Speaker 1: As a doctor, would you write me a reference letter
Speaker 1: for medical school?
Speaker 2: Yes, I would write a reference letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what would it say in it?
Speaker 2: It wouldn't necessarily be favorable, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a little bit favorable.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Let me get you started, Okay, to whom it may concern,
Speaker 1: go ahead, you take it over, Go ahead.
Speaker 2: John Yeah, you would be a terrible doctor, the worst ever.
Speaker 2: You don't listen, and you just keep going on and on.
Speaker 2: You'd be doing all the talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a doctor has to ask questions to find
Speaker 1: out the symptoms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you wouldn't actually listen to the answer because
Speaker 2: you don't listen. You would be arguing with patients talking
Speaker 2: about yourself if you'd be thinking about something else, like whoa.
Speaker 1: Alex just liked one of my tweets from Gimblet Media.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's episode The Marshes.
Speaker 1: I first met Steve marsh at my brother in law's wedding.
Speaker 1: In conversation that night, Steve was given to making soulful
Speaker 1: observations punctuated by the word man. Steve is a big guy,
Speaker 1: shaggy haired, and comfortable in his own skin. He's a
Speaker 1: little like the dude, no matter where he is or
Speaker 1: what the occasion, he gives off the impression of wearing
Speaker 1: a comfy bathrobe flung open wide to the world. It's
Speaker 1: perhaps also worth mentioning, though, while Steve wasn't invited to
Speaker 1: the wedding per se, all the guests were both happy
Speaker 1: and unsurprised to see him. Of course Steve would be there,
Speaker 1: and his entrance felt like a lovable Saint Bernard had
Speaker 1: just wandered into the reception hall. Would you send a
Speaker 1: wedding invitation to a Saint Bernard? Of course not, but
Speaker 1: would you be darned pleased to see one show up? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The next time Steve and I crossed paths was at
Speaker 1: another wedding. While everyone was inside drinking and eating, I
Speaker 1: found Steve outside, standing by the Hudson River, looking preoccupied.
Speaker 1: It was there, smoking from his pack of Menthols, that
Speaker 1: Steve told me about his mom and a secret she'd
Speaker 1: been carrying around in shame for almost forty years. Steve
Speaker 1: said the only reason he even knew about it was
Speaker 1: because it had slipped out by accident, and now that
Speaker 1: it had he didn't know what to do about it.
Speaker 1: So after the wedding. We set aside some time to talk.
Speaker 3: How's father had gone.
Speaker 1: Man, it's great, it's really great. Before getting into it,
Speaker 1: I catch up. He's just gotten engaged, and because he's Steve,
Speaker 1: their proposal he made was an elaborate production, involving a
Speaker 1: ring baked into a cake and an entire restaurant of
Speaker 1: people cheering. His fiancee crying makes regular guys like me
Speaker 1: look real bad.
Speaker 3: I know, man, her brothers are pissed at me too.
Speaker 3: They're like, great, job, dude.
Speaker 1: With the pleasantries out of the way, we get to
Speaker 1: the unpleasantry. His mom's secret. Steve says he first learned
Speaker 1: of it in two thousand and eight on the fourth
Speaker 1: of July.
Speaker 3: I was riding my bike and my phone was going
Speaker 3: off like NonStop, and I thought it was like a
Speaker 3: girl or a drug dealer. It was like late, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like two in the morning. So finally I pulled
Speaker 3: my bike over and I saw I was my sister.
Speaker 3: My sister had called like fifteen or sixteen times, you know.
Speaker 1: Steve's sister, Megan Marsh, was up at the family sprawling
Speaker 1: trailer lot in rural Minnesota, a place they marshland on
Speaker 1: summer holiday weekends, it's tradition for the entire Marsh clan
Speaker 1: to head to Marshland to drink, hang out and just
Speaker 1: be the Marshes. Seeing all the calls from Megan, Steve
Speaker 1: worried there was trouble up at Marshland.
Speaker 3: As I called, and I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: And she was hysterical, you know, like if you knew
Speaker 3: that we had And I was like, wait.
Speaker 4: Hold on, I'm trying to get all this out, and
Speaker 4: I'm crying and hysterical.
Speaker 1: This is Steve's sister.
Speaker 3: Megan.
Speaker 1: Between violent sobs, she explained to Steve what had happened
Speaker 1: up at Marshland. Steve's parents had gone to bed, but
Speaker 1: Megan continued to hang out with a handful of people
Speaker 1: around the bonfire.
Speaker 4: There's highly five seven of us sitting around the fire
Speaker 4: and we start talking about Weedi Bords.
Speaker 1: So to keep up her end of the conver Megan
Speaker 1: tells the group an anecdote about her mom, how a
Speaker 1: Ouiji board had accurately predicted the main facts of her
Speaker 1: mom's life. It had prophesied her future husband's initials p
Speaker 1: M for Pete Marsh, as well as the amount of
Speaker 1: kids or mom would have three.
Speaker 4: And my aunt is sitting, you know, all three feet
Speaker 4: away from me, and my aunt said, well, she had
Speaker 4: four kids. And initially I'm confused. You know, I've been
Speaker 4: drinking a little bit, so it's slowly coming into my brain.
Speaker 4: What's happening. I looked down at my fingers and Cony, Stephen, me, Kevin,
Speaker 4: what what are you talking about? And then I look
Speaker 4: up around the fire. Everybody stopped. Everybody's silent, and they're
Speaker 4: all staring at me.
Speaker 3: So standing in this park talking to my sister on
Speaker 3: the fourth of July, she told me that my parents
Speaker 3: had another child, that we had another sibling that they
Speaker 3: gave up for adoption years before they married.
Speaker 1: The Marsh kids were full grown adults when they learned
Speaker 1: of their full sibling, a little girl one hundred percent
Speaker 1: Marsh that their mom had named Lisha. When Steve's parents,
Speaker 1: Geene and Pete, started dating, it was just a fling,
Speaker 1: and when Jeane became pregnant, they decided to put the
Speaker 1: baby up for adoption. The unusual thing, though, is that
Speaker 1: after that Jeane and Pete ended up staying together. Seven
Speaker 1: years later they had Steve, and now they've been married
Speaker 1: for almost fifty years, but all the while, neither of
Speaker 1: Steve's parents ever spoke of their eldest child.
Speaker 3: In my family is like shockingly open, so that the
Speaker 3: fact that they sat on this secret it was wild.
Speaker 1: It's now been years since the truth came out, and
Speaker 1: the Marshes want to do something with that truth. But
Speaker 1: Steve says, procrastination is a family trait, and in this case,
Speaker 1: decades of his mother's shame has turned that procrastination into
Speaker 1: total inertia. But Lisha is never far from any of
Speaker 1: their thoughts. Megan wonders what it would be like to
Speaker 1: finally have a sister, and Steve's younger brother, Kevin, wonders
Speaker 1: if Lesha's a redhead like him. Kevin scans every room
Speaker 1: for red hair. And then there's Steve's dad. A few
Speaker 1: days after the secret slipped out, Steve met up with him,
Speaker 1: as he does every week.
Speaker 3: My dad is a retired truck driver and kind of
Speaker 3: a tough guy, and every Monday night we shoot shotguns
Speaker 3: together in the summertime.
Speaker 1: In the car on the way to go shooting, Steve
Speaker 1: asked his dad how often he thought about Lisha, and.
Speaker 3: He said every day. And we drive it's like a
Speaker 3: half hour drive on the freeway, and about halfway there,
Speaker 3: I no, shit, man, this is like a short story thing.
Speaker 3: It's almost too corny. But there was two ducks, like
Speaker 3: two adult ducks and three little baby ducks crossing the
Speaker 3: freeway and my dad dipped like deep into the shoulder
Speaker 3: of the freeway and then recover the car and like
Speaker 3: we waited a while, and he's like, did you see
Speaker 3: me miss those ducks? And I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's one of the few times I've seen my
Speaker 3: dad cry.
Speaker 1: But as much as the Marshes think about Lisha, when
Speaker 1: it comes to actually trying to find her, they're all
Speaker 1: waiting on Steve's mom.
Speaker 3: I think my dad for as much of an alpha
Speaker 3: tough guy. I think my mom runs his shit, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So it's kind of up to her, and I think
Speaker 3: she is scared about what maybe she'll find out, like
Speaker 3: if Licia has hard feelings about this, or if Alicia's
Speaker 3: life didn't go as well as it could have, or
Speaker 3: how Lesha will feel to meet her family that's intact
Speaker 3: and went on to have three more kids, like and
Speaker 3: wouldn't that be weird?
Speaker 1: Sure, the family's intact, and as Steve explains, the Marsh
Speaker 1: kids are all close and doing well now. Megan has
Speaker 1: a career as a nurse, Steve writes, and Kevin repairs
Speaker 1: home appliances. But growing up there were a lot of
Speaker 1: drugs and a lot of trouble. Kevin had a serious
Speaker 1: meth problem, and Steve and Megan drank too much. Steve
Speaker 1: almost flunked out of high school, and Kevin and Megan
Speaker 1: both dropped out. There was one Christmas the Marshas spent
Speaker 1: visiting Kevin in treatment, and one weekend Steve spent in
Speaker 1: jail because he and Kevin got into a brawl over
Speaker 1: a Beastie boy CD.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like Leisha, who was raised in a
Speaker 3: totally separate environment. I just wonder what she's like. You know,
Speaker 3: our house was so loud when growing up, and uh like,
Speaker 3: I always thought my family's kind of weird. Like they
Speaker 3: drink windsor seven up, like it's gonna be vanishing from
Speaker 3: the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: So what what is windsor seven up?
Speaker 3: That's a that's the Marsh family drink man.
Speaker 1: I pardon my ignorance.
Speaker 3: Seven and seven man, it could be seagrams too. Canadian
Speaker 3: whiskey and lemon lime soda.
Speaker 1: But finding out whether Lesha is like a Marsh steeped
Speaker 1: in windsor and chaos isn't so simple.
Speaker 3: So the hospital no longer exists.
Speaker 1: The hospital where your mom had her.
Speaker 3: Right and it was a close Catholic adoption, like my
Speaker 3: parents never met the couple that adopted Lesha.
Speaker 1: Steve has no information about where Lisha ended up. He
Speaker 1: had a friend with connections run the name Lesha Marsh
Speaker 1: through an FBI database but found nothing. It's almost certain
Speaker 1: Lisha's name isn't even Lisha anymore. Because it was a
Speaker 1: closed adoption, the only way to reach her is through
Speaker 1: the adoption agency. Steve's mom has to write Lisha a
Speaker 1: letter asking to make contact, but whenever she's trying to
Speaker 1: write in the past, her sense of shame gets the
Speaker 1: better of her, Like.
Speaker 3: She wants to do it, she said she would do it,
Speaker 3: Like what do I do you know? Like how do
Speaker 3: we make this happen?
Speaker 1: And this is why Steve has come to me. He
Speaker 1: needs a spur to action, someone who isn't a Marsh
Speaker 1: to make sure the letter gets written.
Speaker 3: We could use some help. It's almost like when you
Speaker 3: want to like go to the gym or something, just
Speaker 3: like have somebody else who's going with you, like some
Speaker 3: kind of account of ability. Because when we talk about
Speaker 3: it as a family, and we do whenever we get together,
Speaker 3: like my parents are all game for it, but then
Speaker 3: it just doesn't happen, and it hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: Do you need to really kind of show up with
Speaker 1: a pad of paper and a pen and you know,
Speaker 1: place it on the table in front.
Speaker 3: Of her, right, like, let's do this now.
Speaker 1: And so, in a bid to do this now, I
Speaker 1: tell Steve to phone his mom and tell her to
Speaker 1: clear her schedule because his wedding friend Jonathan is boarding
Speaker 1: a plane to Minnesota and heading straight to their house
Speaker 1: to make sure she writes that letter.
Speaker 3: I just think we need a little help, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Wow, what you need is your mother to get
Speaker 5: off her aff.
Speaker 6: So who is this guy?
Speaker 7: Just tell me again.
Speaker 1: After the break, if this guy pays a visit to
Speaker 1: the marshes Hi in Minneapolis. I picked Steve up in
Speaker 1: my airport rental and we head to his parents' house
Speaker 1: for some letter writing. He's nervous, which is not helped
Speaker 1: by my economy sized car. Do you have a you
Speaker 1: have an up room. How tall a man are you?
Speaker 3: Six?
Speaker 1: Steve struggles to shoehorn his body into the passenger seat.
Speaker 1: Do you want to set the back seat?
Speaker 3: You could?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm so good. Although Steve says it's all
Speaker 1: good thanks to my Minnesotan to American translator, app, I
Speaker 1: know that he's in fact, deeply resentful.
Speaker 8: You're gonna have to direct me because I don't know
Speaker 8: where your parents live, But wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It be weird if they did. We arrive at Steve's
Speaker 1: parents place. It's a one story rambler, cluttered and cozy.
Speaker 8: Hi, I'm Jean.
Speaker 1: We settle in around the kitchen table. Pete makes his
Speaker 1: way through his daily two pots of coffee, and Jeane
Speaker 1: quietly stares down at a blank piece of paper to
Speaker 1: help spur her letter writing. I asked how she and
Speaker 1: Pete first met, and Jeane becomes animated, telling me about
Speaker 1: a party at which Pete stumbled in late with a
Speaker 1: group of friends.
Speaker 8: They were all drunk. I can't remember if he kissed
Speaker 8: me on the knee and bit me in the ankle,
Speaker 8: or vice versa.
Speaker 1: That's like what the serpent did in the biblical story.
Speaker 8: So and I should have never eaten that apple.
Speaker 1: Soon after, Jeane moved into a new apartment building, where,
Speaker 1: in a delightful sitcom twist, Pete was living right down
Speaker 1: the hall. That Thanksgiving, Pete stopped by Jean's place, drank
Speaker 1: her entire bottle of Windsor, then drunkenly proceeded to show
Speaker 1: the dinner guests as gun.
Speaker 4: Guns are no big thing for me, because I got
Speaker 4: them laying all.
Speaker 3: Over the place.
Speaker 1: To illustrate, Pete reaches on top of the kitchen cupboard
Speaker 1: and pulls down a forty five automatic. He places it
Speaker 1: on the table next to the pie that Steve brought.
Speaker 1: How many guns do you have hitten around the house.
Speaker 9: There's one over on the fireplace downstairs.
Speaker 1: The party, the bottle of windsor the gun. These are
Speaker 1: all parts of the marsh family origin story that Steve
Speaker 1: knows well. But the part of the story that Steve
Speaker 1: has never heard is house parents went from a casual
Speaker 1: fling to a decade's long marriage.
Speaker 8: I'm pregnant. I went home and told my mother, and
Speaker 8: she flipped out on me. I remember leaving and I
Speaker 8: was down the basement with my mother in the laundry room.
Speaker 8: I just remember running up the stairs and crying and
Speaker 8: getting in the car and driving back to my apartment
Speaker 8: because I was trash in her mind.
Speaker 1: Jeane came from a strict Catholic family. When she got pregnant,
Speaker 1: her mother told her she could only visit home after dark,
Speaker 1: carrying a coat in front of her stomach. At one
Speaker 1: point during the pregnancy, Jean slipped on the ice and
Speaker 1: had to go to the hospital for hemorrhaging.
Speaker 8: And my mother came into the hospital and said, you
Speaker 8: can't even have a baby, right. I mean, she was
Speaker 8: so disappointed in me. I don't think she ever forgave
Speaker 8: me for that. That's the one thing I said to
Speaker 8: her before she died, is I am sorry for disappointing you.
Speaker 1: Lisia was born premature, so the doctors kept her at
Speaker 1: the hospital for a week. This meant Jean ended up
Speaker 1: spending a week with her newborn daughter.
Speaker 8: I remember holding her and crying and telling her, you
Speaker 8: know that I hoped she'd have a good life, and
Speaker 8: said I'm sorry that I couldn't keep her.
Speaker 1: After that week, Jean signed away her parental rights.
Speaker 8: I didn't think I could raise a child by myself.
Speaker 8: But she never said what he never said hey, let's
Speaker 8: get married and raise this baby or and I never
Speaker 8: said it either, but his mother, Alice, just took me
Speaker 8: in as this. You know, I felt like I was
Speaker 8: part of the family. So I felt this family loved
Speaker 8: that I wasn't getting from my own family.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Pete's mom told Jean how much the whole family liked her,
Speaker 1: how they hoped she would be the one, and that
Speaker 1: painful time brought Geene and Pete closer. They ended up
Speaker 1: really falling in love, and eventually they did get married,
Speaker 1: and all this time, Lesha, responsible for them growing into
Speaker 1: love together, having three more kids, being a family for
Speaker 1: going on fifty years, was out there somewhere living a
Speaker 1: different life with a different family.
Speaker 8: And I don't know that, Dad, and we've never sat
Speaker 8: down like this and talked about it. It's just kind
Speaker 8: of something that happened forty eight years ago.
Speaker 1: For forty eight years, Gene is quietly marked Alesha's birthday
Speaker 1: by repeating the same silent prayer. I hope she's having
Speaker 1: a good life. And it's that hope that ironically made
Speaker 1: Jeane think twice about ever searching for Lesia. She told
Speaker 1: herself that if Flicia was happy, she didn't need to
Speaker 1: disrupt that happiness by introducing her to the Marshes. And
Speaker 1: they're chaos.
Speaker 8: Our family was so loud and so you know, drug
Speaker 8: use and you know, not going to school, and it
Speaker 8: seems like there was always so much going on. Did
Speaker 8: I really want to bring somebody else into that? It
Speaker 8: was problems that I was bringing her into more problems.
Speaker 3: It was hectic.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was more than hectic. See, and I'd go
Speaker 8: do my avon door to door and somebody would say,
Speaker 8: would you like to come in for a minute, And
Speaker 8: I'd sit down, And I always said it was like
Speaker 8: I was sitting down in their beige. You know, they
Speaker 8: had this peaceful house, neet, nothing out of place, and
Speaker 8: then I'd walk in here and it'd be like jangled.
Speaker 1: So while Steve's motivation for seeking out Lesha is pretty simple.
Speaker 1: He has a sister and he wants to meet her,
Speaker 1: for Jean, it's more complicated. Her greatest hope is that
Speaker 1: Lesha is happy and well, that she did the right
Speaker 1: thing in giving her up. But if Lisha is good,
Speaker 1: didn't fall into drugs, did do well in school, and
Speaker 1: had a good life in the Beige, then trouble wasn't
Speaker 1: something genetic, a fate that runs through the marsh blood.
Speaker 1: It was the Jean's thinking something in the parenting, her parenting.
Speaker 8: I just want I want the kids more or less,
Speaker 8: to be prepared that she may not want anything.
Speaker 3: To do with us.
Speaker 8: I'm open to meeting her. I'm open to just pictures,
Speaker 8: open to having her tell me I'm a piece of shit.
Speaker 8: That's fine. I'm willing to do whatever she wants because
Speaker 8: I feel the ball is in her court. Worst case
Speaker 8: scenario would be if sh had passed away and I never.
Speaker 1: Tried.
Speaker 9: Did you want to have pie?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 9: Should I get the ice cream?
Speaker 11: You want?
Speaker 9: Ice cream?
Speaker 1: Steve serves the mixed berry pie that he brought and
Speaker 1: turns us to the matter at hand.
Speaker 3: So do you want to try the writing the letter?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We should do it now.
Speaker 8: So yes, because your mother is a procrastinator. Oh, I
Speaker 8: am too, but you probably got it from me.
Speaker 3: If Lisha's the procassionaire too, that's the only way we'll know.
Speaker 1: Jeane finds it easier to talk than to write, so
Speaker 1: Steve offers to type the letter as Jane speaks it aloud.
Speaker 1: Then you can copy it down by hand. Jean stares
Speaker 1: down at the table, trying to get started.
Speaker 8: I don't know what to say. I feel bad because
Speaker 8: we stayed together, right, and I feel like it's been
Speaker 8: forty eight years now, Why you're coming around now, is
Speaker 8: what she'll be thinking.
Speaker 3: Oh, just say I, how are you?
Speaker 8: I remember your name, I remember your birthday. I remember
Speaker 8: holding you and telling you that I wanted you to
Speaker 8: have a good life. Lisha, I'm stumbling for words, wondering
Speaker 8: how to, probably because it's been so many years, but
Speaker 8: wondering how to, I mean, how to explain the fact
Speaker 8: that I haven't tried to contact you all this.
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to get that heavy mer mom,
Speaker 3: give me a call. But also you do want to.
Speaker 3: You want to acknowledge why this was meaningful to you.
Speaker 3: You know, you're like, it's tough.
Speaker 8: God, three years after you were born, your father and
Speaker 8: I were married or got back together, while we got
Speaker 8: back together right after. Oh god, see now it all
Speaker 8: seems so stupid.
Speaker 3: But like you can't change the past, and you needed
Speaker 3: to live through this in order to have respective on it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so three years after you're born, your father and I
Speaker 3: were married.
Speaker 8: And now have two sons and a daughter. Who are
Speaker 8: open to make a contact or it does open.
Speaker 3: So I think all of us would like to meet
Speaker 3: you if when you're ready. I don't think maybe it
Speaker 3: needs to be any more than that. That's good.
Speaker 8: And then just put our names and.
Speaker 1: We all watch as Gene copies the letter over by hand.
Speaker 3: He did good.
Speaker 9: Gee, thank you.
Speaker 1: Steve and I head back to the rental for a while.
Speaker 1: We just sit there. I think that they're going to
Speaker 1: get those forms off.
Speaker 3: It's going to happen this week, for sure.
Speaker 1: You really think so?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen in the next month
Speaker 1: or the one after that. Partly because Steve hasn't been
Speaker 1: spurring his mom. Since we all sat down in Jean's kitchen,
Speaker 1: Steve has developed second thoughts about contacting Lisha.
Speaker 12: I'm just nervous that she's like angry about the way
Speaker 12: things turned out, and I'm nervous, so, like, what kind
Speaker 12: of impact y'all have with my mom. I've had some
Speaker 12: conversations with friends It's like, what are you doing this for?
Speaker 12: I don't know, like there's real potential for sadness.
Speaker 1: Two more months pass and I'm having trouble being a
Speaker 1: spur to Steve's spurring. Hey Steve, it's Jonathan speaking, just
Speaker 1: calling to check in. I can't get a hold of anyone,
Speaker 1: mister and missus marsh This is the man who came
Speaker 1: over to your home some time ago. Another two months
Speaker 1: go by and still no movement, and so I decide
Speaker 1: that maybe it's better to just leave them be. Maybe
Speaker 1: the Marshes would rather just forget the whole thing and
Speaker 1: go back to being the same Marshes they always were.
Speaker 7: Hello Jeene, Yes, high Jonathan.
Speaker 1: And then, after a half a year of foot dragging,
Speaker 1: I unexpectedly get word that Gene has mailed the letter
Speaker 1: and the application. From there, a social worker was assigned
Speaker 1: to the case. Her job to find Lisha and ask
Speaker 1: if she's open to receiving Jane's letter. And not long
Speaker 1: after that, the social worker gave Jane an update.
Speaker 5: She got a call from Alesia and she said she
Speaker 5: was very open to seeing my letters.
Speaker 13: Okay, that's coffee, Yeah, I have a coffee, mom.
Speaker 9: I brought Canoley's and.
Speaker 1: Back at the Marshes to catch up. Oncelicia said she
Speaker 1: was open to seeing Jeane's letter, the social worker mailed
Speaker 1: it onto her, but after that Jean heard nothing for months.
Speaker 1: Then one afternoon at work, Jean got an email from
Speaker 1: the social worker, the subject, having read the letter you've
Speaker 1: been waiting for. Attached was a scanned copy of a
Speaker 1: letter from Lesia.
Speaker 8: Dear Jean and Pete, thank you for your patience while
Speaker 8: I formulate my first response to your letter. My name
Speaker 8: is Natalie and I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Lesha is now Natalie, and it turns out she grew
Speaker 1: up just twenty miles from where the marshal left. Her
Speaker 1: adoptive parents are even graduates of the same high school
Speaker 1: as Jeanne. Growing up, Natalie always knew she was adopted,
Speaker 1: and she loved the parents who raised her. Natalie is
Speaker 1: now married with two kids.
Speaker 8: The best advice I've received since I opened your letter
Speaker 8: was to take it slow. And then she sent a
Speaker 8: picture when she was a little girl.
Speaker 1: Do you see a resemblance.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's definitely a marsh Man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Dear Natalie. Pete and I were so happy to
Speaker 8: receive your letter and picture. It was truly an answer
Speaker 8: to my prayers. Let me know if you have any questions,
Speaker 8: I will try to answer them to the best of
Speaker 8: my ability.
Speaker 1: And so a correspondence begins.
Speaker 8: You're Gene and Pete. Dear Natalie, who did I get
Speaker 8: my auburn hair from? Heete was a redhead? Can I
Speaker 8: thank for my uni brow? When I was young? Grandfather
Speaker 8: had very bushy eyebrows, so he's probably the call for
Speaker 8: love love Jeane and Pete.
Speaker 1: Natalie is taking it s low. She's cautious and Gene
Speaker 1: is following her lead, but sometimes it can get overwhelming.
Speaker 8: Dear Natalie, we want to wish you the happiest of
Speaker 8: birthdays on the seventeenth. I've wished it every year since
Speaker 8: you were born, and I'm so happy I can finally
Speaker 8: tell you. I hope someday we can meet, but until then, no,
Speaker 8: You've been loved Pete and Jean.
Speaker 1: Natalie's responses are gracious.
Speaker 8: Dear Gene and Pete. My kids constantly asked me about
Speaker 8: the day they were born. We moms think about those
Speaker 8: moments always. Someday you will have to tell me about
Speaker 8: our day.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of some days no specific plans.
Speaker 1: Even after months of correspondence, Jean and Natalie are still
Speaker 1: going through Stacy, the social worker. They don't exchange phone
Speaker 1: numbers they don't even know each other's email addresses.
Speaker 8: It's tendative. Yeah, I mean I've had a relationship with
Speaker 8: these three kids for forty years, you know, and I
Speaker 8: haven't had that with her. And sometimes that's sad, you
Speaker 8: know that we don't have that. But I think we'll
Speaker 8: get there.
Speaker 9: You want to get there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I would like to get there.
Speaker 1: Jane finds herself staring at Natalie's picture while she's at work,
Speaker 1: idly thinking about what the little girl in the photos
Speaker 1: childhood was like, and then comes the guilt and not
Speaker 1: having been able to give her what she needed. And
Speaker 1: all the while Natalie is so close, why.
Speaker 3: Don't you call her up and say come out or no?
Speaker 8: Because she doesn't want that.
Speaker 9: Then we all don't live to be able one hundred
Speaker 9: years old?
Speaker 13: Is dam time?
Speaker 3: That's true?
Speaker 9: You're you are getting run out of time pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Well for Pete, it's pretty straight ahead. For Jane, it's
Speaker 1: more complicated. Jane wants Natalie to enter her life, but
Speaker 1: at the same time she worries about what Natalie will
Speaker 1: make of that life. How will Jeane be able to
Speaker 1: have Natalie over to her home. In Jeane's mind, the
Speaker 1: place is always so untidy, the grouting in the bathroom unfinished,
Speaker 1: the tiles in the entryway in need of repair. So
Speaker 1: while Jeane's wait for Natalie is filled with hope, it's
Speaker 1: also filled with fear. Time ticks by. Natalie and Jane
Speaker 1: continue to exchange letters, and eventually Natalie decides they don't
Speaker 1: have to go through Stacy the social worker anymore. They
Speaker 1: can email each other directly, and a few months after that,
Speaker 1: Gene asks Natalie for her phone number. I just want
Speaker 1: to be able to hear your voice sometimes, Gene says,
Speaker 1: and Natalie says yes. Steve's wedding is a month away.
Speaker 1: It's been a full year since Natalie received that first letter,
Speaker 1: and Steve wants to invite her to the wedding, but
Speaker 1: Jeane doesn't think a big family event is the right
Speaker 1: setting for everyone to meet for the first time, so
Speaker 1: Gene asks Natalie if they can all go out for dinner.
Speaker 1: Natalie writes back and says, I think we can make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 13: Hi, how are you?
Speaker 9: Doggie?
Speaker 1: And today's the day I arrived At Steve's house as
Speaker 1: he gets ready to meet Natalie for dinner, his fiance Maggie,
Speaker 1: and his brother Kevin are there too, Nice.
Speaker 9: To see you. I'm Jona, Kevin, how are you good.
Speaker 1: Steve has lent Kevin a pair of jeans because Kevin
Speaker 1: was wearing shorts and feared they might not be appropriate
Speaker 1: for meeting your sister for the first time. Steve is
Speaker 1: still getting dressed.
Speaker 3: This is my only pair of clean pants at the moment.
Speaker 3: I don't want my new sister to smell me, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. That'd be awful, right, So I
Speaker 3: want to appear to be clean.
Speaker 1: Since the Marshes are worried about making a good impression,
Speaker 1: they've barred me and my microphone from the dinner. This
Speaker 1: in spite of my important work documenting and interloping. Instead
Speaker 1: of saying all of you rotten folks, I tell Steve
Speaker 1: that it's all good. Hey, I'm getting pretty good at
Speaker 1: this Minnesota talk.
Speaker 4: I think we should leave in five or ten minutes, okay,
Speaker 4: and we should not spoke we earlier.
Speaker 3: I took zen.
Speaker 9: I'm fine.
Speaker 3: Turn out radio off.
Speaker 1: Steve has made a reservation at a pizza restaurant. On
Speaker 1: the drive there, he worries, but as usual, it isn't
Speaker 1: for himself.
Speaker 3: I worry about my mom.
Speaker 1: The worry has always been twofold. Firstly, what if Natalie's
Speaker 1: life hasn't turned out well and it's all Jane's fault
Speaker 1: for having given her up. But based on Gene and
Speaker 1: Natalie's correspondence, Natalie has a nice husband, sweet kids, and
Speaker 1: a career that keeps her busy flying to far off
Speaker 1: places like Mexico City and Singapore. So now, with that
Speaker 1: first worry allayed, the second worry rears its head. What
Speaker 1: if Natalie is not only not in bad shape, but
Speaker 1: in great shape, all due to Jane's lack of parenting.
Speaker 1: In other words, Steve's now worried that, as far as
Speaker 1: Jeane might believe, it isn't the Jeans, it's Gene.
Speaker 3: A person with the same genetic make up as your
Speaker 3: three kids. Who did I get all these things? So yeah,
Speaker 3: there's I think there's some pain there, man, Like there's
Speaker 3: some pain with my mom, like that she failed us
Speaker 3: or something, or that we failed her. Oh shit, it's
Speaker 3: six eighteen? Are we gonna make it?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Whatday?
Speaker 1: Isn't it supposed to be six forty five that you
Speaker 1: guys are reading thirty six thirty? Oh but your folks
Speaker 1: will be there, are they?
Speaker 3: Our family is free disclosed towards.
Speaker 11: Kanelead all the time.
Speaker 1: A few blocks from the restaurant, Steve drops me off
Speaker 1: at the side of the road. He says, they'll let
Speaker 1: me know how it goes. Okay, by you guys have fun.
Speaker 1: Later I'll learn that Pete, Jean, and Megan were uncharacteristically
Speaker 1: on time and are there to greet Natalie and her husband.
Speaker 1: When they arrive, Geena hugs Now and introduces her to Megan.
Speaker 1: Natalie and Megan stare at each other. They look so similar.
Speaker 1: I wish I could wear my hair like that, Natalie says,
Speaker 1: and Megan smiles. Steve, Maggie, and Kevin arrive as the
Speaker 1: table is being prepared. While they wait, they all make
Speaker 1: nervous small talk. Pete fills the silence by talking about
Speaker 1: how old his shoes are, about fishing. The others join in,
Speaker 1: talking about goldfish they've owned, the relative merits of pac
Speaker 1: Man versus misspac Man restaurants they like, They compare their heights. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the host leads them outside to a round wooden table
Speaker 1: built around a tree. The group orders pizza and wine.
Speaker 1: They all cheers. Everyone has questions for Natalie. They don't
Speaker 1: totally understand what her job is, but it has something
Speaker 1: to do with selling accounting software all over the world.
Speaker 1: They get the impression that she's in charge of things.
Speaker 1: Natalie has a confidence. She sits beside Kevin, who shows
Speaker 1: her a photo of himself coming in second in a
Speaker 1: hot dog eating contest. Natalie seems impressed. During the salad course,
Speaker 1: Gene tells the story of how when Steve first found
Speaker 1: out about Natalie, he joked, thanks for keeping me, Mom.
Speaker 1: It's not too late. Natalie interjects, you could still be abandoned.
Speaker 1: Everyone laughs. Natalie shares the martial's dark sense of humor.
Speaker 1: It looks like Natalie is coming to Steve's wedding. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of night where it seems like it could
Speaker 1: rain at any minute, so Jeane grabs the check. Steve
Speaker 1: sees the look on her face as she glances it
Speaker 1: over Mom. He says quietly, so Natalie won't hear. We'll
Speaker 1: help you. The kids all go home that night and
Speaker 1: request Natalie's friendship on Facebook. Geene and Pete drive with
Speaker 1: Jeanne smiling all the way.
Speaker 6: When we came home that night, Pete was opening the
Speaker 6: door and I just put my hand on his shoulder.
Speaker 6: And I said, you know, God looked out for her
Speaker 6: all these years, and so we've been blessed. We truly have.
Speaker 6: It was joyous. All the kids are so comfortable. Everybody
Speaker 6: was asking questions. There was a lot of laughter. There
Speaker 6: was a lot of you know, joking.
Speaker 7: And talking, and it was very emotional. And there's still
Speaker 7: a lot of thought process there that's gonna maybe be
Speaker 7: with me all my life. But I know that she
Speaker 7: had a good life and she's got a wonderful life now.
Speaker 7: I couldn't have asked for anything more. I really couldn't have.
Speaker 1: You felt like you wanted Natalie to have a good life,
Speaker 1: but that was complicated because you felt like it might
Speaker 1: reflect on your parenting in some way. So I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about that now?
Speaker 10: You still have guilt, But I think I just realized
Speaker 10: that no matter what I did or didn't do, they've
Speaker 10: all grown up to be wonderful human beings.
Speaker 8: And we can move on.
Speaker 1: All the things Jean had worried about, that Natalie might
Speaker 1: resent her, that the family might be too much for her.
Speaker 1: In the end didn't matter. That night at the restaurant,
Speaker 1: things were simple. They were all just happy to be together,
Speaker 1: but there's still one thing. For months, Steve's priority has
Speaker 1: been his mom's feelings, the effect all of this is
Speaker 1: having on her. All the while, though a feeling of
Speaker 1: his own was slowly taking shape. At the pizza restaurant,
Speaker 1: Steven wanted to say something to Natalie all night, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't find the words.
Speaker 11: Well, I really wish I would have told her is
Speaker 11: thank you man, thank you for you you existing, like
Speaker 11: your miracle of coming into the world and the way
Speaker 11: it happened, like brought my parents back together.
Speaker 1: But then, how do you thank someone a stranger forgiving
Speaker 1: your family life, for giving you life?
Speaker 9: Hey, how are you good?
Speaker 1: In my role as loyal spur, I've invited Stephen Natalie
Speaker 1: to my office so Steve can at least give it
Speaker 1: a try. It's the first time Steve and Natalie have
Speaker 1: gotten to talk one on one since this all began.
Speaker 14: I never thought I never thought someone would search for me.
Speaker 1: This is Natalie.
Speaker 3: Wow, He's never he never even considered that.
Speaker 1: Steve explains that during the search, the marsh is worried
Speaker 1: that they might not live up to Natalie's expectations.
Speaker 3: You know you're you're such an accomplished person.
Speaker 14: Well, gosh, my LinkedIn profile is really doing its job
Speaker 14: of a pr major.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, like you seem like such a funny,
Speaker 3: like even keel person. You know, like like you have
Speaker 3: a wicked sense of humor. It's just it's cool. It's cool,
Speaker 3: Like you're funny. You know, you're wearing you have an
Speaker 3: iPhone watch and you're killing it.
Speaker 15: You know what I mean?
Speaker 14: That was a gift. Everything's a gift my husband, that's all. No,
Speaker 14: but don't put me on a pedestal. I don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: Natalie's uncomfortable with her life being held up as a
Speaker 1: success story. She tries to explain that her house had
Speaker 1: its own share of chaos. Her brother faced some of
Speaker 1: the same challenges with drugs and other troubles that the
Speaker 1: Marsh kids faced. It feels like what she's trying to
Speaker 1: say is blood parenting. I don't know why things turned
Speaker 1: out the way they have. But Steve is undeterred in
Speaker 1: his effort to offer Natalie credit, and so tentatively he
Speaker 1: gets to the thing he's been trying to say for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean, I feel like it's weird to thank
Speaker 3: somebody who didn't elect to be adopted. But like, maybe
Speaker 3: my parents would have never gotten back together if it
Speaker 3: wasn't for you. You brought them together. Like I think it
Speaker 3: was kind of a fling kind of situation and we
Speaker 3: turned into a like a forty five year marriage. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't know the exact stats, but.
Speaker 1: Natalie can see that Steve's struggling. But she's struggling to
Speaker 1: if Steve is trying to say thanks for my life,
Speaker 1: how does she simply say you're welcome. So instead, Natalie
Speaker 1: offers thanks of her own in the way of a
Speaker 1: story about Steve's mom.
Speaker 14: In her mom when my mom was around, she and
Speaker 14: I were really really close. She wanted to think, you
Speaker 14: know what, you know, I wish I could think her.
Speaker 14: She kept saying, I just wish I could thank her, right,
Speaker 14: And when she passed away in two thousand and four,
Speaker 14: she couldn't. Yeah, so the first thing I wanted to
Speaker 14: do was do the thinking. That decision set the trajectory
Speaker 14: of my life. I'm so I'm so lucky to be
Speaker 14: where I'm at.
Speaker 1: In the end, Steve and Natalie are both great for
Speaker 1: the same thing, the family that they ended up with.
Speaker 14: Everyone always asked well, have you ever thought of reaching out?
Speaker 14: I always had the answer. I'm like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 14: I have a great family.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 14: Once I open that door, I can never close it.
Speaker 14: When I received the letter, I can honestly say I
Speaker 14: didn't have this figured out, and I thought about what
Speaker 14: my path would be if I'm on a crossroad of
Speaker 14: do I pursue this or do I let it go.
Speaker 1: As Natalie speaks, you can see a thought flash across
Speaker 1: Steve's face. All this time, he's been trying to thank
Speaker 1: Natalie for something she didn't even decide, rather than for
Speaker 1: the thing that she did decide.
Speaker 3: When you put it like that way, when you put
Speaker 3: it like that, like you did have a choice here
Speaker 3: whether to even talk to us, you know, like like
Speaker 3: you could have been like, no, you risk you open
Speaker 3: the door, like and and so yeah, I guess Natalie,
Speaker 3: I do thank you for that, man. Like the way
Speaker 3: that you've been with my mom has been super cool. Man.
Speaker 3: And I I think you for that. Oh well, I
Speaker 3: like she'd kind of deserves like, uh, I think like
Speaker 3: cool stuff in life, you know, and like you've been
Speaker 3: really cool man. That's choice.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 1: It's been two and a half years since the search
Speaker 1: for Natalie began, and in that time, Natalie's interaction with
Speaker 1: the Marshes have been based around occasions Jean's birthday, Steve's wedding,
Speaker 1: But today they're all just hanging out. Steve and his
Speaker 1: new wife, Maggie wanted to have everyone over for a
Speaker 1: backyard barbecue, even me. On our way to the yard,
Speaker 1: Steve gives me a quick tour of the house, his
Speaker 1: shelves loaded with books, his plans. Uh is that indigenous
Speaker 1: to this area?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Natalie shows up with her husband and two kids. Pete,
Speaker 1: the tough guy who thought about Natalie every day for
Speaker 1: almost fifty years, is there to greet them.
Speaker 13: Well, how you guys been?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 13: Good over here? I gotta have a hog absolutely oh.
Speaker 1: Shortly after, Kevin shows up with a bottle of vodka
Speaker 1: and a big bag of Frisbees.
Speaker 3: Who hasn't played Frisbee?
Speaker 13: Hey?
Speaker 1: And then Megan, who heads straight for Natalie. But there's
Speaker 1: one person who's running late.
Speaker 4: Should I call your mom and see what she is, sir?
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Jane is still stuck at the
Speaker 1: grocery store buying some last minute stuff for the party.
Speaker 1: Classic Steve says the Marshes are unorganized, chronically late, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. Or maybe Jeane is pacing the aisles, procrastinating,
Speaker 1: nervous about what Natalie might make of how the Marshes
Speaker 1: live with their ayahuasca plants and vodka Frisbees. But in
Speaker 1: the end, Jeane doesn't wait years, weeks, days, or hours.
Speaker 1: She's only late by fifteen minutes. Maybe Jane wasn't procrastinating
Speaker 1: at all. Maybe she wanted to show up late, to
Speaker 1: be the last one to walk into the backyard with
Speaker 1: everyone already there and see the whole family hanging out,
Speaker 1: joking and talking, everyone just happy to be together.
Speaker 13: Oh my God, now.
Speaker 16: That the fernitures rip turned to its goodwill home, now
Speaker 16: that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage,
Speaker 16: God take this moment.
Speaker 4: To do so.
Speaker 8: If we imagine, if we too.
Speaker 16: Felt from the things.
Speaker 8: At accident lead.
Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holt and
Speaker 1: me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Ba Parker and Stevie Lane.
Speaker 1: The show is edited by Jorge just Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Emily Condon, Lulu Miller Hans butto Domiano Marquetti, Alex Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original
Speaker 1: music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions,
Speaker 1: and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on
Speaker 1: our website, Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and
Speaker 1: our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia
Speaker 1: dot com. You can listen for free on Spotify or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We'll have our last episode
Speaker 1: of the season next week, so.
Speaker 15: Don't be tweeting us after that, Agata saying where's the
Speaker 15: episode because that's it, that we'd had the last one
Speaker 15: and there's not going to be anymore. It's the last
Speaker 15: one of the season is next week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what she said