WEBVTT - EP 27 - Abby 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.360 Hey, it's Andrea Gunning. Our season of weekly stories is 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:05.840 coming to an end, but don't worry. We'll be back 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.319 soon with more episodes. So if you have a story 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.320 of your own that you'd like to share on the podcast, 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.960 email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. In 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.880 the meantime, we want to do something new and exciting. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.640 This month, we're taking short creative essays submissions from listeners. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.200 The theme is resilience in the face of a devastating betrayal. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:27.720 We want to hear the story of how you healed 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.400 scars and all. Here's the catch. The limit is a 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.440 thousand words. If your story stands out, it might be 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.800 featured in a bonus episode. Please save your submission as 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.159 a PDF and email it to Betrayal pod at gmail 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.200 dot com. Okay, now onto the episode. 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.400 If he can lie about that, he can lie about anything. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.200 I mean, he used his dead mother's name, he used 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.240 his dead father's name, he used I think his aunt, 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.640 he used my name, all these people. It was absolutely 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.400 crazy making. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.479 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.560 the people we trust the most and the deceptions that 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:21.600 change everything. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:29.520 Listen, I've always craved drama, and I got it. I 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.039 got it. That's Abby Ellen. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.480 She's an independent journalist where outlets like The New York 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:36.920 Times in Washington Post. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.520 Yeah. I'm in my fifties and I have been a 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.400 freelance writer since I'm like twenty two. 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.800 Storytelling comes naturally to her. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.880 Even as a kid, I was interested in people's story 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.919 I was interested in gossip. I was interested in people's lives. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.400 I just wanted to know how things work. And I 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:02.600 also was always interested in getting to the bottom of things. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.840 To say, she's curious as an understatement. When she was 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.120 in elementary school, Abby was on a children's show called 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.200 Romper Room. It was popular in the nineteen seventies. On 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.240 the show, the host would hold up a magic mirror 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.120 and through it she would pretend to see straight into 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.480 living rooms across the country. She'd named dozens of children 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.320 who were watching the show. Kids at home thought she 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.280 was talking directly to them through the mirror. As a kid, 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.400 Abby knew the magic mirror was faked, and when she 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.320 was on the show, she was determined to figure. 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.400 Out how well they would put the kids in the 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.680 control room and you could see all of the monitors 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:45.800 and you could see what was happening, and I remember 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.160 pointing to that with the kid next to me. I 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.840 was like, check it out, like there's no magic, and 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:53.640 he was really upset. He was like, I don't want 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.400 to know that, you know, And I was like, see, 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:57.280 I got to the truth. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.520 Fifty years later, she's still that same person. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:02.760 I hate magic tricks. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.520 I hate going to magic shows. I need to know 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:06.680 how they do things. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.639 That dogged curiosity has motivated Abby's work for decades. When 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.160 she first started her journalism career in New York. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.840 City, I could have gotten a job like in The 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:17.760 Devil Worst Prada. 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:19.960 I could have gotten a job as an assistant to 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:21.079 an editor. 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:23.880 But I thought, what am I going to learn about 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.560 writing from picking up some of these dry cleaning Nothing? 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:28.880 What am I going to learn about like from faxing 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.079 their correspondence nothing. I didn't want to do that. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.680 Instead, she got her start writing for women's magazines. It 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.560 was the nineties when magazines still ruled the media landscape, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.840 and Abby had to start at the bottom. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.240 Of the ladder. The women's magazines had you do like quizzes, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.760 is he a jerk? Are you a control freak? I 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:50.800 mean those kind of things. I didn't give a shit. 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.480 I mean, I hated that stuff, and I just got 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.400 terrified that I was going to get stuck doing that. 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.720 She wanted something more hard hitting, so she started cold 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.200 pitch stories to The New York Times, and she finally 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.040 got a story accepted. It was an expose on simulated 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.120 military boot camps for civilians. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.440 And I wrote a big story about that. It was 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.120 a full page of The New York Times. I framed 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.520 it and I thought, that's that never going to happen again. Well, 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.920 the editor who I wrote that for called me up 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.839 one day and he said, we're starting a column. He 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:26.320 wanted Abby to write for it. 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.960 So for the next five years, she wrote a column 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.479 about young people and money for the Business section of 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:32.680 the New York Times. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:34.239 She was in her late twenties. 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.479 The stars were aligning for her career and she was 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:38.760 building a life for herself. 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.919 My mother is really a super feminist and has always 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.680 been profoundly independent and has always been like, what women 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.720 need is their own money, no matter what, they all 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.599 need their own money, you know. So she wanted me 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.000 to always have my own space. 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.520 On her mother's advice, Abby bought her first apartment. It 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.360 was a loft in New York City. She had everything 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.640 she wanted. Even dating came easily for Abby. 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.440 Oh God, men were everywhere, men were everywhere. 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.800 In her twenties, her relationships usually ended because he was 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.000 more into her and she was into him. I, you know, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:18.919 had my boyfriend, then we broke up, and then I 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.000 had other boyfriends. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.640 And I continued to work, and I continued to travel, 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.880 and I kind of never really wanted to get married, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.359 per se, that wasn't my agenda. Didn't want to be 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:33.800 tethered to somebody all the time. 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.839 In her thirties, she dated more seriously, but none of 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:38.800 the guys were quite right. 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.279 One was a guy on me in Peru. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.480 He was a furniture maker and he was great, but 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.840 that didn't work out. A couple guys in the. 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.200 Theater, I mean just different nice. I mean they were fine, 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:56.080 they were fine people. But I wanted something that mattered. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.039 I wanted something that mattered. 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.839 Abby had traveled the world, reported for prestigious publications, and 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.040 made friends in every corner of the city, but there 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.640 was one thing she still hadn't experienced. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.080 Again, I didn't care if I got married, but I 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.919 wanted to be mount in love. She wanted to be 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:15.120 madly in love. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.640 By the time she was forty, she started looking for 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.080 love in new places. 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.960 If you've been single little while, you know, sometimes you're 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:24.960 just like, oh God, maybe I should go out with 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.200 somebody who I never thought i'd be with, just because 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.680 maybe I'd been barking up the wrong tree all this time. 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.680 After a string of relationships with struggling artists, she thought 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.800 she'd try something more traditional. First, she went with the 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.799 conservative Wall Street type. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.880 Then she thought, I'm Jewish. I was brought up Jewish. 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.960 I thought, I've always dated non Jewish guys. Maybe I 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.960 need to be with somebody who's Jewish. Maybe that's what 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:50.400 I need. 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.800 On a lark, her friend recommended a psychic. Apparently she 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:56.120 had great insights on love. 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.760 Oh god, Carmela is psyching from younger, that's what she said. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:01.039 I like. 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:06.040 But Carmela saw something in Abby's future, a man. 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:08.800 And she was like, you're going to meet somebody you're 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.480 gonna move. His first initial is going to be RP, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.920 B or D and all when he's gonna wear a uniform. 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.600 And I said, I don't know anybody in uniform other 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:18.920 than the FedEx guy. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.640 And she was like, no, that's not a FedEx guy. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.080 Around the same time, Abby was working on a piece 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:27.080 for The Times. 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.960 I was working on an article for the New York 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.640 Times about detox diets and whether or not they had 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.000 any validity or whether they were just kind of bullshit. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.560 And somebody suggested I call this guy who worked in 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.000 Beverly Hills, California, who was a doctor there. 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.880 He had written some articles or studies about detox diets. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.200 This Beverly Hills doctor gave Abby a great quote for 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.760 her article. We're going to call him Richard. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.480 I quoted him and we had a nice conversation and 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:55.200 that was the end of it. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.320 A few months later she had to call Richard again 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.960 to fact check the article. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.640 And I said, are you still in Beverly Hills And 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:04.800 he said, no, I'm in the Navy. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:05.840 I'm a Navy doc. 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.240 Richard had been a Navy seal in his twenties, then 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.480 left to go to medical school. After decades of private 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.400 medical practice, he rejoined the Navy to work on special projects. 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.080 He was working on opening up a hospital for kids 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.120 with cancer in Iraq and Afghanistan. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.000 At the time, Abby wanted a new beat. She wanted 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.120 to report on international relations. 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.360 I was looking to do something different to expand my career. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.120 I wanted to do international reporting, and even if possible, 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:37.760 I wanted to do war correspondence. 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.520 Richard was a good source, someone who might have stories 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.440 and connections she would need. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:45.880 I said, well, tell me, bet you know, keeping posted 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:47.720 on how this goes, this is right up my alley, 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.120 and he did. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.520 He capped keeping me posted. He kept telling me what 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:55.079 was going on. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.560 At first it was regular updates about his job in 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.320 the Middle East. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.520 And then we began talking more and more. 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.880 They started writing to each other every day, and she 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.800 learned more about Richard's personal life. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.840 Apparently he had been divorced since I met him. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.840 His two kids lived in California, and he was liddy 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.040 in Jacksonville, and he was going to move to Washington. 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.960 And I thought, well, isn't that ironic because I was 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.480 going to move to Washington too to go to grad school. 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:28.160 Abby had just been accepted to an international relations master's program. 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.320 It was in Washington, d C. Where Richard was headed next. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.040 By this point, their conversations veered into flirtations. So when 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.520 they found out they were both moving to the same. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.880 City, it seemed almost. You know where there's a word 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.920 in Hebrew beshert, which means meant to be, And I thought, okay, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:47.800 this is meant to be. 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.720 Their flirtation expanded into late night phone calls and surprise deliveries. 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.160 And he called when he said he would, and he 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.720 sent flowers. And he wasn't like a suffer bring artists 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.400 and paint splattered jeans. You know, he was really a 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.360 good guy. Richard was mature and accomplished. He was a doctor. 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.280 Maybe this was the guy she'd been waiting for. I 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.480 was forty two, so I wasn't a kid, and he 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.559 was fifty eight, so he wasn't a kid. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.080 But it didn't matter because he was nice to me, 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:21.920 and he was good to me. 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.280 After months of talking, have you emailed him a poem? 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.960 So I thought, all right, I can woo. I'm gonna 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:30.600 send it to him. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.319 She knew this poem was his favorite. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.520 I'm going to read it. It's very short. This is 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.480 just to say by William Carlos Williams. I had eaten 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.320 the plums that were in the ice box in which 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.800 you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me. They were delicious, 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:52.360 so sweet and so cold, and I sent it to him, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.400 and he wrought me back three words, I love you. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.920 And I thought, all right, it's a little fast, but okay. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.680 She'd only been talking to Richard for a few months, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:08.560 but when she got his reply, she smiled. Richard was 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.679 scheduled to be in New York the following month. Abby 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.840 hadn't started school yet and was still in town, so 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.360 they decided to meet in person for the first time. 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:19.240 He said, I've got to be in New York to 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.040 give his talk at the eun So I'm going to 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.960 be wearing my outfit, my navy uniform, and he said, 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.400 let's go somewhere celebratory. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.240 He made a reservation for them at the Four Seasons restaurant. 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.960 It's now closed, but in the early two thousands it 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.240 was one of the most glamorous date spots in New York. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.240 It was a very CNBC kind of place. There was 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.680 a giant pool in the middle of it. Then it 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.079 was just very expensive and swanky and ritzy, and it. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.960 Was just kind of the place to be. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.280 On the night of their date, Richard met her in 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.360 the lobby, wearing his white Navy officer uniform. As he 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:08.720 walked towards her, she realized this was the man in uniform, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.760 the one the psychic had foreseen. Richard even brought her 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:14.240 a gift. 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.240 He brings what is called a cover, but it's a 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:19.000 navy cap. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.320 You know, it's the hat I brought you one, he said. 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.560 They walked into dinner hand in hand, Abby wearing his 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:27.640 white navy cap. 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.000 And at dinner, he was so funny and he was charming, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.120 and he was good to me, and he was charismatic, and. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.560 You know, he kind of wound me. He was wooing me, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.400 and I like that. It was after dating all sorts 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.600 of shit has it was nice to be with somebody who, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.920 you know, seemed to be who they said they were. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.600 That was the beginning of Richard's regular visits to New 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.719 York to take Abby out on romantic dates. 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.119 He comes to visit for a weekend or maybe overnight. 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.000 I mean, he always reading me with a big kiss, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:02.640 and he'd tell me how beautiful I was. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.439 When he met Abby's friends, he impressed them too. 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.040 He cared about people, He cared about the world. He 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.680 was always picking up tabs, he was always doing things 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.320 that made people really like him. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.600 Richard had two kids by his first wife, and even 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.240 though he lived apart from them. He was still a 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:22.840 family man. 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.640 He was very close to his son, so that that 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:27.760 was nice and daughter. He talked to his kid, his 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:28.720 son all the time. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.480 And then there was his illustrious military career. He was 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.000 constantly traveling for work. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.440 He always said that he had certain things that he 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.000 did that he wouldn't be able to tell me about, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:40.559 and then he would often go off on these sort 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:42.559 of secret missions and he couldn't tell me what he 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:47.080 was doing, and I was kind of intrigued by that. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.920 Abby was the kid who needed to know how the 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.920 magic mirror worked, and now with Richard, she wanted to 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.480 know about his classified military projects. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.240 It drove me mad that I didn't know what he 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.040 was doing, and a friend of mine said, well, that's 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.040 obviously a lesson. You need to learn that you can't 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:06.560 know everything. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.640 Her intrigue turned to concern when Richard began having horrible nightmares. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.200 He would just have these screaming nightmares, and so he 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.120 had to sleep with the lights on and the TV on. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.440 When she asked, he brushed it off. All he would 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.360 say is that he had bad memories, things from the 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.440 military that he couldn't talk about. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.040 I thought badly, and I thought something must have happened, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.160 but I didn't know. I didn't know what it was. 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.680 Before long, his career began bumping up against their relationship. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.800 Anytime he broke any plan, which we began to do 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:48.880 pretty regularly, it was it's a secret mission. I can't 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.000 tell you anything more about it. That's it. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.960 Abby nicknamed him the Commander. It was a joke at first, 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.440 but it stuck because Richard couldn't seem to escape his career. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.440 The commander told me that we were being followed by 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:03.320 the Secret Service. 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.800 This was jarring for Abby and she demanded a reason 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.480 why they were being followed. To her surprise, the commander 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.960 began revealing some details about his career. 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.760 He said that he had been a doctor at Guantanamo. 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.640 He had been recruited to be the head doctor for 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.560 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This was the mid two thousands, 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.000 at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.479 The commander explained that there was intense infighting with personnel 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.560 at Guantanamo. It had to do with classified information that 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.920 wasn't being delivered up the chain. That's why he was 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.640 being protected by men in black SUVs. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.800 And he said, when I was at Guantanamo, all these 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.200 guys are after me. They hate me, and they threatened 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.720 me and my family. So my loved ones are being 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:56.040 followed by the Secret Service. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.240 Abby tried to play it down to act casual, but 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.440 this was a big disclosure. 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:06.920 And I remember I said to him, well, you know, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:09.880 next time, why don't you ask them if they can 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:11.880 give me a ride so I don't have to call taxis. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.200 It was just like, this is absurd. 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.520 She wasn't even sure if she believed his story about 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.640 the Secret Service. But then one day his son called 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:24.240 from California. 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.560 And there was a car outside and said, Dad, is 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.680 that your guys? Why are they outside the house? So 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.960 I remember, I thought something really must have happened. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.800 Now Abby needed answers. What had really happened at Guantanamo. 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:40.840 I need to know everything. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.120 Eventually Richard confided. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.240 In her and he said that one of his patients 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:51.000 was a very high level terrorist. And I said who, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.920 and he said Osama bin Laden And I said that's insane, 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.280 and he said no, it's not. And he began to 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.840 list all the physical problems that have been Lauden had. 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.000 This was two thousand and eight. At the time, the 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.800 military claim to be actively searching for bin Laden, so 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.560 him being held at Guantanamo just didn't make sense. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.400 And I said to him, that is a stupid thing 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:20.320 to to tell a person. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:25.480 I said, that's also not possible because the president, it 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.560 was Bush at the time, that he was never let 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.760 this happen without getting it out because it was a 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.400 big deal and you know, it would have helped Republicans, 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.919 so he would never have been quite about that if 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.200 he knew where bin Laden was. And he said, no, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:45.280 the President doesn't know. I said, that's impossible. He said, 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.959 there's a lot of things that they don't know. And 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:55.760 I remember thinking, Okay, this is insane, but maybe here's 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:56.400 a story here. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:16.800 Abby's new boyfriend, Richard, made some pretty surprising claims, biggest 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.760 of all that Asama bin Laden was being held at 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.920 Guantanamo and that he had treated bin Laden for medical issues. 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.399 This was the early two thousands and bin Laden was 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.680 one of the biggest fugitives on the planet, so Richard's 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.439 story was hard to believe. But Abby knew for a 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.240 fact that the commander worked in the Navy with a very. 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:38.320 High security clearance. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.560 At that she'd met some of his colleagues, so like 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.240 a good journalist, she wanted to verify the commander's claim. 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.080 I was trying to do my own checkups because I 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.840 was feeling crazy and I couldn't call up the CIA 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.240 and say, hey, do you have this guy on your payroll? 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:56.320 I mean, you can't do that. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.879 So she started asking around using vage details. 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.440 My brother in law said that doesn't make sense because 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.840 he was in the Navy, and he said he wouldn't 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:08.680 tell you about that. I had another friend who said 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.199 the same thing. They're not supposed to tell you. 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.600 She doubted the story, but wasn't prepared to write it 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.159 off entirely. Even if there was a remote possibility it 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.879 could be true, it would be the biggest story in 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.439 the world, and as someone who wanted to be a 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:27.400 war reporter, that was undeniably enticing. She hit a dead 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.399 end trying to fact check the bin laden story, so 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.879 instead she decided to fact check Richard. She started with 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:36.480 one time when he said. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.800 That he had a vault full of medals for operations 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.560 that didn't really exist. They were unofficial, you know, like 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.200 homelandy kind of things that you're not supposed to know about. 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.040 Abby asked her new professors. If this could be true. 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.200 I would ask my teachers, you know, is that possible? 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.560 They said, yeah, absolutely this. 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.320 If that checked out, Richard's other classified projects could exist 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.000 as well. Abby realized she could in fact check the 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:09.359 bin Laden story, and after Richard shared that he never 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:14.119 talked about it again. He wanted a relationship separate from work. 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.440 After all, the rest of his life is pretty tame. 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.480 I met his family, I met his son, I met 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.960 his brother, met his aunt, I met some friends, I 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.840 met everybody, you know, so it just seems kind of normal. 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.560 And he met her family. Abby introduced him to her mom. 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:37.879 He was a Jewish doctor. What's not to like. 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.800 As their lives began to merge, Abby was ready to 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:43.359 bring up a big topic of her own. 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.479 I wanted to adopt, and I had said to him 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.520 at some point, listen, I'm gonna want a kid. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:50.880 When she told Richard this. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.560 Basically he was willing to do it. He said, I 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.440 love you, I'm in love with you. I'll do anything 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.680 you want. I'm gonna ask you to marry me, So 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:02.679 whatever makes you happy makes me happy. 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.320 That conversation brought their relationship to a new level. It 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:10.359 was like an unspoken marriage proposal. 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.880 I'm forty two, he's fifty eight. We're not kids anymore. 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:14.760 And we would discuss that. 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.520 He said, you know, his father always said when you 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.800