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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: I was three when I was kidnapped. Any age, the

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Speaker 2: day must have been a Saturday or a Sunday, because

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Speaker 2: when my grandmother and I stepped from the fabric store,

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Speaker 2: we were shocked at how dark the day had become.

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Speaker 2: So it must have been midday. Me not in school,

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Speaker 2: unless it was the summer day. Usually, whenever we shopped

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Speaker 2: for fabric store things. Whenever my grandmother shopped for fabric

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Speaker 2: store things, we went to a Michael's and a strip

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Speaker 2: mall down Highway one eighty three, just far enough for

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Speaker 2: the strip mall to seem alien impossible to get home

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Speaker 2: if I were ever left there. But on this day

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Speaker 2: we had gone to a fabric store I had never

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Speaker 2: seen before. It's name a blank stucco edifice. To me, now,

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Speaker 2: am I misremembering it?

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Speaker 3: That's Sean McCrae, award winning poet, an author of the

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Speaker 3: recent book Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, a memoir

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Speaker 3: of a kidnapping. Shane's is a story about Yes being

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Speaker 3: kidnapped by his white grandparents to keep him away from

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Speaker 3: his black father, But at its heart, it's about the

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Speaker 3: attempt to recover memory to put together the many blank

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Speaker 3: or missing pieces that were kept from him to assemble

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Speaker 3: a life and a whole complete self. I'm Danny Shapiro,

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Speaker 3: and this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept

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Speaker 3: from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the

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Speaker 3: secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 2: I suppose I could start with ground Rock, Texas, which

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Speaker 2: is where I lived from the age of almost four

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Speaker 2: until the age of ten or eleven. I lived in

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Speaker 2: a three bedroom house that was made of brick, and

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Speaker 2: the bricks were painted a very light yellow. The neighborhood

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Speaker 2: that I lived in was a suburban neighborhood, but far

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Speaker 2: away from anything that one might call a city center.

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Speaker 2: It was like a kind of stripmolish area, too far

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Speaker 2: away to walk to or anything like that. But that

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Speaker 2: was the closest to a kind of urban center near

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Speaker 2: where I lived, and so there was just a bunch

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Speaker 2: of houses across the street from me. There was the

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Speaker 2: elementary school that I ended up going to. I think

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Speaker 2: that sidewalks are now there, but when I lived there,

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Speaker 2: there weren't any sidewalks. There was a creek that I

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Speaker 2: felt sort of separated the part of the neighborhood in

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Speaker 2: which I lived from the rest of the neighborhood, or

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Speaker 2: the rest of the neighborhood beyond. This creek was a

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Speaker 2: lot larger than the part in which I lived, and

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Speaker 2: the creek, as far as I know, doesn't exist anymore.

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Speaker 2: I saw my old neighborhood about ten years ago, and

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Speaker 2: where the creek was, it seemed like it had all

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Speaker 2: been covered with cement, and so there's still a channel,

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Speaker 2: I guess for water. But when I lived there, there

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Speaker 2: was a creek with sort of these natural little rock

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Speaker 2: islands in it, and a lot of catfish and snakes,

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Speaker 2: poisonous snakes. You could kind of see the elementary school

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Speaker 2: from my house. Behind the elementary school was I don't

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Speaker 2: really know the history of this space, but it was.

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Speaker 2: It looked kind of like a ruin of a very

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Speaker 2: small settlement. There were a few houses in this kind

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Speaker 2: of large warehousey space, and it was really very very strange.

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Speaker 2: You accessed it by kind of going through a little

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Speaker 2: kind of foresty area, a large patch of which somehow

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Speaker 2: was bamboo. And on the other side of this bamboo

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Speaker 2: area were a few ruined houses. It looked as if

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Speaker 2: they had been torn up like a storm had gone

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Speaker 2: through them, but there were still remnant things that would

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Speaker 2: indicate that people had lived there, like bits of furniture

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Speaker 2: things like that, but they must have been abandoned or

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Speaker 2: whatever it was it happened to them some years before

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Speaker 2: my family moved into that area.

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Speaker 3: Did that exert a pull on you at all? You know,

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Speaker 3: that sort of abandoned area.

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Speaker 2: Visiting that space is one of the few relatively clear

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Speaker 2: memories that I have of my childhood. But now when

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Speaker 2: I think about it, it sounds like a sort of

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Speaker 2: impossible space, like how could it have been real? How

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Speaker 2: could I have ever gone there? Even though I feel

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Speaker 2: really confident that I went there, I also doubt the

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Speaker 2: possibility of it even existing. But it did exert a

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Speaker 2: pull on me. I like to explore a lot when

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Speaker 2: I was a small.

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Speaker 3: Child and tell me who you lived in the yellow.

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Speaker 2: House with my maternal grandparents, my grandmother, who was my

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Speaker 2: mother's biological mother, and my grandfather, who had adopted my

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Speaker 2: mother when my mother was I believe, thirteen years old.

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Speaker 3: So Shane is living with his grandparents. He refers to

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Speaker 3: them as mom and Dad, even though on some level

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Speaker 3: he's aware that they are his grandparents, and when his

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Speaker 3: mom a young woman who had him at just eighteen

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Speaker 3: years old, comes to visit. He calls her by her

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Speaker 3: first name, Denise.

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Speaker 2: When my mother came to visit me, I don't think

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Speaker 2: there's any way for me to know whether she felt

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Speaker 2: like my mother, because I wouldn't know what it feels like.

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Speaker 2: She's the only model that I would have, and so

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Speaker 2: particularly as a child, I guess maybe in some ways,

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Speaker 2: not just because the person that I called referred to

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Speaker 2: as my mother was my grandmother, but I was aware

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Speaker 2: that my mother was my mother, and so in a

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Speaker 2: kind of abstract way, I felt a very strong connection

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Speaker 2: to her insofar as she was my mother and I

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Speaker 2: was aware of it. I lived with her up until

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Speaker 2: I was about four. I guess most of the time.

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Speaker 3: You describe at one point sitting by the window, you know,

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Speaker 3: when you knew she was going to be coming, And

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Speaker 3: it struck me the way that you described that that

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Speaker 3: there was a kind of combination of excitement and a

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Speaker 3: kind of longing. Sure, so what was the story that

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Speaker 3: you grew up being told by your maternal grandparents about

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Speaker 3: your father and about why you were living with them

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Speaker 3: away from your family.

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Speaker 2: So my grandparents told me that the reason that I

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Speaker 2: didn't live with my father, well, really, the reason I

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Speaker 2: didn't see him, didn't really know him, was that he

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Speaker 2: didn't want me, and also that even if I were

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Speaker 2: interested in seeing him, it kind of didn't matter, because

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Speaker 2: they told me that he lived in Brazil and he

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Speaker 2: had a whole new family, other children now, and that

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Speaker 2: he just wouldn't be interested in seeing me anyway. And

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Speaker 2: they told me that I had started to live with

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Speaker 2: them when I was eighteen months old, and that they

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Speaker 2: had essentially taken me in as a favor, a favor

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Speaker 2: to my mother because she felt like she couldn't take

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Speaker 2: care of me, and since my father was out of

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Speaker 2: the picture, whatever his opinions about whether he could take

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Speaker 2: care of me, those were irrelevant. The general sense that

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Speaker 2: I was supposed to have was that my father's family

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Speaker 2: were sort of disreputable criminal. Even my grandparents had told

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Speaker 2: me the story that one of my relatives on my

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Speaker 2: father's side had one year when I was very little,

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Speaker 2: I guess it must have been one year old, had

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Speaker 2: stolen all of my Christmas presents. And I think that

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Speaker 2: that I think they told me that story just to

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Speaker 2: sort of reinforce the idea that I shouldn't even want

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Speaker 2: to have anything to do with my father's side of

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Speaker 2: the family, and I was better off not knowing them.

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Speaker 2: I should also say that, I mean, you know, as

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Speaker 2: a small child, my sense of how biology worked was

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Speaker 2: regard to parents and children really vague. But I was

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Speaker 2: aware of my father's blackness, and I was aware that

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Speaker 2: my father's blackness had something to do with my own identity,

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Speaker 2: something very significant.

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Speaker 3: And did you have a sense that that was an

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Speaker 3: issue for your grandparents.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandparents were very clear about not liking not

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Speaker 2: white people to various degrees. My grandfather was a self

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Speaker 2: identified Republican, my grandmother was a self identified Democrat. But

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Speaker 2: they could agree that not white people were not good.

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Speaker 2: That was what they wanted to communicate in various ways.

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Speaker 2: My grandmother was more subtle than my grandfather was.

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Speaker 3: But that was a point of agreement for them. Yes,

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Speaker 3: all the years that Shane lives with his grandparents, he

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Speaker 3: always sleeps with his lights on. Something's going on internally,

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Speaker 3: something that doesn't feel quite right. Always know, don't we

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Speaker 3: when something's amiss, even though we can't quite identify it.

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Speaker 3: One day in school where Shane has skipped a grade,

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Speaker 3: so He's five or six years old and already in

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Speaker 3: second grade. He draws a swastika on a white T

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Speaker 3: shirt with a black magic marker. Shane has seen swastikas

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Speaker 3: in books about World War Two in his grandparents' house,

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Speaker 3: where they admire as a Nazi military effort, so he

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Speaker 3: has no idea he's doing something that people will find troubling,

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Speaker 3: and the principal sends him home.

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Speaker 2: My grandmother in particular, felt that that was an abusive

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Speaker 2: authority to send me home for drawing swastikas all over

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Speaker 2: my shirt, which it hadn't occurred to me because I

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Speaker 2: didn't know anything about the history at all. It hadn't

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Speaker 2: occurred to me that that was a sort of offensive

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Speaker 2: thing to do. Had no idea. When I was in

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Speaker 2: elementary school, when I was asked about my father, I

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Speaker 2: would just say that I didn't have one. I felt

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Speaker 2: really strongly actually, like I just didn't Whereas by the

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Speaker 2: time I got to middle school, I started asserting that

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Speaker 2: I hated him. I didn't know him, obviously, but nonetheless,

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Speaker 2: if I were asked about him, that's what I would say.

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Speaker 3: And Shane, where was the hate coming from?

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Speaker 2: That? He was not interested in me? And so I

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Speaker 2: hated him for that, or at least thought I it.

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Speaker 3: Meanwhile, there's other hateful behavior within the wall of Shane's grandparents' home.

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Speaker 3: His grandfather is violent toward him, and when Denise comes

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Speaker 3: to visit, she sometimes asks if he wants to come

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Speaker 3: live with her instead.

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Speaker 2: Whenever my mother would ask me whether I wanted to

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Speaker 2: live with her, it was very uncomfortable because I was

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Speaker 2: aware that she was my mother and that I was

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Speaker 2: supposed to feel a particular way, and you know, I

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Speaker 2: did love her. I didn't want to hurt her feelings,

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Speaker 2: but I was also I also sort of thought of

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Speaker 2: my grandmother as my mother, and I didn't want to

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Speaker 2: leave my grandparents. And I've often wondered, you know, why

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Speaker 2: did I want to stay so desperately with these abusive people.

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't until recently that I was sort of able,

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Speaker 2: finally able to make sense of it, thinking about you know, well,

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Speaker 2: along with so many other things, this is almost certainly

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Speaker 2: a consequence of being kidnapped. That I didn't want any

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Speaker 2: sort of major change in my living arrangement. That my

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Speaker 2: anxiety about that, even though I couldn't articulate it, was

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Speaker 2: incredibly high. I was very, very anxious and also always

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Speaker 2: feeling always worried that I was going to be forced

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Speaker 2: from the particular living arrangement that I had, and so

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Speaker 2: it was always extremely stressful. I think I understand why

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Speaker 2: my mother wanted me to be aware that I could

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Speaker 2: live with her if I wanted to, but it was

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Speaker 2: always an extremely stressful interaction to me.

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Speaker 3: But during these exchanges with his mom, she never tells

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Speaker 3: him that she too had been beaten by her father

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Speaker 3: when she was younger, which makes it even more striking

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Speaker 3: that she also never asks Shane whether his grandfather is

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Speaker 3: also abusing him.

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Speaker 2: It's something that I guess to some extent I still

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Speaker 2: kind of can't really understand unless I told in my

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Speaker 2: mind that she was very desperate to please my grandfather.

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Speaker 2: There's only so much I can read in her own motives.

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Speaker 2: But I think it partly has to do with he

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Speaker 2: adopted her when she was thirteen, but he had been

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Speaker 2: living with her for by that time, like eight years

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Speaker 2: or something, and he had told her from the beginning

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Speaker 2: that if she was quote unquote good, he would adopt

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Speaker 2: her when she was thirteen, and so he kind of

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Speaker 2: loading her with worry about living up to some sort

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Speaker 2: of idea of goodness so that she could have a father,

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Speaker 2: because you know, my grandmother had kidn up my mother

221
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Speaker 2: from my mother's father when my mother was too had

222
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Speaker 2: just taken my mother and not told him where they

223
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Speaker 2: were going, and my mother didn't see him again until

224
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Speaker 2: she was about sixty when she found him. And so

225
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Speaker 2: I think that there was a lot of desire for

226
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Speaker 2: a father and a lot of worry that she would

227
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Speaker 2: be rejected by her father. And so I think that

228
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Speaker 2: when she allowed my grandparents to take me, she couldn't

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Speaker 2: allow herself to believe that it wouldn't be a safe

230
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Speaker 2: place for me for a couple of reasons that were

231
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Speaker 2: sort of reinforcing each other, because she maybe felt that

232
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Speaker 2: she couldn't take care of me herself, but she also

233
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Speaker 2: felt like, as I said, she really wanted to please

234
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Speaker 2: my grandfather.

235
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Speaker 3: We'll be right back. At age thirteen, Shane does ultimately

236
00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:12,880
Speaker 3: move in with his mother. In his adolescence, he's beginning

237
00:14:12,920 --> 00:14:15,440
Speaker 3: to stand up to his grandfather, and as a result,

238
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:19,280
Speaker 3: their relationship has become even more violent, so much so

239
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:22,640
Speaker 3: that Shane's memories of the beatings have receded into parts

240
00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:27,360
Speaker 3: of his mind. He still cannot fully access These memories

241
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 3: are blocked in ways that both cost and protect him.

242
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Speaker 3: He does remember, however, in broad hazy strokes moving in

243
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Speaker 3: with his mom.

244
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Speaker 2: Being at my mother's house is sort of like an island,

245
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Speaker 2: Like it's a visible island where I can see days

246
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,920
Speaker 2: and I can see place, and I can see arriving,

247
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:52,040
Speaker 2: you know, but it's surrounded by blackness, like there's no

248
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,920
Speaker 2: before and there's no after. I know what it was like,

249
00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:58,160
Speaker 2: you know, like physically, but I don't have any memory

250
00:14:58,160 --> 00:15:01,160
Speaker 2: of the time leading up to being with my mother.

251
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:04,440
Speaker 2: I just suddenly remember being there, but I feel like

252
00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,240
Speaker 2: I remember a long stretch of being there and then

253
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:08,920
Speaker 2: I leave and I don't remember again.

254
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Speaker 3: I mean, that's such an interesting image, and I wondered,

255
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,560
Speaker 3: I mean, do you think that you felt, briefly while

256
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:18,320
Speaker 3: you were there, a certain kind of safety that you

257
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:20,880
Speaker 3: hadn't felt before, Like did you feel safer?

258
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,880
Speaker 2: I guess I must have felt safer at my mother's house,

259
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,760
Speaker 2: but I don't know that I recall a feeling of safety.

260
00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:34,120
Speaker 2: I recall a degree of anxiety, a lot of worry.

261
00:15:34,640 --> 00:15:38,120
Speaker 2: It was just different from my grandparents' house, was I think,

262
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,680
Speaker 2: in some ways really different there, But I was only

263
00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:43,480
Speaker 2: there for a few months. But in a lot of ways,

264
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:45,640
Speaker 2: I guess actually my life was different, and I think

265
00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:46,360
Speaker 2: I was different.

266
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Speaker 3: Of course, Denise's life is different during this time too.

267
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,600
Speaker 3: She's never had a child under her roof. She's never

268
00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:57,320
Speaker 3: really had this experience of being a mother. It's a

269
00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,400
Speaker 3: struggle for her, and it turns out she isn't of

270
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:02,920
Speaker 3: taking care of Shane. She tells him that he'll have

271
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:05,760
Speaker 3: to go back to live with his grandparents, but before

272
00:16:05,800 --> 00:16:09,360
Speaker 3: he goes, she tells him something else. The truth about

273
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:11,800
Speaker 3: what happened when he was three years old, when he

274
00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 3: was kidnapped.

275
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,200
Speaker 2: So before I left my mother to return to my

276
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:21,200
Speaker 2: grandparents was when my mother told me that my grandparents

277
00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:24,160
Speaker 2: had taken me from my father without telling my father

278
00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:27,680
Speaker 2: where they were taking me. Up until this point, it

279
00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:30,160
Speaker 2: was my understanding that my father just wasn't interested in

280
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:36,200
Speaker 2: me at all, and so learning this was a shock.

281
00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:43,920
Speaker 2: But because my grandparents had so effectively raised me to

282
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:47,120
Speaker 2: have no interest in my father, and because I didn't

283
00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:50,440
Speaker 2: have any kind of memory of my time with him,

284
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,160
Speaker 2: and because I didn't have any understanding even of the timeline,

285
00:16:54,200 --> 00:16:56,240
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know that I was almost four

286
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 2: years old when my grandparents took me up. I was

287
00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:00,880
Speaker 2: eighteen months old. And because I assume, because there's such

288
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:04,320
Speaker 2: a huge conflict between reality and the story my memory

289
00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:07,200
Speaker 2: of it also, I mean, because I think the kidnapping

290
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:09,800
Speaker 2: itself is such a traumatic event, the memory is just

291
00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,080
Speaker 2: it's all gone. I mean, I did know that at

292
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,680
Speaker 2: this point, I had already decided that I didn't hate

293
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,720
Speaker 2: my father, but I didn't know what to do with that,

294
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:21,840
Speaker 2: you know, because I didn't have any contact with him still,

295
00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:24,320
Speaker 2: and so hating him or not hating him in a

296
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:28,200
Speaker 2: sense is sort of it's not exactly irrelevant, but it's

297
00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:31,439
Speaker 2: not what is its practical effect. I don't think that

298
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:34,440
Speaker 2: I stopped hating him for any particular reason. I think

299
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:36,680
Speaker 2: it was just getting a little bit older. I mean,

300
00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:39,720
Speaker 2: I wasn't, you know, still a child, but maybe sort

301
00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:42,760
Speaker 2: of beginning to think for myself a little bit helped

302
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,760
Speaker 2: me to get beyond the point where I felt like

303
00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:49,679
Speaker 2: hating my father was sort of necessary.

304
00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,600
Speaker 3: Chane's grandparents are in California at this point, and he

305
00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:58,080
Speaker 3: does end up moving back in with them. He has

306
00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:01,680
Speaker 3: nowhere else to go. The throes of so much instability

307
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:05,560
Speaker 3: Shane's early teenage years are defined by depression and flux.

308
00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:09,639
Speaker 3: When he's fourteen, his grandmother decides to leave his grandfather,

309
00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:13,000
Speaker 3: so she and Shane moved back to Salem, Oregon, back

310
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 3: where it all began. During this time, Shane becomes increasingly

311
00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:21,240
Speaker 3: curious about his father. He now has the information his

312
00:18:21,359 --> 00:18:25,040
Speaker 3: mother told him, as well as his father's name Stanley

313
00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:29,760
Speaker 3: or perhaps it's stan Lee. What he doesn't note is

314
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,760
Speaker 3: where this man is. The stories about Brazil suddenly don't

315
00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:37,080
Speaker 3: sit right. Shane begins to wonder if perhaps his father

316
00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:38,840
Speaker 3: is right here in Salem.

317
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,879
Speaker 2: I was with some friends and we were skating in

318
00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 2: an apartment complex and have been skating for some time,

319
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,919
Speaker 2: and for whatever reason, at that moment, I felt like

320
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:54,199
Speaker 2: I should look at my father. I want to know

321
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:58,280
Speaker 2: if he's still here. So I, with my friends knocked

322
00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:03,440
Speaker 2: on a stranger's door. This would have been, I guess,

323
00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:09,800
Speaker 2: probably nineteen ninety two, and it's a somewhat unusual thing

324
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:11,840
Speaker 2: to do. It's a weird thing to do now maybe,

325
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:15,040
Speaker 2: but in nineteen ninety two it wasn't completely bizarre, you know,

326
00:19:15,119 --> 00:19:18,480
Speaker 2: because there weren't cell phones, et cetera. And so I

327
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,840
Speaker 2: knocked on a stranger's door and asked if I could

328
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:25,080
Speaker 2: use her phone book. She said yes, so I, you know,

329
00:19:25,119 --> 00:19:27,080
Speaker 2: open up the white pages. I slipped around until I

330
00:19:27,119 --> 00:19:30,440
Speaker 2: got to the MS and I saw an S. McCrae,

331
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,880
Speaker 2: and then I closed the book and that was sort

332
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,760
Speaker 2: of it. I didn't write down his number or anything,

333
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:39,879
Speaker 2: but from that moment I was aware that there was

334
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 2: at least somebody who could be my father, because same initial,

335
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:46,800
Speaker 2: same last name, you know, SA. It's not a huge city,

336
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 2: so that there was somebody who could have been him

337
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,000
Speaker 2: in the town. I don't think that I sat around

338
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,200
Speaker 2: with that information for very long before I tried to

339
00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:59,199
Speaker 2: get in touch with him. I think it might have

340
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,879
Speaker 2: only been a few days. As I remember it, I

341
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,920
Speaker 2: called his number. This was at my house where I

342
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:08,800
Speaker 2: live with my grandmother. I called my father's number and

343
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:12,400
Speaker 2: my stepmother, Candace answered. Obviously at the time, I didn't

344
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:15,880
Speaker 2: know who she was, and I asked if he was there,

345
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,919
Speaker 2: and I didn't know his name exactly, you know, and

346
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:23,320
Speaker 2: so I asked if stan Lee was there, but I

347
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:26,040
Speaker 2: said it stan Lee McCrae. I said it in a

348
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 2: way that I hoped would cover the possibilities that either

349
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 2: his name was Stanley or stan middle name Lee, and

350
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 2: I tried to say any way they would do both,

351
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:40,520
Speaker 2: And so I recall my stepmother, Candace, saying hold on

352
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:42,840
Speaker 2: a minute, and putting the phone down and getting my

353
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:48,639
Speaker 2: father and talking with him. My father has a different

354
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,359
Speaker 2: memory of it, that he wasn't at home at the time,

355
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:54,280
Speaker 2: and that so that we talked later. I still feel

356
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 2: like my version of it is what happened, but you know,

357
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 2: I have to at least acknowledge that he remembers it differently.

358
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 2: And that was it. He came to see me that

359
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 2: night and then drove me around Salem, introducing me to relatives.

360
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 2: The McRae family is a pretty big and well known

361
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:14,880
Speaker 2: family in Salem, and so I knew who the mccrays were,

362
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:18,159
Speaker 2: which is I guess part of the reason that I

363
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 2: thought he would might very well still be around. And

364
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 2: so he kind of drove me around, introducing me to them.

365
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:28,040
Speaker 2: And it was a sort of bewildering time. I learned

366
00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 2: during the time that I was a kind of spectral

367
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:34,200
Speaker 2: presence in their lives and had been my whole life.

368
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:38,199
Speaker 2: Folks had talked about me. I want to say that

369
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 2: it felt like in some ways being a ghost, like

370
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,120
Speaker 2: I was inhabiting an idea of myself that had come

371
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,400
Speaker 2: before me. But of course I don't know what it's

372
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,359
Speaker 2: like to be a ghost. But that's how I would

373
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 2: That's how I would describe it, that I was walking

374
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 2: around in the place of a previous version of myself

375
00:21:54,160 --> 00:22:00,640
Speaker 2: and it was just very self dislocating and also well,

376
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 2: maybe renewing, maybe affirming. It was a strange, a strange day.

377
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:14,119
Speaker 3: Shane imagines a parallel life, a life in which he

378
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:16,879
Speaker 3: hadn't been kidnapped, in which he would have grown up

379
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:19,719
Speaker 3: in Salem and been one of them, a craze and

380
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 3: part of this big family. And then all these years later,

381
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 3: he's a late teenager and something has been restored, but

382
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 3: in something being restored, what's been taken away is thrown

383
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 3: into even starker relief.

384
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 2: I don't want to describe it in a way that's

385
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 2: too melodramatic, but you can never really, at least I

386
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 2: can never, I think, really be healed if one conceives

387
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 2: of healing, as you know, having a sense of wholeness

388
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,760
Speaker 2: in relations to in relation to the family that I

389
00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 2: didn't grow up with, and in relation to the self.

390
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 2: I could have been. I am instead, very very aware

391
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 2: of all of these lives that might be my actual

392
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 2: life and that might be, you know, have something to

393
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 2: do with my biological information, et cetera. And I'm aware

394
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 2: that I can't know any of them for sure. I

395
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 2: don't really know who I am, and I can't really

396
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,479
Speaker 2: know who I am, And partly that's the result of

397
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 2: an effort on the part of my grandparents to ensure

398
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 2: that I couldn't know. Partly that's because they had their

399
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,919
Speaker 2: own secrets that they were trying to hide from me

400
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,959
Speaker 2: and my mother, like my grandmother being married five times.

401
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 2: I remember having a conversation with my mother some time

402
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 2: after my grandmother died where my grandmother had somehow raised

403
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 2: me with an awareness. Really when I was a teenager,

404
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 2: I started to get the awareness of how many times

405
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 2: she had been married, and I had a number that

406
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 2: was one more than the number that my mother had.

407
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 2: And it turned out my number was also not all

408
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 2: of them, so that neither of us had the complete picture,

409
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 2: but our own pictures. Our pictures were different from each other's.

410
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 3: You're right that your father says to you in one

411
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 3: of your early conversations that part of why he was

412
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 3: still in Salem. Was because he always wanted you to

413
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 3: be able to find him. It was sort of the opposite,

414
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 3: if such a.

415
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 2: Thing can be.

416
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 3: It was a kind of one hundred and eighty degrees

417
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,439
Speaker 3: from the story that you had been fed by your

418
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 3: grandparents who kidnapped you. You describe him as someone very

419
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 3: kind and very much not angry, and it seems like

420
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 3: he was described in a very different way to you,

421
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,479
Speaker 3: presented as a very different kind of person.

422
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:44,679
Speaker 4: Yeah, my father is one of the calmest people that

423
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 4: I know and doesn't seem to hold any grudges, certainly

424
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to hold any grudges in any way having

425
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:54,959
Speaker 4: to do with being kidnapped.

426
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 2: I think that it was something that he had to

427
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 2: kind of live with and work through for real long

428
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 2: time before we reconnected, before I found him. My understanding

429
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 2: of it is he was really thoughtful about it, sort

430
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 2: of from the beginning. Beyond the sort of visceral, very

431
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 2: intense feelings that he and any parent would have, he

432
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: also was very I was thinking about it and being

433
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 2: aware of that. One of the reasons that he didn't

434
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 2: leave Salem is he wanted me to be able to

435
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 2: find him. I mean that means a lot to me,

436
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 2: and it meant a lot to me at the time.

437
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 2: One of the things, maybe the chief thing beyond not

438
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 2: having a real memory of my childhood and not really

439
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 2: having a childhood in my memory, is that I don't

440
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 2: have with regard to my parents. I think I have

441
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 2: a really difficult time accessing or sort of experiencing my feelings,

442
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 2: you know. And it feels like, ironically, I suppose my

443
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 2: relationship with my feelings feel like one of the reasons

444
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 2: that I have such difficulty accessing my feelings is I'm

445
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: trying to protect myself from something. It's the same mechanism

446
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,640
Speaker 2: that you know results in me having blocked so many memories.

447
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 2: It's a sort of it's the same kind of desire

448
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 2: to protect myself. So when I think about being told,

449
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 2: you know, that he hadn't left because he was hoping

450
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 2: I could find him, of course that fills me with emotion.

451
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 2: But it fills me with emotion in the way that

452
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 2: like if you're watching a glass being filled with a liquid,

453
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: I am aware, I can see it. I can see

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00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 2: the being filled with emotion happening, as opposed to I

455
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 2: am in the glass, or I am the glass you know,

456
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 2: there's something about, you know, the inability to be the glass,

457
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 2: you know, to just have to watch it happening that

458
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 2: I feel as an impoverishment. I would like to be

459
00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 2: able to experience those emotions in a more immediate way.

460
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 2: But I also feel in a sort of abstract, vague

461
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 2: way that I wouldn't know, I wouldn't be able to

462
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 2: handle them, I wouldn't know what to do with them.

463
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: And so even though I in my late forties, I'm

464
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 2: still at this stage with relate which regard to all

465
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 2: this information at which I have barely begun to sort

466
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 2: of incorporate it into my life, to sort of figure

467
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 2: out how to have some control over it or have

468
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 2: some healthiness in relation to it. I was going to

469
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 2: say to heal, but I think that's not right. I

470
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: don't think that's the right word. I think there are

471
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 2: ways in which I'm lucky that I got so good

472
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,160
Speaker 2: at blocking out memories, about blocking out sort of painful things.

473
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 2: Insofar as if I'm going to have this big, enormous

474
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 2: mess in the middle of my life, it's good that

475
00:27:55,640 --> 00:28:01,360
Speaker 2: I can live without it dominating every moment of my life.

476
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:05,360
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I am aware that it would

477
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 2: probably be a good thing to someday get to the

478
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 2: other side of it, but I don't know how. So

479
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 2: when I think about things like that, things like what

480
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 2: my father said, it's very emotional, But I'm also aware

481
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 2: of how emotional it is in a way that sort

482
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: of interferes with the full experience of the thing.

483
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, that makes perfect sense, And yet at

484
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 3: the same time, you have been able to create and

485
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 3: build a family and have a happy relationship with a

486
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 3: partner and three kids. That strikes me as an extraordinary thing,

487
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 3: Like maybe all of this is compartmentalized, but the love

488
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 3: isn't compartmentalized.

489
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 2: That's true.

490
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 3: Here's Shane reading one last passage from Pulling the Chariot

491
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 3: of the Sun.

492
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 2: My father is picking up the phone. Then his voice Hello,

493
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 2: I hadn't heard for thirteen years. Immediately like no other

494
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 2: person's voice, an accent. I couldn't place music from somewhere

495
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 2: I didn't know anymore, wavering in each syllable, even a

496
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 2: simple word like hello, loosened by music, made difficult to understand.

497
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: Though I knew he had said hello, though I had

498
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 2: heard only music, and I asked him his name.

499
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 3: Family secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly's Acre is

500
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 3: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

501
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 3: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

502
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 3: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

503
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 3: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

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00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 3: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

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00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 3: find me on Instagram at Danny Rider. And if you'd

506
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 3: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

507
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 3: check out my memoir Inheritance.

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00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.