WEBVTT - Strangers 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.880 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.480 Were there red flags? The subtle or not subtle warnings 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.760 I should have seen before we married? The ones people 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.319 ask me about now, wanting something, anything to prove that 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.279 our fate could have been predicted, that the same thing 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.520 couldn't happen to them. Maybe the shift and personality at Kenyon, 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.280 Maybe the arrests and the breaking of girls' hearts, Maybe 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.239 his tendency to direct and mind to follow. Maybe the 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.280 untold tale of his father. But these felt like stories 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.440 of a rebellious boy becoming a responsible man, the normal 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.520 mysteries of a three dimensional human being. There is nothing 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.360 I look back on now and say, how could I 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.400 have missed that? Other couples I knew then and know 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:57.680 now had many more flags, redder flags, and they stayed married. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.720 And doesn't it all look different? Wouldn't your own story 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.840 look different if you knew how it was going to end? 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.840 That's Bell Burden, attorney and author of the recent book Strangers, 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:16.520 a memoir of a marriage. Bell's story is, on its surface, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.040 one of privilege. That's a word that gets a lot 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.880 of play these days, privilege. But privilege does not protect 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.360 us from pain. The pain of loneliness, the pain of 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.120 a solitary childhood, the weight of expectations that do not 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.840 come from our own deepest longings, but rather from a 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.280 sense of the way it's supposed to be. It's also 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.200 a book about following an intricate choreography set out for 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.160 us at birth, and what happens when the dance steps 0:01:47.400 --> 0:02:04.600 completely change on us. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.720 family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.560 secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:20.760 from ourselves. Bell tell me about the landscape of your childhood, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.880 your early memories, where you lived, what it was like, 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:25.880 the atmosphere surrounding you. 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.400 My parents got divorced when I was two, and I 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.560 can't remember a time before that. I always remember them 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.440 being divorced, and I mostly lived at my mother's apartment, 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.639 which was on East eighty fourth Street, and my father 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.680 lived on East fifty second Street. Both of them lived 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.040 all the way over by the East River, and I 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.760 only got to see my father every other weekend. That 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.960 was typical custody arrangement of the nineteen seventies. And at 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.680 my mother's apartment, I lived with my brother, my mother, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:02.600 and always live in nanny working and my brother was 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.920 often playing Atari video games, which had just been invented. 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.920 And I remember in that house feeling lonely a lot, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.400 and I had the nannies that I had were not 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.680 the nicest people. So I think of my childhood as 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.600 a happy time but also a lonely time. When I 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.040 saw my father and my stepmother every other weekend, I 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.000 loved being with them, but it was sporadic. I went 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.240 to school on the Upper East Side, a private girls 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.640 school called Spence, and I started there in first grade 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.800 and had some friends there, but it was socially a 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.640 challenging place, especially in middle school, which tends to be 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.800 difficult too. And I was very quiet, very not cool 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.240 is what I would say, nerdy. And I also lived 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.120 all the way east and the school was on Madison Avenue, 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.760 so I did not feel very much in that social world, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.080 and I think in living all the way over there, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.280 it was very quiet and it didn't really feel like 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.080 the swirl of New York because you had to walk 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.600 several blocks even to get to a subway. But in 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.320 seventh grade, girls in my class started to become very 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.440 sophisticated started to go to Studio fifty four to really 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:24.600 go out at night, and I was not like that. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:29.160 I couldn't really figure out how to be social in 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.960 that way. I was home baking cookies, that was what 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.599 I did, and I was reading. I just remember a 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.960 lot of quiet. I remember the first book I really like, 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.159 long book that I really got so absorbed in was 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.640 Harriet the Spy and I remember reading it on the 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.200 floor of my bedroom and I just consumed the whole thing, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.120 I think in one sitting, and I really felt like 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.400 I knew her. I remember that feeling so clearly. And 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.839 then Judy Bloom books, even Encyclopedia Brown, and I really 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.159 escaped into books and they became very meaningful to me. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:05.880 And you did well in school. 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.200 I did well in school, except that in every single class, 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.880 every report card, the teacher said that I was bright 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:17.960 and doing well, but that I needed to speak in class. 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.800 I never spoke in class. And this continued through high school. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.279 I went to boarding school, and it is a school 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.560 with oval tables, called the Harkness Method. Even math is 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.960 taught around an oval table. And I really had a 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.160 lot of trouble speaking. I would overthink and my face 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.599 would turn bright red, and it became so important what 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.640 I was going to say because I hadn't said anything 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.640 and so long, and then it became too hard to 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.440 actually say it. So that really defined my academic life. 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.120 But I was very conscientious. I did my homework on 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.479 Friday afternoons for the weekend. I worked very hard in 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.080 high school. And in high school is really where I 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.720 started writing, and was nurchured by a couple of extraordinary 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:06.120 teachers who could see that writing was maybe a path, 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.400 not out of shyness, but just a way to access 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.800 me and for me to express myself since I wasn't 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:16.679 very comfortable doing it verbally. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.840 And in boarding school were there a lot of social 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:26.040 rules and more rays the same way that there were 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.240 expense even if they were different, or what was the 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:29.920 social aspect of being in high school? 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.840 The social aspect was actually incredible for me because it's 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.880 a big boarding school, Exeter in New Hampshire, and I 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:42.360 found my people there. It was a place that rewarded academics. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.440 It didn't feel like there was a real social hierarchy. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.120 I was put into a very small dorm and a 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.719 group of us became very very close friends. It took 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.000 a while the first two months I was very homesick 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.600 and I was too afraid to go to the dining hall, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.560 so I lived on David's cookies, which were the popular 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.040 cookies in New York that my stepmother used to send me. 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.200 And then I started making friends in the dorm and 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.800 we were different ages. Two were older, one in my class, 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.720 and two were younger, and they became like sisters for 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.880 me because we grew up together, living together in this 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.920 very intimate way when you're not living at home and 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.360 academically it was. It was really wonderful for me. So 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.640 I did not feel the social pressure there or the 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:36.000 social failure there. I felt very much understood and like 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:37.080 I was in the right place. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.640 That's such a gift when that happens. Yes, I wonder too. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.760 You write about the burden family trade of temper, yes, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.560 and how you did not exhibit that trait but you 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.080 were surrounded by it. So was it also just kind 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.520 of good to be on your own, kind of developing 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.720 that whole, like the whole in Loco parentis aspect of 0:07:58.760 --> 0:07:59.480 boarding school. 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.440 Yes, it was. I think volatile is not is too 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:08.520 strong of a word. But my father definitely had moods 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.320 and emotions and would have temper tantrums that were more 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.280 like a child's temper tantrum of getting his way, and 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:21.200 my brother was similar, had bad moods and tempers. And 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.760 I think that I was born very quiet, but I 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.720 think that I became quieter in that and very watchful, 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:34.160 more observant. And my mom, at that point before I 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.960 went to boarding school, had gotten divorced for the second time, 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.160 and I loved my stepfather and that was a really 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.880 hard loss to have that marriage end, and she started 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.720 dating again, which is exactly what she should do, but 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.200 that was hard for me. In the couple years before 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:56.760 I left that there were new relationships and relationships ending, 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.960 and so again I wouldn't characterize it as volatile, but 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.920 it was changeable and unpredictable, and I think going away 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.760 at that point was the best thing for me. It 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.040 was a calmer and more predictable atmosphere for me. 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.440 Bell grows up in New York in a family that, 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.720 from the outside, has a sparkly public presence. Her mother's 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.640 life sometimes appears in the society pages, and her stepfather 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.360 moves through the world as a public figure, But inside 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.640 the apartment, Bell doesn't feel like she's living in a fishbowl. 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.840 This is long before the Internet, before the constant gaze 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:40.160 of social media. Whatever attention exists in the wider world 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:45.240 barely registers in her childhood. The family's public reputation is 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.920 simply not something she's aware of. What she is aware 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.840 of is her own inner life, especially her love of writing. 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.560 When she arrives at college Harvard, she as just a freshman, 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.880 gets accepted into a competitive writing work shop. For a moment, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.640 it feels like the beginning of something, something true, and 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:10.120 something she can lay claim to. But then, during a 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:15.480 class critique, a fellow student named Greg mesodically dismantles her 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.760 story submission in front of everyone. The teacher says nothing. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.319 The room stays quiet, and in that silence, something closes 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.960 inside her. The possibility that writing might be her path 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.120 suddenly feels out of reach, as if a door she 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.040 had just opened has been slammed shut. 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.080 It was really painful because I think in high school 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.959 we can form an identity, and being a writer became 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.760 a really important part of who I thought I was 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.000 and who I thought I was going to be. And 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.560 I arrived at college so hopeful about it and excited 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:55.360 to get into that class, and he did tear it apart. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.920 I remember not so much him having concrete criticisms of 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:05.000 the piece, which was a short story, but really raising 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.840 it to the level of my writing as a whole, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.520 my talent. And I had to check with a friend 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:13.360 to make sure who was in the class with me, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.839 to make sure that I was not, you know, making 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.840 this more dramatic or fabricating it in any way, and 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:23.000 that friend said, indeed happened. What I think about now 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.160 is the fact that he probably thought about it for 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.440 maybe two minutes after the class. You know, that was 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.480 just something that he did. He was four years older, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.440 and maybe because he was male, and because he spoke 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:44.199 with such authority and confidence that I took it as 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:50.000 the truth rather than one person's opinion. And the fact 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.080 that he said it really wasn't the problem. The fact 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.880 that I believed it and changed the course of my 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.760 life because of it is really the problem. And I 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:03.120 have daughters that are that age now college age, and 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.480 it would horrify me if they changed what they believed 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.240 was their passion and talent because of what one person said. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.160 So I think it's an important story for people to hear. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.760 I think what's interesting is that other people I know 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.040 have a similar story, but in different fields, maybe a 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.640 boss saying something. But yes, I stopped writing. I got 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.400 through the class. I think I wrote a couple more pieces, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.679 but my heart was not in it anymore. And it 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.520 was one semester and after that I completely stopped writing, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.000 and I decided I was going to be a lawyer instead, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:41.200 and I didn't write again other than legal writing for 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.360 thirty years. I am a person who likes steps. I 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:50.240 like constructions. I like to follow instructions. And it looked 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.000 like a path where if I just kept working hard 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.280 and putting one foot in front of the other, that 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.120 I would get to the finish line of finishing law school, 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.480 taking the bar, and get a job. And the creative 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.800 life is much much harder. And I got knocked down 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.400 once and that was enough for me. I could not 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.720 see the path beyond that, and the law was a 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.160 much more clear, secure route to take. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.920 What truly interests Belle is criminal defense. One summer, she 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.680 works at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, and the 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:32.800 experience standing beside people whose futures are uncertain is meaningful 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.120 to her. But when it's time to begin her career. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.080 The offer she receives is from Davis Polk, one of 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.800 New York's most prestigious corporate law firms. It's the kind 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.040 of opportunity few people refuse, and so Belle steps into 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.880 a very different world from the one she had imagined. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.679 I loved being in a courtroom. I loved sitting second 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:01.080 seat in a trial. I loved the investigat aspect of it. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.840 I like the writing aspect of it. I liked the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.760 public interest aspect of it, providing a lawyer to those 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.640 who can't afford one. But I think this is another 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.760 example of life presenting a fork in the road and 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.360 choosing one that was actually not consistent with who I 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.000 am and what I like to do. Not passive this, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.880 I actively chose to go in this direction. But I 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:32.040 am someone who enjoys achievement and documented accomplishment. This is 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.880 true now, and they just arrive earlier now. But in 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.360 law schools, the firms come to campus courting, you meet 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.440 with them for interviews, and then you collect these offers, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:47.160 and it is something to boast about, to feel accomplished about. 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.600 And I fell into that and got a number of 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.240 offers to be a summer associate, chose Davis Polk and 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.520 then went back full time, thinking this is a great 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.360 thing to do, to really like a finishing school, to 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:03.480 really be tested in this very competitive environment, and to 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.560 see how I did again, you know, just one step 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.320 after the other to land at being a good lawyer 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.960 and being an accomplished person. And I think the criminal 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.200 defense path would have been a much braver choice because 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.760 it's not as go from A to B to C 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.880 to keep achieving. It just would have been like, Okay, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:26.640 this is what I'm interested in. This is my passion, 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:27.920 and I'm going to try and do a good job 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:28.200 at it. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.160 And I love that phrase documented accomplishments. I think the 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.360 way that our culture and society and world sort of 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:41.640 operates in that sort of box checking kind of way. Yes, absolutely, 0:15:44.920 --> 0:16:02.400 we'll be right back. In ninety six, Bell's father dies 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.000 suddenly at the age of fifty four. The loss is 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.000 shocking and destabilizing. She's in the middle of law school, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.120 preparing to return to Davis Polk after working there as 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.920 a summer associate. His death is a rupture in the 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:21.560 midst of a carefully plotted future. In the days that follow, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.160 new details emerge, details that complicate the story the family 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.600 thought they knew. The autopsy reveals that he had been 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:34.280 taking diet pills, and financial records show he died deeply 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.040 in debt. Bell and those closest to him begin to 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.520 realize that the version of his life they had held onto, 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.320 the clean, polished narrative, was never quite the whole truth. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.480 For years, they had wanted his story to feel pristine. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.360 Now they are left to sit with a far messier reality. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.360 I think both of those were things that we have 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.880 carried as a family and not revealed to the world. 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.960 And the first, my father grew up in Beverly Hills. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.760 His mother was an actress and his father was a 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.840 photographer and a film producer, and his mother was always 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.960 very concerned about weight, I would say, not even appearance generally, 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.679 but weight in particular. And both my father and my 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.280 aunt were a little heavy as children and teenagers, and 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.320 there were doctors in Beverly Hills at that point they 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:36.440 would hand out diet pills, which is really speed to anyone, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.159 very easily, and so my grandmother gave my father and 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.200 my aunt diet pills, starting, you know, in teenage years, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.840 and so my father used them periodically through college in 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.840 his thirties. I don't know exactly when it stopped, but 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.680 he stopped doing it because it was so bad for 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.720 his health, and in particular his heart. He had documented 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.800 heart issue which was a leaky valve that we think 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.359 maybe he got from having scarlet fever as a child, 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:08.760 and he knew he would have to have the valve 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.280 replaced at some point. People do it much more easily now, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.640 but it was major surgery and he was very afraid 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.199 of it. Did not want to convalesce and have a 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.960 scar and all those things. So we kept putting it off, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.439 and he would go to the cardiologist every six months 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.600 to get a check up, and he had been cleared 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.520 just a few months before he died, saying that he 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.800 could wait to have the surgery. He died very suddenly 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.080 on a January morning. My stepmother went out to walk 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.400 the dogs and came home and his alarm was going off, 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:46.080 and she found him dead in their bed. And we thought, 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.919 after talking to his cardiologists, that he was in this 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.359 very rare two percent that die from sudden arrhythmic death 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.399 with this valve issue, and we thought, how unlucky he 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.680 is to have that happen, how horrible, and we discuss afterwards, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.600 actually not in the autopsy, but his secretary confessed that 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.360 she had been making him appointments with a diet doctor 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.880 and that he had been taking diet pills, I think 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.200 for a year, and he had kept it from my stepmother, Susan, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.719 and from me and my brother, almost like this rebellious 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.840 thing that I think Keith thought he was getting away with. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.120 He and Susan had a really wonderful, close, intimate marriage, 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.240 so to her it felt just so devastating that he 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.000 hadn't told her this and that he was taking this 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.040 risk with his life. And we don't think it killed him, 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:38.439 but it certainly did not help his heart issue. And 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.840 we have carried this secret for the last thirty years. 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.600 He died thirty years ago. A couple months ago, when 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.959 I had started writing again, I wrote about this and 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.919 then asked my brother and Susan's permission to be public 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:58.640 about it, because I do think that it ate away 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.680 at us in some way that I hope talking about 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.440 it as I'm talking about it to you right now 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.520 is healthier for our family. The second piece was he 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.600 was in debt. My stepmother knew and my brother and 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.280 I sort of knew because they would say, like, the 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.240 bank owns the apartment. He had taken out a lot 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:22.080 of loans to finance his radio company, and so we 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.320 didn't really focus on it. We just thought everything would 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.119 be okay. But when he died, we discovered that he 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.680 was forty million dollars in debt, which we were lucky 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.239 enough to sell his company. He died so young and 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.480 died in such a way that we were left just 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.160 reeling emotionally, reeling, financially reeling, and then also reeling from 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.160 the fact that he was hurting himself in a way 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:45.919 that we were completely unaware of. 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.280 Yeah, you know, And it strikes me too that the 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:52.280 phrase going through my head is this wasn't. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.560 Supposed to happen, right exactly, yep. 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.960 And it ties to the documented accomplishments in a way 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.879 in which our whole culture is infected with this idea 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.439 that if you just if you do these things and 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.480 you do them in this order, that you will be 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.200 protected and if you live in this way, then you know, 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.400 you will live till you're, you know, ninety eight years old. 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.239 And the affront in a way when that just is 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:20.159 not the case. 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.679 Yes, it was the first time that I just felt 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:30.199 like life was completely unpredictable, and it really brought me 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.960 to my knees, and my stepmother too, and my brother too. 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.480 And I don't think any part of him thought that 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.800 he was going to die. I think he thought he 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.240 could take risk in all sorts of ways. He was 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.879 someone that had done things in the right order and 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.160 gone to good schools and worked for Bobby Kennedy and 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.840 Ben was in city council in New York then started 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.520 his own company. But he did like to take some risk. 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.879 I think that excited him in some way, and I 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.640 don't think he ever thought that it would be catastrophic. 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.720 Yeah, so how long after your father's death did you 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:07.800 meet James. 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.840 I met James in April of nineteen ninety eight, so 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:14.399 it was two years in a couple months. But it 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.560 still felt very fresh for me because we were still 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:22.400 dealing with the financial aftermath and selling his company, and 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.960 while I was working at Davis Polk these insane hours 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:31.040 doing work that I really did not even understand. I 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.240 did dwell at it because I was good at following instructions, 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:38.639 but I really was not interested in finance or corporations 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.480 or banks or securities. So I was doing that work, 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.480 and then I would have to take these calls. I 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.600 had an officemate, so I'd have to take these calls 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.919 in the phone booth at Davis Polk to talk to 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.880 lawyers and my brother and Susan trying to sort out 0:22:55.960 --> 0:23:00.040 my father's dad, his estate, all of those things. And 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.879 it just felt very bleak and very difficult. I really 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.640 hated all of that so much, and so when I 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:11.679 met James, I was still suffering with that and with 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.040 the loss of my father. We started working together. I 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.560 was moved into his group, and I had a boyfriend 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:22.320 at the time, and I did not find James to 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:24.720 be someone I would be interested in because he was 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:28.160 so familiar in a lot of ways. He was from 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.480 an all boys school in New York, he had gone 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.240 to boarding school. He kind of looked a bit like 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:37.720 my father, same height and build and blonde hair. And 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:41.320 I just let off, that's too familiar to me. And 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:44.840 I was sort of stuck in this other relationship. But 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:50.000 it soon developed into a very very intense romance. 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.080 And I think it bears saying that the other relationship 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:58.760 was with someone who was a much less safe option. 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.879 Yes, he was unemployed. I did not know when he 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.960 would ever be employed again. He was living in my 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.000 apartment and not paying rent. I was not in love 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:14.199 with him. It was one of those situations where I 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.040 think another person would have gotten out of it or 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.120 gotten them to move out. I was very bad at confrontation, 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:22.439 very bad at hurting someone's feelings. So I just I 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:23.479 felt very stuck. 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:26.359 I mean, this is the way in which I think. 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:29.639 You know, so many of the crossroads in our lives 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.680 happened right. So, you were still in your twenties when 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:35.120 you met James. You were, you know, far too young 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.000 to lose your dad. Your dad was far too young 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:41.080 to die, and you're unraveling all of this very heavy 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:45.800 duty family stuff and you're in the wrong relationship, and 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:50.320 you know, along comes James, and when you begin your 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:54.679 great romance you describe the part of him that you 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:58.240 most selved for was that, on the one hand, he 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:03.000