angela. Can I speak to Billy? And my
Speaker 3: wife said, well.
Speaker 6: Who are you?
Speaker 3: And she just openly older she said, well, I'm his girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine a wife getting a owe concos of
Speaker 3: s like that on a Sunday morning in the middle
Speaker 3: of breakfast, saying I'm your husband's girlfriend.
Speaker 6: If at least broke is that with you, I can
Speaker 6: assure you that every single word that she says is accurate,
Speaker 6: and if it's not a really ugly picture, she's left
Speaker 6: something like because trust me.
Speaker 3: It's a really ugly picture.
Speaker 8: But there's absolutely nothing that I won't be completely honest
Speaker 8: and open about. The honest that I have absolutely no
Speaker 8: problem discussing anything with you.
Speaker 1: After hearing everything ALIST had to say about Billy's unwillingness
Speaker 1: to own up his refusal to engage, I was expecting
Speaker 1: the worst, but Billy seems genuinely remorseful, apologetic, and even
Speaker 1: eager to hear his daughter out. He tells me he
Speaker 1: kept his distance out of fear that at least didn't
Speaker 1: want to hear from him at all, but he thinks
Speaker 1: about her all the time.
Speaker 8: I don't know if it's because I'm getting over either.
Speaker 8: I don't know if it's this.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've lost my daughter. I don't know
Speaker 3: what it is, but I.
Speaker 6: Was really.
Speaker 3: Excited when I found out that she had reached help
Speaker 3: to you to make contact with me, because to me,
Speaker 3: that means she wants to get our relationship back, and
Speaker 3: that is desperately.
Speaker 8: What I want?
Speaker 1: Elise?
Speaker 9: Hi?
Speaker 5: How are you nice to meet you?
Speaker 1: I've invited Elise to my office in Brooklyn so that
Speaker 1: we can call her father together. It will be the
Speaker 1: first time in five years that Alise hears Billy's voice.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling very nervous? You are? Do you
Speaker 1: want some coffee? Nothing calms the Kishkas better than a
Speaker 1: nice cup of coffee. Alise declines, and we settle in
Speaker 1: for some small talk while I set up the call.
Speaker 1: As we chat, I'm struck by Elise's cultural sensitivity.
Speaker 7: Wasn't it Canada Day? Recently? It was Canada Day?
Speaker 1: Thank you? And I fumble around, incapable of an appropriately
Speaker 1: reciprocal well wish. Hmmm. We're three days after Canada Day,
Speaker 1: so that makes it the third, maybe the fourth of July. Naw,
Speaker 1: I got nothing. I tell the Lease about my conversation
Speaker 1: with Billy. How remorseful and open to talking he seemed.
Speaker 1: She's still worried, but says she wasn't even expecting things
Speaker 1: to progress this far.
Speaker 10: I'm very surprised he spoke to you. I'm very surprised
Speaker 10: he was candid with you.
Speaker 1: So that's a positive, right, and that's a change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so do you wanna shall we try this?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: Make the call? Yeah, so it's Monday, six in the evening,
Speaker 1: so it is six a m. In the Philippines. It's
Speaker 1: really yeah, Well let's try him.
Speaker 9: Okay, what.
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 1: Hello is this Bill?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: Hi Bill, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking.
Speaker 8: Hi buddy. What's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm here with Elise.
Speaker 9: He did.
Speaker 8: Hi. Hi, honey. How are you?
Speaker 7: I'm I'm good. How are you? Everything is good this end,
Speaker 7: that's good.
Speaker 8: I'm glad that you were approached Johnson. Any communication that
Speaker 8: we can get I think is really good.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm sorry it took such a long time.
Speaker 8: I just stay what I understand you what gools to work?
Speaker 8: German problems And yes things went wrong towards the end,
Speaker 8: and yes they're one fault.
Speaker 3: And if you.
Speaker 8: Think back, we shared a lot of great.
Speaker 1: But Elise isn't here to talk about the great times.
Speaker 1: She's here to talk about the bad times. In fact,
Speaker 1: she's written up some notes to make sure she doesn't
Speaker 1: leave any of her feelings or questions unsaid. The notes
Speaker 1: are in her hand, but she isn't looking at them. Instead,
Speaker 1: she speaks from the heart.
Speaker 7: Okay, I have thought about emailing you back.
Speaker 10: I've just been so angry that I didn't think it
Speaker 10: would be productive, And like.
Speaker 7: I have just wanted to, like yell at you.
Speaker 10: Or cry or cuss you out for leaving and not
Speaker 10: explaining anything. But I don't feel that like intense anger anymore.
Speaker 10: I'm sad that we don't have a relationship like we
Speaker 10: used to, but I feel like every time I let
Speaker 10: you back in and I forgive you for whatever has
Speaker 10: happened before, you end up just breaking my heart again.
Speaker 7: And I.
Speaker 10: Do find it very insulting that you gave another child
Speaker 10: my name, my verse and last name.
Speaker 7: And I don't know.
Speaker 10: I don't know what relationship we're going to have in
Speaker 10: the future. I just I had to sort of get
Speaker 10: some of this out for any of that to be possible.
Speaker 1: Billy is silent for a while. When he finally does respond,
Speaker 1: he skips right over the big question about his leaving
Speaker 1: with that explanation and focuses on the second question instead,
Speaker 1: the question of Elisa's name.
Speaker 8: Well, I can tell you that it was her mother
Speaker 8: who loves the name a leash.
Speaker 3: I should have contested and said, no, you know, leasure,
Speaker 3: we think this swam but I didn't, at least to
Speaker 3: be honest with you, and I should have done.
Speaker 8: The Filipino culture and the Filipino thinking is different. I'll
Speaker 8: give you another example. One of your favorite dogs is Charlie. Okay,
Speaker 8: I've never owned a German Shepherd over here, but we
Speaker 8: had a dog. But because of the stories that I've told,
Speaker 8: what did they call the dog?
Speaker 6: Charlie?
Speaker 1: By the look on her face, at least doesn't seem
Speaker 1: reassured by the fact that, like her Charlie, the beloved
Speaker 1: German shepherd from her chinlihood, had also been replaced. Although
Speaker 1: I haven't been to the Philippines, it feels as though
Speaker 1: Billy is throwing an entire country under the bus to
Speaker 1: save his own hide. In the silence, I try to
Speaker 1: bring things back to what I think is Billy's strongest suit,
Speaker 1: his seemingly renewed capacity for repentance. I want the least
Speaker 1: to hear what I heard in Billy during our first conversation,
Speaker 1: so I try to steer things in that direction.
Speaker 3: Bill.
Speaker 1: You know you you you mentioned feeling regret. What would
Speaker 1: you do differently if you had a chance to do
Speaker 1: things over.
Speaker 8: I don't think that the final outcome would change much
Speaker 8: to be honest with you, But I should have called
Speaker 8: for a family meeting, and I should have gone over
Speaker 8: it in detail, with times and dates and plans.
Speaker 1: A family meeting about leaving your family was not the
Speaker 1: do over I was expecting. After having heard the level
Speaker 1: of Old Testament shame head express in our first phone call,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that Billy's now talking in the language of
Speaker 1: meetings and launch dates. Alice stares down at the floor.
Speaker 1: She looks at me. Billy's not giving her what she needs,
Speaker 1: so she puts it to him as directly as she.
Speaker 10: Can, Like, you have to understand that you just disappeared
Speaker 10: and I had no context. Like I want to know
Speaker 10: what you were thinking when you left, and like why
Speaker 10: you left, so like what happened?
Speaker 8: Well, there are lots of things that I would like
Speaker 8: to explain to you. Is dogging.
Speaker 10: Is that I'm here, I'm listening. If there's anything you
Speaker 10: want to say.
Speaker 8: Well, there were several several things that happened at last.
Speaker 8: It's a long story that I would like to explain
Speaker 8: to you step by step. Got kind of a really
Speaker 8: busy schedule today.
Speaker 7: Is there any like brief overview?
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, honey, I can answer your questions. I have
Speaker 8: an explanation, you know, for what happened, and I would
Speaker 8: be more than happy to explain it to you in detail.
Speaker 1: But then nothing. The conversation goes round and round. Billy
Speaker 1: reassures a Lease that he has explanations, explanations of every
Speaker 1: length and level of detail. It's just that he never
Speaker 1: actually shares.
Speaker 8: Any happy to do that. Every question that you may.
Speaker 7: Have, is there anything you've wanted to say to me?
Speaker 8: There won't be a question that you will ask me
Speaker 8: that I won't answer.
Speaker 10: Like right now, you're just telling me that you're going
Speaker 10: to tell me, like do you have anything to have?
Speaker 1: Billy likes to talk about talking about hard things, but
Speaker 1: not actually talking about them. Still, a Lease keeps pushing.
Speaker 7: I understand that it's very painful for you, but I.
Speaker 10: There have been so many times when we've just glossed
Speaker 10: over insane things that have happened, penned crazy things.
Speaker 8: I understand that there's got to be explanations for things,
Speaker 8: support said and options, support clothing, and things that got done.
Speaker 8: And then when all of that is done, you a
Speaker 8: Lass asked her last question, and I have told her
Speaker 8: every single.
Speaker 2: Thing that I want to call her.
Speaker 1: Billy's not making any headway talking about the past, so
Speaker 1: he turns the conversation to the future.
Speaker 8: I'm really hoping that the poor idea she leave this
Speaker 8: place and I get to see you.
Speaker 3: That wish for a more, cos.
Speaker 8: I don't want to die without seeing you.
Speaker 3: I really don't.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't. I don't want that either.
Speaker 1: And with that, Alise's hands fall into her lap. As
Speaker 1: an interlocutor, there isn't much for me to do. At least,
Speaker 1: here's what Billy is saying and not saying, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't need any help to understand. So I do the
Speaker 1: only thing I can. I sit beside her, commiserating with
Speaker 1: raised eyebrows and puzzled looks, saying without words, I see
Speaker 1: the same things you do, and it's not you. For
Speaker 1: the rest of the call, at least stays quiet and
Speaker 1: allows Billy to talk, though it feels as though he's
Speaker 1: mostly talking to himself.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't be ill place.
Speaker 8: Don't look backwards anymore, honey, don't go backwards.
Speaker 3: There's too much pain back there.
Speaker 8: Don't go back there. Yes, just outwards form because that
Speaker 8: happened back then.
Speaker 11: But let's go.
Speaker 8: It's just so painful. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
Speaker 1: As Billy tries to push away the past while cowering
Speaker 1: from the future, the present takes hold the when Billy
Speaker 1: can't deny.
Speaker 8: I am totally.
Speaker 3: Okay. Just wait one minutely than on the front, I
Speaker 3: know I'm totally totally responsible for.
Speaker 8: And so, but if there are any other.
Speaker 3: Explanations that I should give to you, least you know,
Speaker 3: I'll be more than happy to do that.
Speaker 8: So I will be more than happy to spend my
Speaker 8: evening starting to explain that to you.
Speaker 1: Billy promises that that evening he'll send a lease an email,
Speaker 1: an email that will explain everything. But it never arrives,
Speaker 1: not that night, or the next, or any night in
Speaker 1: the months that follow.
Speaker 8: I will email you later today, okay.
Speaker 3: Luc Yeah, okay, well, Luce, thank you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Bill, Well, have a good rest of the day.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks for thanks for talking Dad. I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Okay, I have a great day, Honey.
Speaker 7: You too, thank you.
Speaker 9: Bye, Okay, how you doing.
Speaker 1: Once we're off the phone, Alise and I go over
Speaker 1: what just happened. She tells me she felt steamrolled, and
Speaker 1: I tell her that I felt it too.
Speaker 10: I wasn't really sure what I wanted to get out
Speaker 10: of it. I don't think that everyone gets sort of
Speaker 10: equally agreeable, compromised ending. But for a long time I
Speaker 10: felt like the burden of us not having a relationship
Speaker 10: was on me because he would email and I would
Speaker 10: never respond, and that was kind of the end of it.
Speaker 10: And I feel like, now that I have tried to
Speaker 10: contact him, like the burden of us not having whatever
Speaker 10: relationship I think we should have is not as much
Speaker 10: on me. I feel a lot less guilt now. Will
Speaker 10: never be as close as it sounds like he wanted
Speaker 10: us to be. I don't think that's likely, and like
Speaker 10: maybe it's okay that I don't push for that. I
Speaker 10: think he creates his own universe like I lived. I
Speaker 10: was a permanent resident of like Billy World for a
Speaker 10: number of years, and I was glad to get off
Speaker 10: the ride. Like you don't get to live in the university.
Speaker 10: You create and expect it not to affect other.
Speaker 1: People, and other people have been affected. In recent months,
Speaker 1: Elise has been corresponding with a British man named Martin,
Speaker 1: and Martin was able to help Alise answer the question
Speaker 1: of why her father left in a way that Billy
Speaker 1: himself couldn't. Martin believes he's Billy's son, born before Billy
Speaker 1: left England for Chattanooga. So, unlike Elise, Martin grew up
Speaker 1: without a father, because, like Alise, one day, without warning,
Speaker 1: his father left, moved to another country and started another family.
Speaker 1: And from what Martin is saying, he's not the only one.
Speaker 1: There's another man living in England, he tells her, who
Speaker 1: also believes that Billy is his father. The two of
Speaker 1: them have been trying to reach Billy for years. In fact,
Speaker 1: it turns out that Martin and Elise have brushed against
Speaker 1: each other before, a long time ago, when Elise was
Speaker 1: growing up. She remembers the home phone ringing, usually around
Speaker 1: the holidays, and a young man with her father's accent
Speaker 1: on the line asking to speak to Billy. Back then,
Speaker 1: Billy said Martin was a distant cousin, And all these
Speaker 1: years later, Martin still feels like he's being pushed away.
Speaker 1: He just wants Billy to acknowledge him. In learning about
Speaker 1: Martin and her other possible half brother, how her story
Speaker 1: has repeated itself over and over, Alise has found the
Speaker 1: answer she needed. The answer Billy himself was never able
Speaker 1: to give her. It isn't about her or about Martin
Speaker 1: or anyone else. The reason Billy did what Billy did
Speaker 1: is because that's what Billy does. Martin and the other
Speaker 1: possible half brother are planning to take a DNA test,
Speaker 1: and they'd like a lease to take one too. If
Speaker 1: their DNA matches hers, Martin says it's all the proof
Speaker 1: they'll need. Billy will have to accept them as his own.
Speaker 1: When I talked to her on the phone about it
Speaker 1: later on, Eli says she isn't sure a DNA test
Speaker 1: will give Martin the thing he's looking for, but she
Speaker 1: does want to help.
Speaker 12: Knowing how much I wanted to closure, it would definitely
Speaker 12: be good to be able to provide him some.
Speaker 1: So the next time she and Martin speak, she'll offer
Speaker 1: him this.
Speaker 12: Whatever relationship you have in your head that you want
Speaker 12: with him is probably not possible, and I can confirm
Speaker 12: that you're genetically related, but that doesn't guarantee that he
Speaker 12: will be a presence in your life in a way
Speaker 12: that you want, because he's not able to do that
Speaker 12: for me.
Speaker 1: In other words, Alise will tell Martin, I see the
Speaker 1: same things you do and it's not you. A few
Speaker 1: months after our call with her father, Alise and I
Speaker 1: check back in. She tells me she still hasn't heard
Speaker 1: from Billy, but she suspects that around the holidays, like always,
Speaker 1: she'll get that three sentence email, and when she does,
Speaker 1: this time she'll write him back happy whatever holiday it is,
Speaker 1: she'll write, hope you're well, Love Elise.
Speaker 12: Now that the.
Speaker 3: Third atures returning to its goodwill.
Speaker 1: Home, Now that the last month's RNT is skiming with
Speaker 1: the dam problem, take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 9: If we meant him, if we tried to.
Speaker 1: Remember, felt around.
Speaker 4: For far too months.
Speaker 1: To Elise, Hi, how are you.
Speaker 7: Good?
Speaker 1: Do you have another room? It's it sounds very roomy,
Speaker 1: which which is a good quality for a room normally.
Speaker 8: But not for recording.
Speaker 11: Let me, I'm going to go I think sitting on
Speaker 11: the floor in our closet.
Speaker 1: That's the spirit.
Speaker 7: It's going to take me a second to me, so
Speaker 7: just totally.
Speaker 1: Take take your time. This is a very big thing
Speaker 1: that I'm asking of you.
Speaker 4: She hold on, don't put her in.
Speaker 7: The grate because that's where I'm gonna be.
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, can you hear me now?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for your indulgence. Who were you
Speaker 1: explaining to that you were headed for the closet?
Speaker 7: He actually was.
Speaker 11: Thinking about it because it's been like eight years since
Speaker 11: we first chatted.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 11: When we first chatted, I had just started dating him
Speaker 11: and he's not my husband.
Speaker 1: Oh cool and sorry. One last unrelated question the crating
Speaker 1: was that a dog you were talking about? Yes, thank god?
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 11: I'm good. I have a number of updates about dad. Oh,
Speaker 11: things have transpired. So there was eventually a younger sibling
Speaker 11: in the Philippines from a different woman.
Speaker 1: Wait sorry, wait, we're talking about little elies.
Speaker 11: No, there was another one after that.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, and she was the last.
Speaker 11: Woman he took up with romantically, was younger than me.
Speaker 11: Her name is Faith.
Speaker 1: How did you learn about this development? Have you and
Speaker 1: your father been in touch very little, like birthdays and
Speaker 1: Christmas kind of thing.
Speaker 11: Yeah, maybe even less frequent than he had been doing beforehand.
Speaker 11: And then at some point between then and twenty twenty four,
Speaker 11: I can't remember exactly when his lack of legal immigration
Speaker 11: status and the Philippines did eventually catch up to him
Speaker 11: and they put him in prison, like in detention essentially
Speaker 11: for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: For he was in prison for a couple of years. Yes,
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, Yes, wow, I.
Speaker 3: Does it?
Speaker 1: Does it even make sense? I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about Filipino law that being there legally would have
Speaker 1: been enough to put a person in prison for two years.
Speaker 1: Do you think maybe there's more to the story.
Speaker 11: I think it's very possible, because I feel like I
Speaker 11: remember Faith saying to mom that he was getting charged
Speaker 11: with like additional other things that she was so sure
Speaker 11: he didn't do, and me and my mom were like,
Speaker 11: it's much more likely that he did them.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 1: So how old a man was he at the time
Speaker 1: that they were that he was sent to prison.
Speaker 11: Probably in his seventies at that point, or like just
Speaker 11: close to. Then eventually they did deport him to Guam.
Speaker 11: He eventually ended up in Thailand, and then in fall
Speaker 11: of twenty twenty four, the US embassy started reaching out
Speaker 11: to me because he had been hospitalized in Thailand. This
Speaker 11: is all of this is going to sound very terrible
Speaker 11: to say, but you know, when he was in prison
Speaker 11: and in the hospital, like at least I knew where
Speaker 11: he was, and then I think presumably his medical stuff
Speaker 11: continued to devolve, and then in early essentially just over
Speaker 11: a year ago, he passed away in Thailand.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry.
Speaker 11: Very mixed feelings.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I actually have his ashes and.
Speaker 11: I don't know what to do with them right now.
Speaker 1: And what is the feeling of of having them there?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like, I mean, do you have any
Speaker 1: feelings left?
Speaker 11: It's I was because I after you all reached out,
Speaker 11: I went back and listened to the initial podcast reporting
Speaker 11: and I remember immediately after because we recorded that it
Speaker 11: sort of ended with the phone conversation that you facilitated
Speaker 11: between the two of us, and then within a couple
Speaker 11: of hours that I was driving back from New York
Speaker 11: to DC, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed emotionally. I
Speaker 11: was feeling I think mostly anger at that point because
Speaker 11: I felt so stonewalled and like I couldn't really break
Speaker 11: through to him in any meaningful way. And I remember
Speaker 11: feeling like my heart was racing.
Speaker 7: I was so.
Speaker 11: Angry and sad, and I stopped at like a rest
Speaker 11: stop and called my mom and tried to like work
Speaker 11: through my feelings because I didn't want to drive in
Speaker 11: a rage.
Speaker 7: For three more hours.
Speaker 11: I think I had grieved our relationship so much at
Speaker 11: that point that with his passing, it was more of
Speaker 11: a okay, this is over.
Speaker 1: Do you think that conversation where we called him up?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think ultimately it was helpful.
Speaker 11: I think it was helpful in.
Speaker 10: Showing me.
Speaker 11: That our relationship, like in many ways, was effectively over
Speaker 11: and that that was unlikely to change. I'm sure there
Speaker 11: are small things that I could have done differently, but
Speaker 11: I don't think there was any I don't think I
Speaker 11: could have behaved in such a way that I got
Speaker 11: my dad back in any meaningful way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Story ends up, you know, with the story of Martin.
Speaker 1: What what became of that? Did you do the Yeah?
Speaker 11: I haven't done. Yeah, I haven't done any DNA testing.
Speaker 11: More from like a data privacy concern.
Speaker 1: Is that the only thing that keeps you from doing it?
Speaker 11: I mean I'm sure there, I'm sure there are other
Speaker 11: uninspected reasons. Yeah, I've clearly never made the effort to
Speaker 11: do it, which is I guess a signal in and
Speaker 11: of itself.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I mean just generally, like top line, things are good.
Speaker 1: You're doing okay you guys? Yeah, I mean, your husband,
Speaker 1: your dog, Thanks.
Speaker 11: Were great. I'm so glad the dat updates are all wild,
Speaker 11: but I'm grateful for my personal life being relatively stable.
Speaker 1: Thanks Elise, you may exit the closet now.
Speaker 11: Excellent. Thank you, it was good to catch up.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in two weeks time with something a little different.
Speaker 1: You might even say wildly different. You might say it's
Speaker 1: something of a wild card.
Speaker 3: Oh.
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