Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. This episode contains
Speaker 1: descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: M History has written.
Speaker 3: At the hands of those who win.
Speaker 1: The battle must be over for the writing to begin.
Speaker 2: Take a piece of paper, an open thing, the feather
Speaker 2: and the finger pulls against gray.
Speaker 4: Oh, my stary blast to me, I will try to
Speaker 4: build a better life for me. No else will byecause say.
Speaker 5: I'm a survivor, and you'll be mine to me.
Speaker 1: That's Jessica Willis Fisher singing her beautiful and moving song
Speaker 1: My History from her album Brand New Day.
Speaker 3: I had been told that to be a good daughter,
Speaker 3: I must obey that to be a good Christian, I
Speaker 3: must submit that to be safe, I had to stay silent.
Speaker 3: I had given up my voice to survive. It was
Speaker 3: time I took it back. Every beautiful and broken part
Speaker 3: of my story was mine.
Speaker 1: Jessica's is a story of stunning resilience in the face
Speaker 1: of duplicity, deceit, gaslighting, and a childhood marked by ongoing
Speaker 1: incessant abuse. It's also the story of being saved by
Speaker 1: an indomitable spirit and by a transcendent gift. And just
Speaker 1: so you know, this finale of our eighth season is
Speaker 1: going to be a two parter. A thank you to
Speaker 1: all our amazing and devoted Family Secrets listeners. My story.
Speaker 1: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets
Speaker 1: that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,
Speaker 1: and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 3: Why childhood our stories start before we even show up
Speaker 3: on the scene with all of us. And I had
Speaker 3: a story that you know, at two and a half
Speaker 3: years old, there was a tragedy in my extended family,
Speaker 3: and some of my earliest memories were very much framed
Speaker 3: and influenced by this very recent occurrence. And by the
Speaker 3: time I have a more solid chronological memory starting three
Speaker 3: and a half four years old, it was already so
Speaker 3: shaped by these really kind of hard and traumatic events
Speaker 3: that all the adults around me were dealing with. And
Speaker 3: the way that showed up for me was I knew
Speaker 3: that even as my life was getting started, death could
Speaker 3: be kind of even just a second away. Being a
Speaker 3: super young child and knowing that other young children were
Speaker 3: suddenly gone overnight, I think that really shapes you in
Speaker 3: a nutshell. I had some aunts and uncles that had
Speaker 3: passed away in a car accident, and I remember that
Speaker 3: being one of the earliest things that I learned about.
Speaker 3: I think I had a really kind of loving and innocent,
Speaker 3: you know, early life and early years. I was homeschooled.
Speaker 3: I was constantly around my mother, who was bright and attentive,
Speaker 3: loved to teach, loved babies, loved children, and by the
Speaker 3: time I was four years old, there were four kids
Speaker 3: in my family. So we learned at home with mom
Speaker 3: while dad went to work nine to five for a
Speaker 3: company in Chicago. And we would play blocks, and we
Speaker 3: would do our flash cards, and we would learn our
Speaker 3: numbers and our shape, you know, as many children do,
Speaker 3: whether it's in the home, whether it's maybe preschool. But
Speaker 3: we would go to church on Sundays where my grandpa
Speaker 3: was the pastor, and I'd seen my little friends there
Speaker 3: at church, and occasionally my cousins who lived out of
Speaker 3: state but not too far would come in and there
Speaker 3: was like a really predictable, kind of wholesome rhythm to
Speaker 3: my life. Again, with the asterisk, you know, hanging over
Speaker 3: everything is that life isn't necessarily guaranteed, because tragedy can
Speaker 3: strike at any moment. Through my young eyes. I thought
Speaker 3: my mom was just so full of light and so beautiful.
Speaker 3: She had these freckles on her nose and her eyes.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a cliche, but they really did seem
Speaker 3: to sparkle. She had a beautiful smile. She just really
Speaker 3: seemed to love what she was doing when she interacted
Speaker 3: with us, whether that be teaching us, whether that be
Speaker 3: making food and you know, letting us participate. And I
Speaker 3: felt really close to her. Initially, the first nine years
Speaker 3: of my life didn't have any huge changes. It was just,
Speaker 3: you know, school got a little bit more complex and
Speaker 3: challenging and fun. We learned to play, you know, songs
Speaker 3: on the piano. We would observe kind of the rhythm
Speaker 3: of as each year went by, things like Easter. You know,
Speaker 3: you're just kind of storing up these memories of the
Speaker 3: holidays and the special times and the rhythm with my
Speaker 3: dad going to work. You know, our time with him
Speaker 3: was in the evenings and the weekends. Basically every year
Speaker 3: to aft there was there was a new kid. And
Speaker 3: how do we even know what normal is or if
Speaker 3: normal is even a real thing. You know, whatever we
Speaker 3: experience day to day that that's all that we know,
Speaker 3: especially when we're so young. And the one thing that
Speaker 3: did seem maybe a little outside the norm is I
Speaker 3: knew that not all families had six kids that close together.
Speaker 3: But I would say, because of our religion and our
Speaker 3: extended family, there were enough families that had lots of
Speaker 3: kids that didn't even feel so strange just because of
Speaker 3: the environment that I was in.
Speaker 1: And was homeschooling part of your parents' religious belief system.
Speaker 3: Well, the way that I would have understood that is that,
Speaker 3: particularly on my dad's side of the family, I said,
Speaker 3: my grandfather was a pastor, and I very much interpreted
Speaker 3: and understood that there were a number of things that
Speaker 3: were passed down that Dad was bringing from his family
Speaker 3: and his upbringing, and we're going to be really important
Speaker 3: and foundational in the family that we were building. I
Speaker 3: would say those things would be our religion, Protestant Evangelical Christianity.
Speaker 3: My grandpa was a Baptist pastor, and then you know,
Speaker 3: not just a religion that we observe once a week
Speaker 3: on the weekend, but also this deep principle that some
Speaker 3: of life's biggest decisions should be made through the lens
Speaker 3: of our religion, and whether that be having a bunch
Speaker 3: of kids. But also homeschooling was something that was a
Speaker 3: part of my dad's upbringing. And you know, my mom
Speaker 3: had gone to Christian High School, Christian College. My dad
Speaker 3: and mom had met at the Christian high school briefly
Speaker 3: they overlapped a little bit there, and so the idea
Speaker 3: that whether it was homeschooling or not, that the education
Speaker 3: should be essentially a Christian education, and what better way
Speaker 3: to do that than in the home with the Christian parents.
Speaker 3: And my mom had studied secondary education anyway, so she
Speaker 3: definitely had a you know, a skill set there and
Speaker 3: a passion there. So that just really felt like a
Speaker 3: natural extension of things that my grandparents had decided and
Speaker 3: incorporated and then had been passed down. And we were
Speaker 3: the you know, the next generation carrying on these traditions
Speaker 3: and these principles.
Speaker 1: So you're living in Chicago with your five other siblings,
Speaker 1: all very close in age, and every one of your
Speaker 1: names begins with the letter J. There's Jess, Jerregeen, jet Jack,
Speaker 1: and Jedi Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes? Correct? Jedi fuel name is Jedediah, but we would
Speaker 3: call him Jedi.
Speaker 1: What was with the Jays?
Speaker 3: As far as I understood it. The story was that
Speaker 3: if there had been more boys, it would have been
Speaker 3: the prophets. It would have been you know, Jeremiah, Daniel Ezekiel,
Speaker 3: those sorts of things. They were going to kind of
Speaker 3: stick with that theme. But there were three girls in
Speaker 3: the first four kids, and they just kind of agreed
Speaker 3: on a name by name, and when they got down
Speaker 3: to the fifth kid, they went, it's kind of weird
Speaker 3: to not have Jay's at this point. So I guess
Speaker 3: they just stuck with that momentum after after the fourth kid.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, Jessica's family's life changes. The tragic
Speaker 1: accident that occurred when she was an infant, in which
Speaker 1: her aunts and uncles lost their lives eventually results in
Speaker 1: a wrongful death civil suit and a massive, I mean
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollar a massive settlement. As one of
Speaker 1: the beneficiaries of the settlement, her father receives a very
Speaker 1: significant sum of money.
Speaker 3: I did not know kind of what that number was
Speaker 3: or what that meant in a very real way for
Speaker 3: my family, my extended family. You know. I just remember
Speaker 3: being like, oh, Dad's going to do something called retire.
Speaker 3: He's going to retire, and that just means that I'm
Speaker 3: going to get to, you know, play blocks with Daddy
Speaker 3: on more than just the evenings and the weekends. You know,
Speaker 3: Daddy's not going to have to go to work, which
Speaker 3: was just crazy because everybody's daddy worked or maybe their
Speaker 3: mommy as well, you know. And it didn't happen right away,
Speaker 3: but eventually my grandfather also would step back from his pastorship.
Speaker 3: That took a little while, but you know, the biggest
Speaker 3: measurable difference was, oh, we're going to be able to
Speaker 3: get a bigger house. To my recollection, nobody brought in
Speaker 3: the you know, the kids under ten and sat down
Speaker 3: and went, hey, comprehensively, this is what it means for
Speaker 3: our family, and this is what the road map is.
Speaker 3: You know, this was unforeseen for all of us, so,
Speaker 3: you know, it was this windfall, and I think it
Speaker 3: eventually turned into the shape of tragedy followed by blessing.
Speaker 3: I certainly had already learned plenty of Bible stories where
Speaker 3: that kind of dynamic was evident. We didn't know exactly
Speaker 3: what was going to follow. I was just happy that
Speaker 3: we're going to get more bedrooms now instead of having
Speaker 3: all the kids in in one room. You know, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know any different. I didn't dislike that. I
Speaker 3: was always surrounded by siblings and like I said, you know,
Speaker 3: toys in school and all of that. But I just
Speaker 3: knew big change was coming. Never dreamed that we would
Speaker 3: be moving so far away and that those changes would
Speaker 3: be so far reaching. So my parents looked for homes
Speaker 3: in the greater Chicagoland area for a while. I believe
Speaker 3: it was multiple years, and it started getting a little strange.
Speaker 3: I remember going to a couple of these places and
Speaker 3: just feeling like they were palaces. I'd never even seen
Speaker 3: a house that big, and just my dad being very
Speaker 3: unhappy with that. So I guess that started giving me
Speaker 3: a little more context on just how much things had changed.
Speaker 3: You know, if Dad could kind of not be happy
Speaker 3: with this, you know, what is he looking for? And
Speaker 3: I think the other thing that's important, and I could
Speaker 3: even feel at the time, was that when my grandfather
Speaker 3: did leave, the church was at odds with the kind
Speaker 3: of the changing of the guard, and I probably will
Speaker 3: never understand all the minutia about that. But another large
Speaker 3: family with a bunch of kids kind of came in
Speaker 3: and the father was going to become the new pastor,
Speaker 3: and Dad was not getting along with him, and you know,
Speaker 3: the finer points of the theology or the philosophy was
Speaker 3: again a little bit beside the point and above my head.
Speaker 3: But I knew that that was a source of tension.
Speaker 3: And you know, our community other than our family was
Speaker 3: this church, and to kind of feel like maybe that
Speaker 3: was not going to continue. So we were looking for
Speaker 3: a new home, and you know, maybe we were going
Speaker 3: to have to be looking for a new church as well.
Speaker 3: So more and more of the bonds were kind of
Speaker 3: loosening around us. And I remember being told at one
Speaker 3: point that they had been looking at houses in all
Speaker 3: sorts of different states. Now, my parents saw this amazing
Speaker 3: house and property online in nash which I'd never heard of,
Speaker 3: and Dad went on a trip and he called my
Speaker 3: mom and said, like, this is it. We're going to
Speaker 3: make an offer. We're not going to look whatever that
Speaker 3: adult conversation was is just this immediate kind of overnight
Speaker 3: all right, We're going to go see this new house
Speaker 3: in this place called Nashville.
Speaker 1: We live life forward, of course, but when it comes
Speaker 1: to our earliest memories, especially when those memories are traumatic,
Speaker 1: we're left to put together the pieces as we've become
Speaker 1: adults and we're able to understand in retrospect and supply
Speaker 1: language to what it is that we remember.
Speaker 3: Along with the jumble of earliest memories, is you know,
Speaker 3: a memory that does not have that much unique about
Speaker 3: it other than I remember being in my parents' bed
Speaker 3: and my father was touching me, talking to me. And
Speaker 3: as you do as a child, there are many things
Speaker 3: that you experience or see or learn about that you
Speaker 3: don't have words for or you don't really understand. And
Speaker 3: there's a certain amount of trust that, oh, the caretakers
Speaker 3: and the adults around me can help me with this,
Speaker 3: or I'm going to eventually learn the vocabulary that describes
Speaker 3: this new food that I've tried, or this new activity
Speaker 3: that I've been taught or something. But in this moment
Speaker 3: of this interaction with my dad, the moment that my
Speaker 3: mom kind of came into my view, I was just
Speaker 3: just etched in my memory. The next time I saw
Speaker 3: my mother's face, I think it was just maybe minutes
Speaker 3: later or whatever, but I had been in their bedroom
Speaker 3: and she was coming out of their bathroom, and her
Speaker 3: skin was clean, and her hair was up in a
Speaker 3: towel and it was just I had this overwhelming sense
Speaker 3: that I should say something to her, that I should
Speaker 3: kind of maybe tell her what happened, but I didn't
Speaker 3: know what to say. I didn't have names for the
Speaker 3: body part involved, They didn't you know, I didn't really
Speaker 3: know how to convey to her what had just happened.
Speaker 3: I also didn't know why I felt compelled to say something,
Speaker 3: So it felt kind of like I was, you know,
Speaker 3: a secret was created in that moment, but not because
Speaker 3: I didn't want to tell. I just didn't know how.
Speaker 3: And it speaks to how young I was. Again, that
Speaker 3: was probably around three and a half years old or
Speaker 3: four years old. I only have a handful of memories
Speaker 3: that go back that far. And there's some things about
Speaker 3: this memory that makes me wonder. This might not have
Speaker 3: been the first time that my father, you know, had
Speaker 3: behaved inappropriately towards me. It's just the first one that
Speaker 3: I can remember. So, you know, throughout these younger years homeschooling,
Speaker 3: you know, nine and under, there were continued touching and
Speaker 3: interactions with my dad that never happened with either anyone
Speaker 3: else in the room at all, or maybe as he
Speaker 3: was tucking me into bed at night, he would say
Speaker 3: a little something or do little something, and you know,
Speaker 3: over time and pattern, it was very clear that this
Speaker 3: was something. You know, we didn't ever talk about it
Speaker 3: in front of anybody else, No one else was ever involved,
Speaker 3: and glaringly obvious my mom was was very much not involved,
Speaker 3: and so I did wonder as to why that was.
Speaker 3: And other than the actions themselves, I think the only
Speaker 3: kind of what I would now understand to be grooming
Speaker 3: that was happening was that my dad would kind of
Speaker 3: drop information. He would kind of frame it as if
Speaker 3: he was teaching me something, Oh, you need to do this,
Speaker 3: you know, it'll make you feel this way, or it's
Speaker 3: something you need to learn so that one day when
Speaker 3: you're the mommy, you know, mommies and daddies do this,
Speaker 3: like that sort of narrative, and then working in occasionally
Speaker 3: you know, mom doesn't know that he would say things
Speaker 3: that were negative towards my mom, which at some point
Speaker 3: I just kind of filled in the blanks like, oh,
Speaker 3: Mom's not involved in this, because this is maybe even
Speaker 3: a reaction to like something that's adult that I don't understand,
Speaker 3: and maybe my dad is madam my mom about or
Speaker 3: there's something that's not quite right. But he's teaching me
Speaker 3: so that I will know and kind of be special
Speaker 3: and be better and I won't have these same struggles.
Speaker 3: But you know, not talked about a lot at all,
Speaker 3: even between us, but when he needed to frame it,
Speaker 3: that's kind of the frame that he gave it. And
Speaker 3: I would say prior to us moving to Tennessee, prior
Speaker 3: to me turning nine, because I turned mind just after removed.
Speaker 3: You know, I did not attach any sort of pain
Speaker 3: or overwhelm or panic to any of those interactions with
Speaker 3: my dad. I was very eager to please. I loved him.
Speaker 3: I wanted him to be proud of me. He was
Speaker 3: very much in control of the whole system. I had
Speaker 3: already ingested that Dad was at the top. Mom was
Speaker 3: there to help and support and submit to, and that
Speaker 3: his frame was a really beautiful, wonderful thing that God
Speaker 3: had said this was the best way to raise your family,
Speaker 3: and it was all going to work out. Daddy was
Speaker 3: our protector and our leader, and Mom was the caretaker.
Speaker 3: And you know, if there was ever a moment of
Speaker 3: concern or knowing that something was wrong, it actually wasn't
Speaker 3: about what Dad was doing to me. I remember really
Speaker 3: being disturbed one day when I realized that, hey, something
Speaker 3: is off between my mom and my dad, and I
Speaker 3: care and love for my dad. I care and love
Speaker 3: for my mom, and she was really upset and kind
Speaker 3: of scared for him to come home one random day
Speaker 3: from work. And it was the first time I had
Speaker 3: ever noticed her anxiety and unhappiness, and I didn't understand
Speaker 3: the reason for it, but I just kind of realized, Oh,
Speaker 3: mom cares for me, Mom cares for my siblings, Mom
Speaker 3: cares for dad. Who cares for mom? Like I realized
Speaker 3: that when you set up the system in that way,
Speaker 3: you know, there's this lack of care and support, and
Speaker 3: you know that I saw that. I glimpsed in my
Speaker 3: mother and I internalized that as much as possible, I
Speaker 3: needed to take care of her. And I was told
Speaker 3: in my role at the best way to fit into
Speaker 3: our family system was to obey, to not be disobedient,
Speaker 3: to not be you know, too much or hard to handle.
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to please and make my dad happy.
Speaker 3: Most of those ways weren't this secret, confusing thing, but
Speaker 3: that was included, and with my mom it was, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know what the issue is here. Something seems
Speaker 3: wrong about it, But I'm going to try to do
Speaker 3: all that I can to make her smile and make
Speaker 3: her happy because she was just so full of light
Speaker 3: and so like, how could you not want her to
Speaker 3: be happy and cared for?
Speaker 1: And to add to that the insidiousness of and this
Speaker 1: I guess is part of the grooming process, is that
Speaker 1: you dad would compare you to your mom and say,
Speaker 1: you know, you do that so much better than your mom,
Speaker 1: or your mom doesn't know how to do that, And
Speaker 1: so I can imagine the shame, guilt, responsibility, love for
Speaker 1: your mother and this dawning realization that there's something really
Speaker 1: difficult going on for her. She's in some kind of
Speaker 1: real trouble, you know, and doesn't have anyone protecting her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. When Jessica's family moves into their
Speaker 1: new expansive house in Nashville, it seems their whole world
Speaker 1: is expanding too. Her parents have more children pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Jessica is one of twelve kids. The homeschooling continues, but
Speaker 1: it's different now, bigger, more involved. It's no longer just
Speaker 1: Jessica's mom making little lesson plans. Now they have living
Speaker 1: teachers for all sorts of subjects, dance, music, horseback riding. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the house itself is in a constant state of renovation.
Speaker 3: The house was kind of under construction the whole time
Speaker 3: we were there. But really, you got to imagine a
Speaker 3: child like in Narnia when they go to the country
Speaker 3: and they're they're exploring this huge house, and around every
Speaker 3: corner is something that feels magical, and you know, it
Speaker 3: is a nine thousand square foot home from a two
Speaker 3: bedroom apartment. You look at it, it's quite a privileged life.
Speaker 3: It was a rich life, and I was so young
Speaker 3: that there was a lot I was not appreciating about it.
Speaker 3: But even just the land itself was over one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty two acres at the time, and you know,
Speaker 3: we came just before spring, so there is this real,
Speaker 3: just magical, elemental, overwhelming bounty of a southern spring that
Speaker 3: I've never in my life you've seen. So I loved it.
Speaker 3: And our life was now not the same as most
Speaker 3: people that we met, and they were all new people,
Speaker 3: you know, because we're coming into a new community. We
Speaker 3: were not very cut off. We found another church, you know,
Speaker 3: we were pretty integrated with that church. For quite a while.
Speaker 3: We would offer our home and our land and church
Speaker 3: events what happen there, and you know, you try to
Speaker 3: kind of make friends again, mostly through church or some
Speaker 3: other neighbor families because we're way more out in the
Speaker 3: country now, so getting to know your neighbors. You know,
Speaker 3: neighbor is a loose term when you're on a piece
Speaker 3: of land that's you know, hundreds of acres. But you know,
Speaker 3: other homeschooling families we kind of got connected to, and
Speaker 3: you know, I would counter other kids whose lives were
Speaker 3: so different. They went to public school, they may or
Speaker 3: may not have been religious, they did not have lived
Speaker 3: dance teachers and music teachers and all these kind of
Speaker 3: extracurricular things. Maybe they played soccer or something, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'd laid with what's your favorite book? Because I was
Speaker 3: a voracious reader, and they would just go, I don't
Speaker 3: really like books. And I would have this reaction that
Speaker 3: came from the way my parents talked about the philosophical
Speaker 3: choices they were making, and I just thought, Wow, these kids'
Speaker 3: parents really aren't raising them right, you know. And I'm
Speaker 3: like ten years old thanking this, But the space between
Speaker 3: not really being able to connect with my peers and
Speaker 3: other children. We either had nothing in common or there
Speaker 3: was this dynamic of but I wish I was in
Speaker 3: your family. It just looks so fun, And I was like,
Speaker 3: I know, it is so fun, but.
Speaker 1: Of course it's not all fun. In fact, it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: Jessica understands that much of her lifestyle is one of privilege,
Speaker 1: and she knows why other kids are envious, but that's
Speaker 1: just how things look from the outside. Inside, the abuse
Speaker 1: from Jessica's father continues.
Speaker 3: You know, when I'm nine ten, we are still attending church.
Speaker 3: There's this idea of right and wrong and things that
Speaker 3: are appropriate, things are inappropriate, and so I have gotten
Speaker 3: this understanding that something about that is definitely not right,
Speaker 3: to the point where I'm not just going to casually
Speaker 3: bring it up and just see what happens. I feel
Speaker 3: the need to kind of make sure this doesn't come
Speaker 3: to light. And still I think just kind of giving
Speaker 3: my dad that benefit of the doubt, and that well,
Speaker 3: he's the adult, you know, And yes, I know I
Speaker 3: have another adult present here in a way, but you know,
Speaker 3: I've already kind of been inoculated from going to her
Speaker 3: because she is either wrong in this situation or doesn't
Speaker 3: know about the situation, you know, and it did feel
Speaker 3: like I was going to protect her by not I
Speaker 3: kind of need to go to her for help. But
Speaker 3: I feel like, one she can't help me, and two
Speaker 3: that's going to undermine this idea of trying to protect
Speaker 3: her and not give her more. You know, she's now
Speaker 3: has seven kids, eights, and she's always pregnant. There's always something.
Speaker 3: She's kind of running this drastically big household, so there's
Speaker 3: never this one on one time, you know, even compared
Speaker 3: to how it used to be. There's so much less
Speaker 3: time with her. So what ended up happening is during
Speaker 3: the renovations that are happening in this house, you know,
Speaker 3: there was this time where we all kind of were
Speaker 3: sleeping in the same area. There was this master bedroom
Speaker 3: suite that frankly was as big as our previous whole home.
Speaker 3: I think I was just very over the top. And anyway,
Speaker 3: we're all sleeping in there for a short amount of time.
Speaker 3: And so that's what helps me understand that this is
Speaker 3: quite early in our move to Tennessee, because it is
Speaker 3: kind of one of the first things that happened with
Speaker 3: the house and the construction. But I woke up to
Speaker 3: my dad lifting me out of bed, and he took
Speaker 3: me around kind of the corner again of suite and
Speaker 3: there was a sink area, and he put me up
Speaker 3: on the sink and did something he had never done before,
Speaker 3: and it was way more invasive, and it was an
Speaker 3: extremely uncomfortable, unpleasant experience in a way that none of
Speaker 3: the other stuff had been. And to just show how
Speaker 3: how much I would go along with this, Dad would
Speaker 3: tell me that I was supposed to touch myself and
Speaker 3: would ask me if I had, and I would say yes,
Speaker 3: and you know, it was just our routine. And one
Speaker 3: time he asked me, you know, have you done this?
Speaker 3: And I said yes, and I told him I'd done
Speaker 3: it a lot of times and he just kind of
Speaker 3: laughed at me and called me a liar. And again,
Speaker 3: still just really over my head, not something that I
Speaker 3: was worried about. I was more worried about blying to
Speaker 3: my dad than I was, you know, trying to say, hey,
Speaker 3: this is wrong or this is unsafe. But this moment
Speaker 3: was totally different. I wanted to get out of my
Speaker 3: body and it was the first time you kind of
Speaker 3: have this, you know, they say out of body experience,
Speaker 3: and I would have loved to be out of my
Speaker 3: body because there was kind of no place to hide.
Speaker 3: And that is a deeply traumatic moment for me. It
Speaker 3: colored everything that came before, because I very much understood
Speaker 3: that this was connected, you know, to actions that on
Speaker 3: the surface were different, but I understood that they were sexual.
Speaker 3: I understood that they were inappropriate. And now I understood
Speaker 3: that whether he had the plan to come to this
Speaker 3: moment all the way at the beginning or not, these
Speaker 3: were very much connected and I never wanted this particular
Speaker 3: thing to happen again.
Speaker 1: Well, and they were escalating. That was an escalation.
Speaker 3: Yes, I understood then and certainly understand now that's a
Speaker 3: major escalation. My mother came to me and just asked,
Speaker 3: straight up, was like, has Dad done anything weird? Has
Speaker 3: he touched has he touched it? And she just kind
Speaker 3: of gestures with her hand, and it really is quite
Speaker 3: a vague question, but I knew what she was talking about.
Speaker 3: And I'm between eights of probably nine and a half
Speaker 3: and ten and a half somewhere in there in the stage,
Speaker 3: and just you know, the shame, the coloring of the cheeks,
Speaker 3: the flush of like I'm so uncomfortable. This is embarrassing.
Speaker 3: I feel guilty. I just felt so bad. And why
Speaker 3: haven't I told mom if this is bad? And I
Speaker 3: know it's bad, why haven't I said something to her?
Speaker 3: Why haven't I done this? And really, as this is
Speaker 3: all happening in my head, I'm going back one to
Speaker 3: the moment when I had first had that inclination to
Speaker 3: tell her, Hey, something just happened. But I still feel
Speaker 3: that same like lock on my mouth, like I don't
Speaker 3: I still don't know what to say, Like how do
Speaker 3: I explain this horrible thing that just happened. I definitely
Speaker 3: don't have the vocabulary for that. And I'm also immediately
Speaker 3: feeling relief because I'm nod and she doesn't ask any
Speaker 3: for the questions. She says, Okay, he has Okay, it's
Speaker 3: not your fault. It's all gonna be okay. And I'm
Speaker 3: so relieved to hear this, because I certainly don't want
Speaker 3: to be talking about the details. I just try to
Speaker 3: forget it happens. As soon as something happens, and now
Speaker 3: it'll stop, and thank goodness, the adults. There's still so
Speaker 3: much I don't understand about this. But if it's just
Speaker 3: gonna stop. I'm fine not interrogating the issue and just
Speaker 3: moving on.
Speaker 1: But that's not what happens, No, not at all.
Speaker 3: Initially. You know, I hear my mom raise her voice
Speaker 3: to Dad, which really stands out. I have no memory
Speaker 3: of that prior to this moment. I cannot hear what
Speaker 3: they're saying, but I interpreted that as, Wow, she's really
Speaker 3: kind of confronting him, and I think, I mean, certainly,
Speaker 3: the reason it sticks out is Mom confronting Dad does
Speaker 3: not fit with that pecking order, that hierarchy of how
Speaker 3: the whole family system is supposed to work. And I
Speaker 3: fail to grasp that, of course, this is really going
Speaker 3: to have no effect because my dad still has all
Speaker 3: of that kind of god given authority, and you know,
Speaker 3: my mom, she's still going to be there the next morning,
Speaker 3: serving him, serving us, being our mother. You know, nothing
Speaker 3: changes day to day. There were periods where it would
Speaker 3: be a nightly thing, and there'd be periods where it
Speaker 3: didn't happen for a while, and it would start up
Speaker 3: and be slightly different or escalate a little and it
Speaker 3: stops dead cold. But you know, time will tell, and
Speaker 3: unfortunately things do pick up before long but there's this
Speaker 3: process before that where Dad definitely starts changing his interaction
Speaker 3: with me. There's what I would now call much more
Speaker 3: hypical grooming efforts. It's, hey, I have a gift for you. Hey,
Speaker 3: you know I want to get a hug from you.
Speaker 3: Oh you're pulling away from me. Don't be cold, you know,
Speaker 3: really pouring on that what you need to do to
Speaker 3: be special and get certain privileges. And you know, I
Speaker 3: have not suddenly overnight changed to seeing my dad as
Speaker 3: this horrible beast. He is still number one, the person
Speaker 3: in charge, but number two someone that I love and
Speaker 3: have spent my whole life so far trying to live
Speaker 3: up to whatever it is that he would like me
Speaker 3: to be. So he starts, you know, finding ways to
Speaker 3: get close with me and isolate me even within our home.
Speaker 3: Why don't you come over to the side of the
Speaker 3: house and do this special project with me and no
Speaker 3: one else is around. And I vaguely remember there being
Speaker 3: a conversation with my mom that amounted to something like, hey,
Speaker 3: all you sisters and girls, don't be alone with dad.
Speaker 3: Like it wasn't some Hey, this is what I figured out.
Speaker 3: Let me explain what happened. Let me. It wasn't I
Speaker 3: need more information. It was just kind of, hey, let's
Speaker 3: let's make sure we're being smart. And you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know what all that means at that time, and
Speaker 3: so it's just kind of vaguely there. I know some
Speaker 3: conversation like that happened, but if it was hey, don't
Speaker 3: be alone with dad, well, what am I actually supposed
Speaker 3: to do next time? He gives me a command? And
Speaker 3: that just seemed like there was no teeth behind that rule.
Speaker 3: It's like having a law, but there's no way to
Speaker 3: uphold it. And eventually he worked back up to kind
Speaker 3: of touching me again. But I don't tell my mom,
Speaker 3: and it just really does come back down to like, actually,
Speaker 3: that didn't change anything. So like I tell her, and
Speaker 3: it's still not going to change anything. And it's not
Speaker 3: my job. I'm the child, and I think it's so
Speaker 3: hard not to look back and be hard on myself
Speaker 3: and or hard on my mom. And there's accountability, of course,
Speaker 3: that needs to be there, but I mean my actions
Speaker 3: kind of speak for themselves, and that I didn't trust
Speaker 3: that it was really going to change anything, so I didn't,
Speaker 3: you know, she kind of asked, Hey, help me protect you, like,
Speaker 3: you know, don't do these things, and I did them anyway,
Speaker 3: but I kind of felt like I didn't really have
Speaker 3: a choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that seems clear from the fact that
Speaker 1: you did. You know, you did take that risk, and
Speaker 1: you did say yes, you're a child, and you you
Speaker 1: finally you speak what is unspeakable, and nothing changes. So
Speaker 1: why would you think that anything would or that it
Speaker 1: would be safe or useful to say anything else.
Speaker 3: I was just glad I didn't get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Were you afraid of your father? Because there is this
Speaker 1: threat of violence that's running throughout and beatings and hitting
Speaker 1: your mother and hitting your kids, and these wrestling games
Speaker 1: that aren't really games.
Speaker 3: And kind of like everything else, it starts in one
Speaker 3: location and ends up a million miles in another place.
Speaker 3: And yet I think there's a clear thread, the clear escalation.
Speaker 3: I think we didn't change paths. You know, I can
Speaker 3: look back at the beginning and see that these seeds
Speaker 3: had been growing for a long time and initially, you know,
Speaker 3: just the teaching of how discipline was going to happen
Speaker 3: is that the Bible told parents to spake their children
Speaker 3: to discipline them, to modify their behavior. But Also there
Speaker 3: was this larger teaching that I heard from multiple pulpits
Speaker 3: and teachings and sermons and things, that we're all sinners,
Speaker 3: and we are all bad at heart. Our bodies are
Speaker 3: the flesh tempts us, you know, as children will be
Speaker 3: tempted to pinch our brothers. As adults, there's things like
Speaker 3: murder and adultery, you know, right here in the Ten Commandments,
Speaker 3: which we would constantly go over with Mom and a
Speaker 3: Sunday school and things. And so this teaching, a lot
Speaker 3: of times it's called total depravity, is like the theological word,
Speaker 3: and I certainly heard a lot of theological phrases between
Speaker 3: my dad my grandpa. A lot of kids wouldn't even
Speaker 3: hear things like this unless they were going to seminary
Speaker 3: at some point and they're an adult. But I actually
Speaker 3: did hear these things as kids. And so the teaching
Speaker 3: of you know, children are born naturally bad with the
Speaker 3: sin nature, and that the proper way a parent to
Speaker 3: truly love their child is to instruct them in the
Speaker 3: way that they should go so that they will become
Speaker 3: good adults. And that's thinking is definitely a part of that.
Speaker 3: And there's something to be said about where do we
Speaker 3: know that something like that is wrong? Our body tells us.
Speaker 3: You know, my body told me that incident when Dad
Speaker 3: did something new and it was horrible. It was my
Speaker 3: body that was telling me a no, no, no, I
Speaker 3: got to get out. I did not have a thought
Speaker 3: or a teaching that told me it was wrong. It
Speaker 3: was a really visceral physical sense. And as far as
Speaker 3: you know, the spanking and stuff, my mom was so
Speaker 3: so viewed it as having a place, a proper place.
Speaker 3: But she much rather talk to us, much rather reason
Speaker 3: with us, appeal to our better natures, have this right
Speaker 3: a couple of Bible verses, or apologize, you know, as
Speaker 3: opposed to I'm just going to spank you. In fact,
Speaker 3: if that felt necessary, she would usually well Dad is
Speaker 3: going to spank you. So she wasn't even really seen
Speaker 3: as a person who could do the worst version of that.
Speaker 3: I stole something when I was really a little still
Speaker 3: in Chicago, and I think I had done that maybe
Speaker 3: a couple times, and it started bothering my parents. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, wait a second, do we have a
Speaker 3: little kleptomaniac on our hands? And I got whooked. I
Speaker 3: mean it was it was bad had bruises, and I
Speaker 3: did not view that as wrong, but my body was
Speaker 3: so terrified, you know. And so this is quite young.
Speaker 3: And although I loved being a perfect little girl, you know,
Speaker 3: occasionally I would get in trouble. And it really is
Speaker 3: a great motivator to not be bad. Whatever that standard is,
Speaker 3: whatever your parents, you know, are saying, this is what
Speaker 3: a good girl does, is what a bad girl does.
Speaker 3: The punishment is pretty darn severe. And even when I
Speaker 3: wasn't in trouble, I have all these other younger siblings,
Speaker 3: and some of them were quite troublesome according to my parents.
Speaker 3: And you know, by the time we're living in Tennessee,
Speaker 3: by the time I'm going, wait, there's this thing that
Speaker 3: I'm a part of, and I don't feel safe. If
Speaker 3: you ask me, am I afraid of my dad? There
Speaker 3: is a part of me that lives in fear of
Speaker 3: not crossing a line to where I'm going to be
Speaker 3: under that paddle and if I scream or move, he's
Speaker 3: going to start over and it's going to be dozens
Speaker 3: and dozens of hits. And I'm going to live for that,
Speaker 3: you know. And that sounds extreme, and I'm not trying
Speaker 3: to just be sensational. But I mean, how many times
Speaker 3: is that have to happen for you to straighten up?
Speaker 3: As you graduate up, it's no longer just don't pinch
Speaker 3: your brother, It's be sweet, be kind, do not, under
Speaker 3: any circumstances turn into a worldly teenager that talks back
Speaker 3: to their parents. And I'm starting to approach that threshold
Speaker 3: and certainly want to do whatever I can to fit
Speaker 3: into this system and this family and this religion and
Speaker 3: so learning about the fruits of the spirit and everything.
Speaker 3: And I saw my mom work so hard to smile,
Speaker 3: to be kind and long suffering and all of these things,
Speaker 3: and see her struggle and crack at times. And now
Speaker 3: I have this frustration of she hasn't been able to
Speaker 3: stop this, she hasn't been able to help me. And
Speaker 3: now I'm feeling that if I get angry, I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: How am I supposed to never be angry, never be upset,
Speaker 3: never be petty, never be reactive. And I don't succeed,
Speaker 3: and you know, I start to have this reputation of like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're turning into a teenager, and you know, there is
Speaker 3: this war to kind of try to be a good
Speaker 3: Christian girl while understanding that some very not good things
Speaker 3: were happening.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.
Speaker 1: In the midst of all else going on in Jessica's home,
Speaker 1: her parents become very set on their children, all twelve
Speaker 1: of them, becoming musical performers. This begins at home with
Speaker 1: music tutors and continues in church, and then it escalates.
Speaker 3: I think that some of my siblings are very naturally gifted,
Speaker 3: naturally talented, and pretty much that always means, though whether
Speaker 3: there's initial interest or ability was also per with For example,
Speaker 3: the second sibling, my brother, he worked very hard, obsessively.
Speaker 3: He would sit and you know, play his whistle over
Speaker 3: and over. But he was nine years old and able
Speaker 3: to play full speed music that matched the records like this,
Speaker 3: really complex Irish folk music as good as the professionals.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean, I think that's where a
Speaker 3: lot of people throw around the word prodigy, and we
Speaker 3: don't usually mean that someone sat down and never practiced
Speaker 3: and just automatically was amazing. But with work and with
Speaker 3: this ability to really have skill at quite a young age.
Speaker 3: So there was that happening for me, I wanted to
Speaker 3: keep up. This is my younger brother, slightly younger brother,
Speaker 3: and as he got to do things, I want to
Speaker 3: be a part of that. You know. I think there's
Speaker 3: naturally kind of competition within families as in you know,
Speaker 3: especially when there's a lot of people on the scene.
Speaker 3: Dad really wanted all of us to develop as many
Speaker 3: skills as possible, and then that put him in the
Speaker 3: position of having these adults come and say, how do
Speaker 3: you get your kids to do this? We're not breaking
Speaker 3: any records here, we're not making albums. The art itself
Speaker 3: is not that remarkable. Usually at this time, it's just
Speaker 3: the fact that we're so young and we're with the program.
Speaker 3: And my dad would joke with people, wonderful well meeting
Speaker 3: people that you know, we're in our lives and our
Speaker 3: neighborhoods and our communities, just going how do you do
Speaker 3: this with your kids? And Dad would joke and say, well,
Speaker 3: it's amazing what you can do when you don't feed them,
Speaker 3: you know. And we were not starved little urchins, but
Speaker 3: at times, yes, food and even psychological safety was threatened.
Speaker 3: What child would be if they're not responding to this bankings,
Speaker 3: then they're locked out of the house or they're left
Speaker 3: on the side of the road. And again it's not
Speaker 3: an everyday occurrence, but how many times does it have
Speaker 3: to happen for you to get a message of oh,
Speaker 3: I better get this program. And so my dad was
Speaker 3: really leading this charge, and I think it was a
Speaker 3: natural extension that just wanting to attract more and more
Speaker 3: people and show off. He sawt as his philosophy that
Speaker 3: was developing us children. And we were told that from
Speaker 3: the very beginning. It wasn't like, Wow, my kids are
Speaker 3: so great, I'm so proud of them too. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: that's what happens when you have a parent that you
Speaker 3: know has this vision and has this ability. But my
Speaker 3: dad was still putting most of his attention into his business.
Speaker 3: Dad had this wrestling league, and this taps way back
Speaker 3: into my own dad's upbringing, in his own dreams, and
Speaker 3: this business is a way to reconnect with this sport
Speaker 3: that he loves. Dad has quit all of that into
Speaker 3: this wrestling league. Well, as it gets to this critical point,
Speaker 3: we don't know exactly what's happened to all this money.
Speaker 3: But between this huge house and the land of the
Speaker 3: upkeep and the just bank carolling so many different things
Speaker 3: and the business. It just really seems like it's in
Speaker 3: this critical time. And it wasn't until that was no
Speaker 3: law longer there taking up his attention that I feel
Speaker 3: like he then came to look at us as, hey,
Speaker 3: I've invested all of this time, and you know what
Speaker 3: you are now going to be my next time's up.
Speaker 3: I need my investment back and you're actually going to
Speaker 3: be my next business venture.
Speaker 1: To make critical matters more critical. Around this time, the
Speaker 1: Fisher family's nine thousand square foot home burns to the ground.
Speaker 3: It was the day after Christmas. We were without power.
Speaker 3: We cleared off our driveway, left the house because the
Speaker 3: heat wasn't working, and it was like forty degrees or
Speaker 3: something in the house, and we returned to the whole
Speaker 3: thing just being a blaze on fire. The fire and
Speaker 3: news are already there. They run out of water. They're
Speaker 3: trying to bring in more water, and the house was
Speaker 3: kind of l shaped and so the short end of
Speaker 3: the was completely level except for you know, chimneys and
Speaker 3: a really mangled roof. There's a most shocking thing you
Speaker 3: can see. And my dad jumped out to try to
Speaker 3: help the firefighters or just check in what was going on,
Speaker 3: and you know, he had his offices for his whole
Speaker 3: business there, he had tapes for the next season of
Speaker 3: the televised competition and all this again lots of details
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily know, but you know, very definitive end
Speaker 3: to that chapter of my story. And it was super
Speaker 3: weird because it felt like such a tragedy and yet
Speaker 3: remembering that, at least for us older kids, there was
Speaker 3: this fiery tragedy at the very beginning of our lives
Speaker 3: and people died in it. Our aunts and uncles died,
Speaker 3: and nobody died in this. The house was gone, and
Speaker 3: did I love it? Yes, all my toys, all my instruments.
Speaker 3: While everything was inside, I had started writing, so I
Speaker 3: was like my writing, you know. But we were all
Speaker 3: in the car, and we were all safe, and there
Speaker 3: was something like immediately this idea that our extended family testimony.
Speaker 3: There's tragedy every day, But the thing that stood out
Speaker 3: in people's minds was when that happens, and you praise
Speaker 3: God or you don't, at least at least you don't
Speaker 3: curse God. You know, you view this in a long
Speaker 3: term kind of religious view. So there really was no
Speaker 3: question that that was what we were going to like
Speaker 3: that's all that we knew is that, you know, and
Speaker 3: especially when there was like six of my siblings could
Speaker 3: have died and we're all here.
Speaker 1: But still it ends up feeling like it's a a
Speaker 1: before and after moment, it seems, for sure, and your
Speaker 1: father's behavior seems to escalate, at least in terms of
Speaker 1: his temper and his violent outbursts. After that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's this weird in between time the next couple year,
Speaker 3: because dad tried to keep the business going. You know,
Speaker 3: are we going to rebuild the house? What's going to happen?
Speaker 3: My dad was really trying to retain control. He was
Speaker 3: not ready to give up I think this vision of
Speaker 3: what he had been building, and so we tried to
Speaker 3: keep up with the same sort of thing, but you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't have the same money. The kids that were
Speaker 3: born in that house view it, you know, so differently.
Speaker 3: But I was like, okay, it actually in some level
Speaker 3: makes sense to me. Here we go, we go back
Speaker 3: to having a place where we all have one bathroom,
Speaker 3: like it just I was like, Okay, this was too
Speaker 3: good to be true. It didn't last. The business eventually
Speaker 3: completely failed. The house there was eventual clarity that it's
Speaker 3: never going to be rebuilt a gradual thing. But you know,
Speaker 3: within a couple of years, all of a sudden, we
Speaker 3: looked around and Dad was kind of riding us with
Speaker 3: a bullet. Dad basically took the reins for my mom
Speaker 3: and said, you are not doing a good enough job
Speaker 3: with these kids. You know, none of you are performing
Speaker 3: to my standards. So now I'm your coach. Now, I'm
Speaker 3: your dance teacher now. And the truth is he couldn't
Speaker 3: afford to pay anyone else now, but he just was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, what's actually most important about this is
Speaker 3: me and my teachings, and I'm going to turn you
Speaker 3: into something that's profitable. And it started with a dance
Speaker 3: exhibition once a year, and then it turned into once
Speaker 3: a month, and then you know, we played our first
Speaker 3: little music gig not long after the house had burned down,
Speaker 3: and that just escalated over time. I would say the
Speaker 3: years of like two thousand and five, even up to
Speaker 3: like twenty twelve was the slow march of developing an act.
Speaker 3: So those years really blur together, and then it gets
Speaker 3: really weird around twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: By twenty twelve, Jessica's father's dreams have gotten bigger. They
Speaker 1: are in fact too big. He has major plans for
Speaker 1: the kids. They will record their music, they will perform
Speaker 1: well paying get they will make a profit, and in
Speaker 1: the meantime he's been advised to set up a financial
Speaker 1: annuity which will not only keep them afloat, but also
Speaker 1: enable them to buy musical equipment and to go on tour.
Speaker 3: So now we're traveling everywhere in a fifteen passenger van
Speaker 3: and you just plump up against realizing that most of
Speaker 3: society isn't set up for a family of fourteen. You know,
Speaker 3: you can't get a table at a restaurant. You can't,
Speaker 3: you know, and people stare at you, and so, you
Speaker 3: know what, that's okay. Dad was steering us in a
Speaker 3: direction that was obviously more and more strange and sensational,
Speaker 3: to the point where we'd go to the grocery store
Speaker 3: and we'd hear, you should have your own TV show.
Speaker 3: And there's families that have been on TV at that point,
Speaker 3: and Dad had kind of been on the outskirts of
Speaker 3: TV stuff, and I think that got in his head
Speaker 3: and he, you know, he realized it's one thing to
Speaker 3: have twelve kids in a row, get up and do
Speaker 3: a little dance together, or do a concert together. But
Speaker 3: what everybody's interested and is the fact that we're all
Speaker 3: in a family. How do you get your kids to
Speaker 3: do that? You know, it's that same question, But now
Speaker 3: we're years down the road. In twenty twelve, we made
Speaker 3: our first record, and a big part of what we
Speaker 3: did was compete, and since we got started in Irish
Speaker 3: music in Chicago, it was part of our heritage. We
Speaker 3: had continued going to Ireland and competing, and we basically
Speaker 3: got a title in twenty twelve in one of the
Speaker 3: band competitions that was a World Championship title, and we
Speaker 3: put out an album and that now felt there was
Speaker 3: something cool about what we were doing. And you work
Speaker 3: so hard and you're pushed so far, and then you
Speaker 3: start to get a little bit of traction. And what
Speaker 3: I loved was getting to see other people, getting to travel,
Speaker 3: getting to have these experiences. And I was very willing
Speaker 3: to trade my kind of attention and time and skills
Speaker 3: to be able to kind of experience more of that.
Speaker 3: And right around that time was kind of also the
Speaker 3: end of the graphic sexual abuse for me. It was
Speaker 3: almost like Dad was ready to ask me for something else,
Speaker 3: like there was something else you wanted more from me,
Speaker 3: And I don't know that I could have really kind
Speaker 3: of sustained both of those things that now he wanted
Speaker 3: what I was writing and my voice and my skill.
Speaker 3: He had to push me to become this kind of
Speaker 3: spokes person and developed me into this entity.
Speaker 1: Jessica and her siblings become a successful touring band. She's
Speaker 1: around eighteen or nineteen, and her dad hasn't sexually abused
Speaker 1: her for two or three years, but the abuse itself
Speaker 1: hasn't stopped. Her mother is worried it's happening with another child,
Speaker 1: and she brings it up with Jessica again, and her
Speaker 1: mother uses a word Jessica hasn't heard before. The word
Speaker 1: is molested. This is the first time Jessica understands that
Speaker 1: her dad could actually go to jail for the things
Speaker 1: he's done.
Speaker 3: My response was to expend all the energy I could
Speaker 3: to just pretend that never happens, never think about it,
Speaker 3: move forward. I worked so hard not to remember it.
Speaker 3: But because it wasn't happening specifically with me, he was
Speaker 3: abusing others in the family. But I never asked, Hey,
Speaker 3: this particular sister did this particular thing happen? It was, Oh,
Speaker 3: something else has triggered this. Mom is paranoid all over again.
Speaker 3: We all kind of talk about the problem. And when
Speaker 3: I say we all, you know, initially it's just me
Speaker 3: and mom, and then it's me and mom and a
Speaker 3: few sisters, and then afterwards it just goes back to,
Speaker 3: you know, we're all a little bit more paranoid, we're
Speaker 3: all a little bit more on edge, but we are
Speaker 3: still doing the same thing in ignoring it. And again,
Speaker 3: I want to be really careful that I'm not speaking
Speaker 3: to other people's experiences or mindfrel so at least for me,
Speaker 3: just don't think about it, don't let it happened, just
Speaker 3: move forward. And this moment really shakes that for the
Speaker 3: first time because Mom says a few specific things. She says, hey,
Speaker 3: this particular sister said Dad has been doing stuff. And
Speaker 3: just to show you how some of the dialogue was
Speaker 3: talking about it without talking about it, Mom says, you know,
Speaker 3: Dad is doing stuff to the sister, and I say,
Speaker 3: like me, and Mom just goes worse. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 3: wait a second, I've never told you what he's done.
Speaker 3: And since the last time I talked to you. You know,
Speaker 3: it's been this whole escalating behavior over years, but how
Speaker 3: can you say worse or better, you know, compare? And
Speaker 3: so I'm in this moment struggling with like, I can't
Speaker 3: believe I'm here again. What's going on? I don't really
Speaker 3: want to know? And my brother comes in and asks
Speaker 3: what's going on? And mom says dad has been molesting
Speaker 3: the girl, And I'm just shocked because I was like,
Speaker 3: if we're using this word now, why do we use
Speaker 3: that word before? I know it's kind of this official
Speaker 3: feeling word, and I still have a very limited vocabulary,
Speaker 3: but I knew that that did apply to my situation.
Speaker 3: And speaking of vocabulary, my brother asks, did he rape them?
Speaker 3: And both my mom and I like screamed no. I
Speaker 3: wasn't really clear on what that word even necessarily meant.
Speaker 3: Most of us have some idea in our head of
Speaker 3: what that means, but there's a range of things. So
Speaker 3: it's a really confusing jumble of time, and there's certain
Speaker 3: things that feel very distinct and clear to me that
Speaker 3: have like not faded with the years at all, and
Speaker 3: other trunks that are missing. But what was really new
Speaker 3: about that is that one of my brothers found out,
Speaker 3: but Dad did not confirm anything. Nobody talks specifics. I
Speaker 3: did not volunteer specifics. I did not go to any
Speaker 3: of my sisters and ask specifics. And what was so
Speaker 3: crazy was that once again that incident was treated the
Speaker 3: exact same way.
Speaker 1: This is the closed depart one of Jessica's story. There's more,
Speaker 1: much more to come. Here's Jessica singing from River Runaway.
Speaker 1: Family Secret is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly's Acre is
Speaker 1: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
Speaker 1: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd like
Speaker 1: to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
Speaker 1: check out my memoir Inheritance.
Speaker 5: Shre Line, Pull Me On to Hell, It come in
Speaker 5: Pool with the Window, Sunshine coming down to the same.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.