Speaker 1: My dad was like, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about something. Let's go talk for a second outside. He
Speaker 1: started this whole preamble of like, you have taught me
Speaker 1: the importance of honesty. You have been such a positive
Speaker 1: influence on my life, Like you are an inspiration. And
Speaker 1: he was looking me in the eye and being really
Speaker 1: emotional about it, and he said, because of that, I
Speaker 1: want to be honest with you. They're gonna have a
Speaker 1: little bit of trouble coming up.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. At Betrayal, we hear lots of stories about
Speaker 2: romantic betrayals, marriages and relationships blown apart by deception. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we encounter another kind of betrayal, one that's not a
Speaker 2: violation of vowels, but instead the violation of a more
Speaker 2: inherent trust, the trust a child puts in their parents.
Speaker 2: That's how we found Heather summer Lad.
Speaker 1: As a really young child, I had no idea that
Speaker 1: there was anything bizarre about my family.
Speaker 2: Heather grew up in Elpaso, Texas, in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2: She was the youngest child in a blended family. We're
Speaker 2: not going to use her parents' names here. We'll just
Speaker 2: call them mom and dad. Her earliest memories of her
Speaker 2: parents are fond ones.
Speaker 1: My parents were everything. They were really silly, they were
Speaker 1: really fun. My dad, he used to play this game
Speaker 1: with me where he put me on his shoulders, like
Speaker 1: a piggyback ride. But he used to call it a
Speaker 1: camel ride for some reason. I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: he said that he was my camel. So I never
Speaker 1: called him dad. I only called him camel. I thought
Speaker 1: he was the funniest best father in the world.
Speaker 2: Heather's mom was also playful and charming.
Speaker 1: My mom wasn't strict at all. There was this kind
Speaker 1: of running joke in my family. Anytime I quote unquote
Speaker 1: acted up or threw a tantrum, she'd make me sit
Speaker 1: in this little pink plastic chair, probably from the Dollar
Speaker 1: Store or whatever, and it was called the attitude change
Speaker 1: chair until my attitude changed. But then she would feel
Speaker 1: so bad about making me sit there that every single
Speaker 1: time she made me a chocolate malt she would joke
Speaker 1: about it. She'd give me the malt and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, how you're gonna act up? Just so you
Speaker 1: can get this chocolate malt.
Speaker 2: Her mom was part of a tight knit Mexican American family.
Speaker 1: I always like to joke that my mom didn't teach
Speaker 1: me Spanish so that she could talk about me in
Speaker 1: Spanish to other people, and then I wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2: Heather says her mom treated her more like a confidant
Speaker 2: or a friend and not so much like her child.
Speaker 1: I never had a bedtime, and I remember asking my
Speaker 1: mom for a bedtime because all my friends they had bedtimes.
Speaker 1: But it was a free for all, like we could
Speaker 1: do whatever we wanted.
Speaker 2: When Heather was in second grade, she was confronted for
Speaker 2: the first time with something that would become a major
Speaker 2: theme in her life, money, or more specifically, debt.
Speaker 1: I have a pretty specific memory of being in line
Speaker 1: at school for lunch and I had my little tray
Speaker 1: and I walked up and the lunch lady just looked
Speaker 1: at me and she was like, your parents owe us
Speaker 1: a lot of money. You can't keep taking trays, And
Speaker 1: a shame, you know, that washed over me, and also
Speaker 1: the anxiety of just like, wait, what do you mean
Speaker 1: they owe money?
Speaker 2: At home, meal times were always a crisis.
Speaker 1: Dinner would roll around and we'd be like, we're hungry,
Speaker 1: and then my dad would act surprised that we were hungry.
Speaker 1: And then it was dinnertime. When we didn't have money,
Speaker 1: my dad would have to go like basically forage for
Speaker 1: food or money. He would leave for like a few hours,
Speaker 1: and we wouldn't know when he was coming back, and
Speaker 1: we didn't know where he was, and then he'd come
Speaker 1: back with Sometimes it was full blown takeout, and my
Speaker 1: mom would ask me, how did you get that? Other
Speaker 1: times he would come home with like tortillas, And this
Speaker 1: was like a daily occurrence until payday.
Speaker 2: Heather's childhood revolved around her parents payday.
Speaker 1: That was such a big day in our house. Everything
Speaker 1: was centered around when was the next paycheck? When are
Speaker 1: we getting paid again? And so we would get the paycheck,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was like celebration that first day.
Speaker 1: We'd got to eat, or we'd go to the movies,
Speaker 1: or my mom would go shopping and we'd live it up.
Speaker 1: We'd have all this stuff, but the money seemed to
Speaker 1: always be gone a few days after pay day and
Speaker 1: then a few days later we didn't have anything.
Speaker 2: Between pay days, Heather and her dad would usually take
Speaker 2: a trip to the pawn shop.
Speaker 1: I used to go with my father to pawn things
Speaker 1: as early as first grade. We would drive around to
Speaker 1: all the different pawn shops. I mean, to me as
Speaker 1: a kid, it wasn't bizarre. It was like, oh yay,
Speaker 1: like we're going to the pawn shop, We're going to
Speaker 1: Applebee's tonight.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing that still doesn't make sense to
Speaker 2: Heather about her childhood.
Speaker 1: We weren't poor, or at least their salaries suggest that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have been poor.
Speaker 2: Both of her parents worked full time as teachers. In fact,
Speaker 2: when she was growing up, her father was an assistant
Speaker 2: principal at a high school.
Speaker 1: We should have been, I think, pretty clearly middle class.
Speaker 1: Especially the cost of living where we were from wasn't
Speaker 1: really that high, so it was bizarre that we never
Speaker 1: had money.
Speaker 2: They lived above their means. When the paychecks came in,
Speaker 2: they bought things, including jewelry and expensive electronics. They spent
Speaker 2: so quickly that between paychecks they would run out of
Speaker 2: money and wouldn't have enough to eat, so they pawned
Speaker 2: whatever they had just bought. She began realizing this was strange,
Speaker 2: especially when she made friends at school.
Speaker 1: My friends. A lot of their parents were teachers, and
Speaker 1: seeing how they lived in comparison with how we lived
Speaker 1: was eye opening.
Speaker 2: When she was in fourth grade, Heather was finally allowed
Speaker 2: to go over to a friend's house for the first time.
Speaker 1: One of the craziest things is they would offer me food.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, do you want dinner? And the
Speaker 1: idea that somebody would be offering me food willingly and
Speaker 1: that I was welcome to it like it just didn't
Speaker 1: feel real. So that, I think is when I started
Speaker 1: to realize, like, this is really not normal.
Speaker 2: And there was another thing Heather noticed.
Speaker 1: She had her own room. That was really I hope,
Speaker 1: because I never I got my own room maybe like
Speaker 1: four times in my childhood out of like the seventeen
Speaker 1: houses we lived in.
Speaker 2: The seventeen houses they lived in. Her family moved every
Speaker 2: single year of her childhood, and Heather shared a room
Speaker 2: with her half brothers or slept on the couch.
Speaker 1: We always knew it was because we were getting evicted.
Speaker 1: There was no cover story. We heard all the fights,
Speaker 1: we knew everything.
Speaker 2: After every move, Heather watched her mom become increasingly defeated, exasperated,
Speaker 2: and angrier with her dad.
Speaker 1: Because that was the girl. I think my mom relied
Speaker 1: on me emotionally. Oh, your father did this and he's
Speaker 1: done that. It started to become really clear that the
Speaker 1: things he was doing were really shady.
Speaker 2: Heather quickly learned that her mom didn't approve of her
Speaker 2: dad's behavior, and it rubbed off on her.
Speaker 1: I started to see my father as the quote unquote
Speaker 1: problem and my mom. I always thought of myself as
Speaker 1: her protector.
Speaker 2: Heather's mom would even confide in her about wanting to
Speaker 2: leave her dad.
Speaker 1: She was always talking about leaving him. She never would
Speaker 1: leave him though, because like, oh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a burden to my kids, or I'm saving as
Speaker 1: much money as i can.
Speaker 2: Right before Heather started high school, her dad just walked out.
Speaker 1: He just said he couldn't take it anymore, so he left.
Speaker 1: And that was great. I was helping my mom budget.
Speaker 1: Family and friends came to help. My aunt paid some bills,
Speaker 1: people brought us grocery. It was just great. And I
Speaker 1: remember going with my mom to a divorce lawyer too,
Speaker 1: and just like really like trying to support her and
Speaker 1: actually going through with a divorce.
Speaker 2: But within a month or two he started coming back around.
Speaker 1: My dad would start to come over in this period
Speaker 1: when they were separated. He would come over because my
Speaker 1: mom needed him to fix a light bulb or something,
Speaker 1: and then he'd come over, and the next day it
Speaker 1: was just say a little bit longer, Oh, let me
Speaker 1: fix the light bulb and also do your laundry. And
Speaker 1: then he lived there again.
Speaker 2: He promised that this time things were going to be different.
Speaker 2: He started taking steps towards financial stability.
Speaker 1: And so my dad started seeing the pastor and was
Speaker 1: supposedly getting all this help with budgeting.
Speaker 2: Heather didn't believe him at first. She was angry with
Speaker 2: him and angry at her mom for letting him back
Speaker 2: into their lives. It was a lot of pressure on
Speaker 2: a child, too much pressure.
Speaker 1: I have memories of sobbing in front of my parents
Speaker 1: and then just kind of like going about and eating
Speaker 1: breakfast while I'm there, just sobbing about getting evicted again.
Speaker 1: My mom just like eating her grapefruit and kind of
Speaker 1: like ice colds and giving no comfort. My dad just
Speaker 1: like catering to her needs.
Speaker 2: Heather retreated into herself emotionally when she started high school.
Speaker 2: She fixated on the one thing she could control.
Speaker 1: I was in the gifted program at school, and part
Speaker 1: of how I connected to other adults was trying to
Speaker 1: excel at whatever I did. So trying to excel at school,
Speaker 1: making good grades, not being rebellious. And I played the violin,
Speaker 1: which my mom wanted me to do, even though.
Speaker 2: It wasn't her passion. Heather was a gifted violinist, and
Speaker 2: she started dreaming about a future, one that was far
Speaker 2: away from her parents.
Speaker 1: Wanted to be a writer. That was like a big
Speaker 1: part of my childhood. And there was this writing contest.
Speaker 1: And as I was looking up the writing contest, I
Speaker 1: discovered Bennington College.
Speaker 2: Bennington College is a small liberal arts school in Vermont.
Speaker 2: It's known for creative student led coursework. It promised the
Speaker 2: one thing Heather craved the most. Freedom.
Speaker 1: Everything about it just seemed like paradise, and it was
Speaker 1: like two thousand miles away. So I just got it
Speaker 1: into my head that I really wanted to go there.
Speaker 2: From that moment on, Bennington became her goal, her only goal.
Speaker 1: I just had that determination. I just knew I needed
Speaker 1: to get the fuck out. My body just couldn't take
Speaker 1: it anymore.
Speaker 2: One day, during her senior year of high school, Heather
Speaker 2: got a letter in the mail the letter she'd been
Speaker 2: waiting for.
Speaker 1: It was just a normal day and my mom got
Speaker 1: the mail and there was an envelope for me and
Speaker 1: she handed it to me. It was from Bennington. I
Speaker 1: remember opening the envelope and I was like, Mom, I
Speaker 1: got in and her face just dropped like it went
Speaker 1: ice colds, and she started walking away. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe she's getting me a present or something.
Speaker 2: But she wasn't getting her daughter a present. Instead, Heather's
Speaker 2: mom felt abandoned by her decision to go to college
Speaker 2: so far away. To Heather's surprise, it was her dad
Speaker 2: who swooped in, and it was him who said the
Speaker 2: things she desperately needed to hear.
Speaker 1: Like Oh, I'm so proud of you. This is great, congratulations.
Speaker 1: I will talk to your mom for you, like, let
Speaker 1: me smooth this over for you, because I really want
Speaker 1: you to be able to go to this school.
Speaker 2: Her dad worked hard to earn her trust back. He
Speaker 2: acknowledged his mistakes and promised that he was going to
Speaker 2: be there to make her dreams come true.
Speaker 1: My dad really made me believe that he was on
Speaker 1: my side. He would say things like, after everything that's happened,
Speaker 1: I want you to go to school. I want to
Speaker 1: help you do this, like I will figure this out
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: For the first time since she was a child, Heather
Speaker 2: trusted her dad.
Speaker 1: I wanted that cammel relationship that we had had because
Speaker 1: after a while I stopped calling him anything, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't call him Cammel, I didn't call him dad like
Speaker 1: I think for a while, I was referring to him
Speaker 1: as my biological father. So to have him put this
Speaker 1: olive branch out of like, yes, you know what, I know.
Speaker 1: I did wrong. I'm learning from my mistakes and I
Speaker 1: want to help you. You're an eighteen year old kid,
Speaker 1: you're gonna eat that up, which I did.
Speaker 2: Heather had been accepted to her dream college, Bennington, two
Speaker 2: thousand miles away from El Paso, Texas and the chaos
Speaker 2: she'd grown up with. There was still one big obstacle
Speaker 2: between Heather and Bennington, money, but her dad was there
Speaker 2: to help.
Speaker 1: When it came time to filling out the paperwork for
Speaker 1: financial aid. You know, he was the one helping me.
Speaker 1: He was like brainstorming, and then he was like, I've
Speaker 1: worked it out with Bennington. We've got this payment plan.
Speaker 2: Heather was skeptical at first, just a few years ago,
Speaker 2: they didn't have enough money for food even with financial aid,
Speaker 2: how could they afford regular college tuition payments. But her
Speaker 2: dad reassured her.
Speaker 1: We're budgeting and we have more money now, and like,
Speaker 1: I know how to do this, and I want to
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 2: So Heather enrolled at Bennington. She finally felt like her
Speaker 2: life was starting. There was one upfront cost that financial
Speaker 2: aid didn't cover. A few thousand dollars she needed for
Speaker 2: travel to Vermont, a laptop, and textbooks. The family put
Speaker 2: their heads together to come up with the money.
Speaker 1: I remember one day he came and was like, I've
Speaker 1: got a co signer for you for a loan. Because
Speaker 1: my parents were never going to be co signers. They
Speaker 1: didn't have the credit for that, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: any credit. It was a small loan for I think
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars, and that was the loan that was
Speaker 1: going to get me to school. It was going to
Speaker 1: buy me a computer, it was going to get me
Speaker 1: my textbooks. He came home he was like, I've got it.
Speaker 1: I've got you a co signer. She's already agreed, it's
Speaker 1: my friend. She's already signed the paperwork, like all you
Speaker 1: have to do is sign right here, and this is it.
Speaker 2: When August came, the whole family took a trip to
Speaker 2: Vermont to move her into college. As they began the drive,
Speaker 2: Heather was overcome with anxiety.
Speaker 1: I kept expect there to be some sort of issue,
Speaker 1: and the whole drive up to her mom, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to die. We're going to get into a
Speaker 1: car crash. My dad is going to have a heart
Speaker 1: attack and die. Just the most awful situations just kept
Speaker 1: replaying in my head because I didn't think that I
Speaker 1: was actually going to make it there.
Speaker 2: Behind her catastrophic anxieties was a much more realistic one.
Speaker 1: I'm going to show up and they're going to tell
Speaker 1: me that I'm like denied or something like the payment
Speaker 1: plan didn't work out.
Speaker 2: When they finally got to campus, I go.
Speaker 1: And I ask for my ID. It took my picture
Speaker 1: and everything like here, and I was like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is real.
Speaker 2: It was a huge relief. Her parents took her shopping
Speaker 2: for dorm supplies and helped her move in. It all
Speaker 2: felt shockingly normal. When it came time to say their goodbyes,
Speaker 2: Heather expected her mom to be upset, clinging or even angry,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't.
Speaker 1: She was kind of like, Okay, we had, you know,
Speaker 1: just to have fun. And I was kind of like,
Speaker 1: what is happening. This is very bizarre, and I was
Speaker 1: like goodbye, and I was on my own. As far
Speaker 1: as I knew, I was leaving my childhood behind and
Speaker 1: entering into a new life with my parents as supporters.
Speaker 2: Bennington was everything she expected it to be. She finally
Speaker 2: felt free.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I loved it. When the leaves started
Speaker 1: to change. Oh my gosh. My friend took me in
Speaker 1: her car and we just like drove around and it
Speaker 1: was just like the best freaking day ever.
Speaker 2: She thrived at Bennington, even though she wanted to be
Speaker 2: a writer. She ended up pursuing a degree in music.
Speaker 2: But in the back of her mind, she always felt
Speaker 2: a nagging guilt that her parents were breaking the bank
Speaker 2: to send her to college, and Heather felt a special
Speaker 2: guilty that she had left her mom alone with her dad.
Speaker 2: So she was surprised when her parents called to tell her.
Speaker 1: That they were moving to Boston. It was a shock
Speaker 1: that it actually happened, and they just kind of up
Speaker 1: and moved.
Speaker 2: Her mom loved Boston and always talked about moving there.
Speaker 2: So maybe Heather's dream was allowing her mom to live
Speaker 2: hers as well. For the remainder of her time in college,
Speaker 2: Heather's parents were just a few hours away in their
Speaker 2: new Boston apartment.
Speaker 1: They moved to this really nice, cute little apartment, three bedrooms,
Speaker 1: two stories, a tree lined street, and they were there
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. For my family, like that
Speaker 1: was huge, Like staying anywhere for more than a year
Speaker 1: met things were great. They're not only paying for my education,
Speaker 1: They've also got this amazing apartment in Boston, and so
Speaker 1: when I would go back home to visit, I have
Speaker 1: this nice place to be.
Speaker 2: Even though her parents were doing better than ever, the
Speaker 2: cost of Heather's tuition was still a strain. She had
Speaker 2: financial aid and then that small loan she'd co signed
Speaker 2: before she started college. Everything else totaled about five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a semester, and her parents were covering it out
Speaker 2: of pocket pretty much.
Speaker 1: Every semester. I would get a late notice of payment
Speaker 1: in my box, like your past do with your tuition,
Speaker 1: And I'd always call my dad and I'd be like, listen,
Speaker 1: I know you're working really hard. You know, whether you
Speaker 1: can be able to make the payments.
Speaker 2: Every time she had to make a call like this,
Speaker 2: it racked her with guilt.
Speaker 1: My parents would be really stressed, like, your mom's been
Speaker 1: working so hard after school doing tutoring to get some
Speaker 1: extra money, and I'm doing this, that and the other.
Speaker 1: We've almost got it. We've almost got it.
Speaker 2: The day before her senior year started, she was staying
Speaker 2: at her parents' house. Before she left, her dad wanted
Speaker 2: to talk. He sounded concerned.
Speaker 1: It was like a really beautiful day. My dad took
Speaker 1: me up to the back deck and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's go talk for a second outside. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about something. So he started with this
Speaker 1: whole preambled like you have taught me the importance of honesty,
Speaker 1: Like you have been such a positive influence on my life,
Speaker 1: Like you are an inspiration. And he was like looking
Speaker 1: me in the eye and like being really emotional about it.
Speaker 1: And he said, because of that, I want to be
Speaker 1: honest with you. You're going to get a note in
Speaker 1: your box this semester.
Speaker 2: He asked Heather if she knew how loans worked.
Speaker 1: I was like, you said that we didn't have to
Speaker 1: take out loans for this year, like you said, everything
Speaker 1: was all set and he was like, no, actually we
Speaker 1: did have to take out a loan and everything is
Speaker 1: all set, but you're going to get this paper and
Speaker 1: just give him this. And he started phishing something out
Speaker 1: of his back pocket and it was just like this
Speaker 1: piece of paper he was a promised story note and
Speaker 1: he was like, you just give him this and everything should.
Speaker 2: Be get The next day, when Heather got to school
Speaker 2: to start her senior year, there.
Speaker 1: Was a note in my box. I went to the
Speaker 1: business office and they told me that I had to
Speaker 1: leave and that I couldn't be on campus unless I
Speaker 1: came back to school with a bank certified check for
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: The number didn't even make sense. As far as she knew,
Speaker 2: her parents only paid about five thousand dollars out of
Speaker 2: pocket every semester. How could they possibly be this far
Speaker 2: behind on payments.
Speaker 1: I called my dad and I kept on being like hey,
Speaker 1: like they said twenty thousand dollars, How do we owe
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars? And he was like, Oh, those guys,
Speaker 1: they're real jerks over there at the business office. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get anybody to tell me what was going on.
Speaker 1: My father didn't know anything. My mom didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: I just knew that I couldn't be at school until
Speaker 1: this money was paid.
Speaker 2: Without any real answers, Heather's spent a few days at
Speaker 2: her parents' house. I'm sure if she'd be able to
Speaker 2: continue her education. Furious and exasperated, she stopped asking for
Speaker 2: answers from her dad. She just wanted to go back
Speaker 2: to school, and somehow.
Speaker 1: It got cleared up. I can't even say I know how.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I don't want to know anything
Speaker 1: about this. I just want to go back to school.
Speaker 1: I just know that at the last possible second, I
Speaker 1: was able to graduate. That's when I started to realize, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: something fishy is going on here, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to graduate. I didn't want to think about it, and.
Speaker 2: She did graduate with a music degree. She planned to
Speaker 2: move to New York City to work as a musician.
Speaker 2: She felt her dad had done something fishy to mysteriously
Speaker 2: settle the bill at Bennington. That made her more concerned
Speaker 2: than ever about her dad's behavior and what it meant
Speaker 2: for her mom.
Speaker 1: I remember telling my mom, look what happened with Bennington.
Speaker 1: He's going back to his old patterns. You have to
Speaker 1: leave him. Like, I was so upset, and my mom
Speaker 1: kept being like, yes, I'm going to leave him, I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave him, And you know, I told her, like, Mom,
Speaker 1: you're in an abusive relationship, and she was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I know. I know.
Speaker 2: That summer, Heather worked gigs and odd jobs off of
Speaker 2: Craigslist to get enough money to move herself to New York.
Speaker 2: Even though she was in survival mode, Heather was still
Speaker 2: worried about her mom.
Speaker 1: It got to the point where I even asked my
Speaker 1: roommates if my mom could come live with us for
Speaker 1: a little bait, which didn't go over very well with
Speaker 1: the roommates. They were like no, that's how desperate I
Speaker 1: was to get my mom out of this situation.
Speaker 2: One day that summer, Heather got a message out of
Speaker 2: the blue.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I saw that it was like
Speaker 1: an eight eight eight member. I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: knew what those kind of numbers meant. They're looking for
Speaker 1: my parents, because you know, we were always getting deck
Speaker 1: collector calls and stuff. So I called them back and
Speaker 1: I gave them my name, and the guy on the
Speaker 1: other end was like you're past due for your student loans.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what are you talking about? What
Speaker 1: student loans?
Speaker 2: As far as she knew, she didn't have any student loans,
Speaker 2: just that initial three thousand dollars loan she signed for
Speaker 2: before starting school.
Speaker 1: He said I had twelve student loans that were in
Speaker 1: collection and that it was a really, really serious matter.
Speaker 1: I asked him how much and he said it was
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty four thousand dollars that I owed.
Speaker 2: Shortly after she graduated college, Heather summer Lad received a
Speaker 2: call from a debt collector. She was overdue on her
Speaker 2: student loans, twelve student loans, totally one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars student loans with her name on them
Speaker 2: that she never knew existed.
Speaker 1: It was like feeling the chain and getting clipped to
Speaker 1: my collar. Who's like, wow, I still feel it in
Speaker 1: my body. I feel that anger in my chest and
Speaker 1: my chest constricting.
Speaker 2: In addition to the overdue loans, there was something else.
Speaker 2: Heather would be on the hook for a fraud charge.
Speaker 2: Turns out there was a co signer on some of
Speaker 2: the loans and their signature had been forged.
Speaker 1: So of course I have visions going to jail and
Speaker 1: being framed for something that I didn't do.
Speaker 2: Heather knew immediately that her dad was behind this crisis.
Speaker 2: She tried desperately to explain it to the deck collector.
Speaker 1: I was like, trying to tell the story my dad,
Speaker 1: you know. I was like, no, you don't understand. My dad.
Speaker 1: He's the one who did this.
Speaker 2: Heather hung up and immediately dialed her parents' house. Her
Speaker 2: mom picked up.
Speaker 1: I told her what happened, and she was like, hold on,
Speaker 1: there was no he did what. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, she knew. So she handed the phone to
Speaker 1: my dad. He was just like trying to flip it
Speaker 1: back to me. He kept talking about how I was
Speaker 1: too expensive, your violin cost ons money, and your education
Speaker 1: costs the switch money, and we did this, that and
Speaker 1: the other for you, and you're not letting me talk.
Speaker 1: I remember him saying that you're not letting me talk.
Speaker 1: You don't let people talk. And he gave the phone
Speaker 1: back to my mom and I was like, you knew
Speaker 1: about it, you knew, And my mom was crying and
Speaker 1: she was like, yes, I've been nagging him to pay
Speaker 1: this back. He said he was going to take care
Speaker 1: of it, and he promised.
Speaker 2: Her dad had taken out one hundred and twenty four
Speaker 2: thousand dollars in loans in Heather's name and forged her signature.
Speaker 2: He'd also forged the signature of a co signer, someone
Speaker 2: who was family friend. Her dad wouldn't admit to it directly,
Speaker 2: but Heather saw the documents with her name signed in
Speaker 2: her father's handwriting. Realizing the extent of his deception, she
Speaker 2: immediately feared for her mom's safety.
Speaker 1: I always saw her as a victim of my father's abuse.
Speaker 1: I wrote this to her in an email too. I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't understand why you're still with him.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's threatened to kill you, if
Speaker 1: he's threatened to kill us, like, if there's violence involved.
Speaker 2: She'd never seen her dad be violent, but there had
Speaker 2: to be a reason why her mom never spoke up.
Speaker 2: Her dad said he would fix this, that he would
Speaker 2: be responsible for making the payments.
Speaker 1: But of course, my dad never made payments.
Speaker 2: Heather was done with her father. She told her mom
Speaker 2: that she wanted no contact with him, and if she
Speaker 2: came home, he couldn't be there.
Speaker 1: And so we started on that dynamic word It's like
Speaker 1: my mom and I, as long as we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about the loans or my father, we were cool and
Speaker 1: my mom was happy to respect that.
Speaker 2: Now with her father out of her life, Heather got
Speaker 2: another call about overdue payments. This time she was ready.
Speaker 1: I immediately was like, give me the fraud department, and
Speaker 1: so through that process, they told me to file police report,
Speaker 1: and so I did. I went to the police and
Speaker 1: I filed the report. Who wants to file a police
Speaker 1: report against their father? You know? I didn't want to
Speaker 1: put my dad in jail, Like, I really didn't like.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: did that.
Speaker 2: We've seen these police reports and filing them wasn't easy
Speaker 2: for Heather.
Speaker 1: As soon as I said it was my dad, they
Speaker 1: were like, well, how else were you supposed to get
Speaker 1: an education? I had to provide copies of my signature.
Speaker 1: That was actually really hard because I had to go
Speaker 1: through old, old, old paperwork. They needed signed and dated
Speaker 1: from within the time that the occurred.
Speaker 2: Through the process of filing a police report, Heather learned
Speaker 2: more about the fraudulent loans. She discovered that her actual
Speaker 2: signature was on one of the loans. She didn't know about.
Speaker 2: When she saw the date of the signature, it jogged
Speaker 2: her memory.
Speaker 1: It was something that my father had said was a
Speaker 1: gift for my grandfather, a check that was made out
Speaker 1: to me that turned out to be one of these loans.
Speaker 1: He didn't present me with a loan. He presented me
Speaker 1: with a check and was like, this is a gift.
Speaker 1: You just have to endorse it, which I did.
Speaker 2: She was held responsible for that one. After the police report,
Speaker 2: the debt collectors stopped calling and sending mail about the loans.
Speaker 3: Months later, I got the letter back saying that the
Speaker 3: loans had been written off except for three and those
Speaker 3: can remain on my credit report forever. I can't imagine
Speaker 3: being out of debt anytime soon.
Speaker 2: Her dad was never arrested or charged for the fraud.
Speaker 2: She's still left wondering how he was able to get
Speaker 2: away with it.
Speaker 1: There were five states involved, and my dad is also
Speaker 1: really smart, and I'm guessing he probably knew this, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's why they ended up moving to Massachusetts. So suddenly,
Speaker 1: I think that he had an overarching plan for how
Speaker 1: this was going to occur and how he was going
Speaker 1: to get out of it.
Speaker 2: The fraudulent loans had a lasting impact on Heather's finances.
Speaker 2: It impacted her ability to buy a car, rent an apartment,
Speaker 2: or take out a credit card. Today, nearly twenty years later,
Speaker 2: she's still working towards financial stability.
Speaker 1: The repercussions of this financial devastation are huge. They're going
Speaker 1: to reverberate forever. Once you are in a hole, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to get out. It's like being buried alive.
Speaker 2: But this isn't the end of Heather's story of betrayal.
Speaker 2: For a decade after she ended her relationship with her dad,
Speaker 2: she remained close with her mother, and life moved on.
Speaker 2: She met the love of her life and got married.
Speaker 2: Her mom was even at her wedding. But one day,
Speaker 2: just a few years ago, all of that changed.
Speaker 1: My wife and I decided to move back to her mind.
Speaker 1: As we were moving into our apartment, I had all
Speaker 1: my identity theft paperwork and I was looking through it
Speaker 1: and I opened the envelope where all the forged disbursement
Speaker 1: checks were, and I hadn't really looked through them. I
Speaker 1: had like seen like the first one, and I saw
Speaker 1: my dad's handwriting like forging my name, and I started
Speaker 1: looking like kind of laughing about it, like wow, Nashle
Speaker 1: and I go through and on like the third or
Speaker 1: fourth page, I saw different handwriting and I recognized it immediately.
Speaker 1: That was my mom's handwriting it, so my mom forging
Speaker 1: my name. As soon as I saw that, my whole
Speaker 1: reality changed. My whole soul just shattered. I was broken
Speaker 1: to a thousand pieces because it just changed the narrative
Speaker 1: for me, Like my mom wasn't this victim, she was
Speaker 1: his accomplice.
Speaker 2: She thought her dad was the one behind the fraud.
Speaker 2: For her entire life, Heather had been manipulated into seeing
Speaker 2: her mom as a victim. She'd spent decades feeling protective
Speaker 2: over her mother, supporting her and hoping that she would
Speaker 2: finally find the strength to leave her dad.
Speaker 1: And it shifted my perspective on all those times that
Speaker 1: my dad got away with stuff and she wouldn't leave,
Speaker 1: And I started to think, like, was he getting away
Speaker 1: with it or was my mom like helping him out.
Speaker 2: Of the one hundred and twenty four thousand dollars, her
Speaker 2: parents would have only spent forty thousand on her education,
Speaker 2: So what did they do with the rest of the money.
Speaker 1: They were definitely living on it. When I think about
Speaker 1: the nice place they lived in in Boston, I feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I was funding that, you know, any help then
Speaker 1: might have given me, like it was actually me maybe
Speaker 1: paying for it.
Speaker 2: Her mom finally achieved her own dream of living in Boston,
Speaker 2: and she did it by nearly destroying Heather's life. That's
Speaker 2: why she wasn't so upset when Heather went to college.
Speaker 2: She and her husband were taking out fraudulent loans in
Speaker 2: Heather's name and using them to fund their new Boston apartment,
Speaker 2: and it left Heather on the hook for a hefty
Speaker 2: six figure sum. If she had known that her parents
Speaker 2: couldn't make the tuition payments, she could have applied for scholarships,
Speaker 2: but her parents wanted the money not to pay tuition,
Speaker 2: but to live off of and live the life they
Speaker 2: really wanted to. Heather thought about calling her mom to
Speaker 2: confront her, but when she played out the conversation in
Speaker 2: her head.
Speaker 1: They knew that if I were to confront her, nobody
Speaker 1: was going to tell me the truth. She was willing
Speaker 1: to go this far for this long, and she knew
Speaker 1: she was an accomplice. There was nothing more to be said.
Speaker 1: She knew how devastating this had been, so I just
Speaker 1: stopped responding to her. She would text and call, and
Speaker 1: I just never texted or called back. After a while,
Speaker 1: she just stopped trying to contact me, and I never
Speaker 1: contacted her.
Speaker 2: That was it. In twenty twenty three, she learned that
Speaker 2: her mother had passed away. She says it's a complicated
Speaker 2: grieving process, especially when she tries to explain her story
Speaker 2: to new people.
Speaker 1: A lot of times people are like, oh, were they desperate,
Speaker 1: Like maybe they were like really desperate for something, And
Speaker 1: it's like, I actually think they just enjoyed it. The thrill,
Speaker 1: the adrenaline rush of having to run all the time,
Speaker 1: or having to avoid debt collectors, or just the thrill
Speaker 1: of seeing whether or not I'll find out or what
Speaker 1: I'll do when I find out. It was like psychological warfare.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't put it past them that it was
Speaker 1: more like an experiment or something.
Speaker 2: Heather has been in therapy for years unpacking the trauma
Speaker 2: her parents put her through.
Speaker 1: When I think about my dad, oh well, he is
Speaker 1: a sociopath, he is a criminal.
Speaker 2: She's also learning to find the words for what she experienced,
Speaker 2: words like familial fraud and abuse. Heather is leaning on
Speaker 2: her chosen family, starting with her wife. Today, she's a
Speaker 2: music teacher and musician in Vermont and her wife are
Speaker 2: in the process of building their own house. She's also
Speaker 2: found healing through writing. She's working on a book about
Speaker 2: her story.
Speaker 1: The idea of writing the truth for me as a
Speaker 1: kid was really daunting because it's like I wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to tell the truth. Shame around telling the truth stuck
Speaker 1: with me for a long time. But the process of
Speaker 1: writing it started out as a catharsis and has since
Speaker 1: become more of an artistic process where I am learning
Speaker 1: to make meaning from that pain. So, yeah, anybody wants
Speaker 1: to publish it, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 2: why did you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1: I think that people need permission to remove themselves from
Speaker 1: family systems that aren't safe and to understand anger is
Speaker 1: a healthy and appropriate emotion when people do this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff to you. I mean, we talk about forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and I think it's because society doesn't want to grapple
Speaker 1: with the uncomfortable truth that there are some things that
Speaker 1: are just unforgivable and the emotional repercussions from those things
Speaker 1: are very real. Everything in my life was a lie.
Speaker 1: But telling the truth about the story and then maybe
Speaker 1: other people seeing their reflection in my story and that
Speaker 1: sense of connection, I feel like it helps with that
Speaker 1: feeling of isolation. Telling the story allows me to be
Speaker 1: my most authentic self.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 1: He had bamboozled a physician and if he treat her,
Speaker 1: what else had he come up with.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 2: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 2: us at betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 2: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Speaker 2: Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
Speaker 2: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 2: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 2: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 2: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
Speaker 2: by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 2: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krinchek. Audio
Speaker 2: editing and mixing by Matt Delvechio, Additional editing support from
Speaker 2: Nico Aruka. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library
Speaker 2: provided by Mob Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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