Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you mean?
Speaker 2: Okay, my foot fell asleep? Are my foot fell asleep?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: From a medical perspective, is it better to rub it
Speaker 2: or just to write it out?
Speaker 4: Keep it still?
Speaker 5: I think I think maybe like cutting it.
Speaker 3: Off by wait.
Speaker 2: Note, hello, Jackie, I can't walk and I can hear
Speaker 2: the ice cream truck. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is
Speaker 2: Heavyweight Today's episode Toby. Right after the break in two
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, Toby's father died suddenly of a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Shortly after the funeral, Toby cleaned out his house.
Speaker 1: You know, you just find stuff, find relics of a life.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, hey, here's this, you know, pocket watch that's
Speaker 6: labeled nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: Who's would this have been?
Speaker 2: You know, Toby and his dad, Doug, weren't especially clothes,
Speaker 2: so going through his stuff felt oddly intimate.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I didn't know my dad ever smoked weed,
Speaker 1: but I found weed.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, okay, it was really old, I think.
Speaker 2: Toby says there were thousands of decisions to make.
Speaker 1: Want to donate, what to try and sell it in
Speaker 1: the state sale, what.
Speaker 2: To keep pocket watch, keep old weed? Discard? It was
Speaker 2: while sorting through Doug's old suit jackets and books that
Speaker 2: Toby found a box. A box containing twenty one audio
Speaker 2: cassette tapes. Toby read through the labels. They had titles
Speaker 2: like phone Conversation, Terry nine thirty PM, Terry March third,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, Phone Conversation, and Terry's Call. Terry was
Speaker 2: Toby's mom. She and his dad divorced when Toby was four, and,
Speaker 2: judging by the dates on the labels, the tapes were
Speaker 2: recorded around the time of their split. Why did these
Speaker 2: tapes even exist? Toby wasn't sure. He put the tapes
Speaker 2: in the key pile. As Toby understands it, his parents
Speaker 2: were never an obvious match. Doug was the button down
Speaker 2: type and Terry had a wild hair. They got married young,
Speaker 2: and seven years into their marriage, Terry surprised Doug by
Speaker 2: picking up all her stuff one day and moving out.
Speaker 2: From there, Terry married a biker dude named Randy and
Speaker 2: spiraled into years of wild living and hard drinking. Toby's
Speaker 2: memory of those years is like a series of snapshot
Speaker 2: Hugging his mom and knowing, even at twelve, to smell
Speaker 2: her for alcohol. The time his friend told him he
Speaker 2: couldn't sleep over at his house because quote, my mom
Speaker 2: doesn't like your mom. And the night Terry took him
Speaker 2: and his little sister, Heidi to a bar and kept
Speaker 2: drinking and drinking.
Speaker 6: My mom was like unable to stand up essentially, and
Speaker 6: me being seven or eight, knowing like, oh, you're not
Speaker 6: supposed to drink and drive, and asking a random dude
Speaker 6: at the bar like, hey, can you drive us home?
Speaker 6: I remember being confused because I had asked the question,
Speaker 6: and then my mom still drove us home. My sister
Speaker 6: was I think old enough to know something wasn't right.
Speaker 1: She was probably kindergarten.
Speaker 2: In the back seat, i'd he reached out for Toby's hand.
Speaker 1: And we held hands while she was driving home.
Speaker 2: Eventually, Toby and Heidi went to live with their dad, Doug.
Speaker 2: Things were a lot more emotionally stable there, but Doug
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy. Toby can't remember a single
Speaker 2: time he ever told Toby he loved him.
Speaker 1: That just wasn't part of our That wasn't part of
Speaker 1: our vernacular. You never heard I love you, not that
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 2: Although the divorce's aftermath had a profound impact on Toby,
Speaker 2: for the most part, he tries to avoid thinking about it.
Speaker 2: He tells me, he tends to shut out heavy emotions.
Speaker 2: In fact, this tendency came up just the other day
Speaker 2: when Lauren, his wife of fifteen years, brought up the
Speaker 2: box of tapes.
Speaker 6: But then I saw something very quickly change the subject,
Speaker 6: and she's like, this is what I'm talking about. Like you,
Speaker 6: anytime it starts to get deep, you immediately find a bright,
Speaker 6: shiny object to change the subject.
Speaker 7: He said, Hey, look at that silver carl there that's
Speaker 7: been parked there.
Speaker 8: For a while.
Speaker 2: This is Lauren.
Speaker 7: She's pretty avoidant of getting to those like raw vulnerable parts.
Speaker 2: Twenty one cassette tapes from the exact period of your
Speaker 2: life that you've spent so long avoiding might really bring
Speaker 2: out those raw, vulnerable parts, which is why, almost ten
Speaker 2: years after taking them home, the tapes remain unplayed, hidden
Speaker 2: away in a credenza. Maybe there's nothing even on the tapes,
Speaker 2: maybe they've been recorded over or warped with time. But
Speaker 2: maybe they form an unlikely door to Toby's past, to
Speaker 2: his childhood and his parents' relationship.
Speaker 1: There's so much that I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my dad's gone, my Mom's gone. I don't have
Speaker 6: any way to find out what was actually happening in
Speaker 6: my life. This is the last piece of them that
Speaker 6: like it be new new information. But I don't know
Speaker 6: that I'm ever actually going to listen to him if
Speaker 6: I if I don't have an excuse forcing me to
Speaker 6: listen to.
Speaker 2: Him, And so I Jonathan Goldstein have become that living,
Speaker 2: breathing excuse. Toby has come to me with the tapes
Speaker 2: in order to help him face his past and his
Speaker 2: feelings head on. What's the ideal version of what comes next?
Speaker 6: Like part of me is like send you guys the tapes,
Speaker 6: and you tell me what's on them and what's interesting
Speaker 6: and what's not, you know, like almost outsourcing.
Speaker 2: Like like create a curated We've done a highlight reel.
Speaker 6: Yeah, here's how your life changed dramatically through no fault
Speaker 6: of your own.
Speaker 9: Here's the highlights, after the break, the highlights, clear the hold.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I used to work at a radio show called This
Speaker 2: American Life.
Speaker 8: I know it's the show that inspired me to follow
Speaker 8: this line of work.
Speaker 2: If you've never heard of This American Life, they're like
Speaker 2: I think they describe themselves. If I'm not mistaken, as
Speaker 2: being like little movies for the radio.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's the best. It was my favorite show as
Speaker 8: a kid all the way to it's still my favorite show.
Speaker 2: And how many things can you think of that are
Speaker 2: like that, that have been going for twenty five years
Speaker 2: and have just maintained the level of quality that this
Speaker 2: American life has truly, Like I mean even things that
Speaker 2: you end up loving, like like I love Star Wars.
Speaker 2: I watched three episodes. That was plenty for this American life.
Speaker 2: It just in some ways it gets better, it expands
Speaker 2: its universe and the things that it tries.
Speaker 8: Where you talk about it like every week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's meaningful to us. And I would say, if
Speaker 2: you love Heavyweight, you're gonna love this American life.
Speaker 10: Say that.
Speaker 8: I would say that.
Speaker 2: Should we say it in Unison?
Speaker 8: Sure, if you like heavy heavyweight, Okay, you're not saying
Speaker 8: it in Unison, you're.
Speaker 2: Gonna I don't know that's saying things in Unison really
Speaker 2: excel something. It's not like no, no, no, really they said
Speaker 2: it in Unison. It really imparted to me just how
Speaker 2: true this was. Yeah, but it is true that this
Speaker 2: American life continues to experiment every week with what Radio
Speaker 2: storytelling can be and it drops every Sunday night, So
Speaker 2: listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I mentioned to my six year old.
Speaker 6: I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Jonathan Goldstein and
Speaker 6: he said, who is that? Is that an old man
Speaker 6: you're talking to about another old man?
Speaker 2: That he's basically nailed heavyweight in a sentence. I've started
Speaker 2: to go through the cassettes, which amount to about twenty
Speaker 2: three hours of audio. And while there are work calls,
Speaker 2: calls to the video store, a fair bit of Fleetwood
Speaker 2: Mac taped off the radio, a large portion of the
Speaker 2: tapes is exactly what the labels promised. Phone calls between
Speaker 2: Toby's parents. It seems that during the divorce proceedings, Doug
Speaker 2: had been meticulously recording his phone calls, possibly as a
Speaker 2: precaution in case of a custody battle. Toby has a
Speaker 2: busy schedule. He works a full time job and is
Speaker 2: raising two kids, so we set aside an hour a
Speaker 2: week to go through the tapes a little at a time.
Speaker 2: Our check ins usually occurred during breaks in Toby's workday.
Speaker 4: Oh hey, hello, Toby, Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 10: Hello?
Speaker 4: Hello?
Speaker 2: The labels on the tape spent a couple of years,
Speaker 2: and we decided to go through in chronological order. The
Speaker 2: earliest tapes are from after Doug and Terry have separated,
Speaker 2: but before the official divorce. I press play, and for
Speaker 2: the first time in over a decade, Toby hears his parents' voices.
Speaker 3: Did you pay Joanna? Couldn't get a hold of her. Ah,
Speaker 3: you didn't pay her? Why not?
Speaker 2: In this recording, Terry wants to know why Doug has
Speaker 2: an paid their babysitter, Joanne.
Speaker 10: Well, I'm going to end up having to pay.
Speaker 11: You all the.
Speaker 12: Sport.
Speaker 3: I'm not asked for any I'm not vindictive, not greedy
Speaker 3: just to pay Joanne.
Speaker 10: I'm not going to ask for Okay, Well, I'll stop
Speaker 10: by the HM.
Speaker 6: My dad's voice I recognize, but my mom's voice. If
Speaker 6: you had just played it and said who is this?
Speaker 6: I would have I didn't recognize our voice, which is well,
Speaker 6: pretty incredible to me.
Speaker 2: And what Tobey also finds pretty incredible is hearing his
Speaker 2: parents speak to one another and with so much civility.
Speaker 2: The only version of them that he remembers is two
Speaker 2: people with so much bad blood between them they could
Speaker 2: hardly be in the same room together. Birthday parties were separate,
Speaker 2: and at his graduation they avoided eye contact and didn't
Speaker 2: speak a word. But none of that acrimony is evident
Speaker 2: in these early tapes.
Speaker 3: So you want that stipulated in the papers that you
Speaker 3: would have them for a couple of.
Speaker 10: Months this summertime.
Speaker 2: In another recording from that time, Doug and Terry tried
Speaker 2: to figure out how to split time with Toby and Heidi.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about game July, July, August, June
Speaker 3: and July. Well, Hi, birthdays in July. We don't get
Speaker 3: to give her a birthday party together. We love our kids.
Speaker 3: We don't hate each other.
Speaker 2: Not only do they not hate each other, they're getting
Speaker 2: along exceptionally well. They're able to hash out their divorce
Speaker 2: agreement just the two of them, without lawyers. They figure
Speaker 2: it all out at a Perkins restaurant one night. As
Speaker 2: Toby listens to his parents being so cordial, he feels
Speaker 2: a kind of dread because he knows cordial is not
Speaker 2: how things will end. It's like listening to the beginning,
Speaker 2: he says, of a horror story. What do you don
Speaker 2: so how did things deteriorate?
Speaker 10: So?
Speaker 2: How did they get so bad with that question in
Speaker 2: mind before you head with the tapes. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 2: I'll play you. Uh well, Toby always knew his dad
Speaker 2: to be a pretty detached person. On the night the
Speaker 2: divorce becomes official, Doug seems genuinely lonely. The tapes capture
Speaker 2: him phoning a friend and getting a continuous busy signal.
Speaker 2: He calls back four more times until he can finally
Speaker 2: get through.
Speaker 3: Oh what do you guys do?
Speaker 10: Sit her top on the phone all night?
Speaker 3: No, leave it up to until people like you won't.
Speaker 13: Call hear what's going on?
Speaker 10: Dark? It's final?
Speaker 3: What final?
Speaker 12: The divorce?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's already?
Speaker 12: How can it be done so quick?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 12: I'm going to do now to live with it? Did
Speaker 12: you know I'm still going to take a lot of
Speaker 12: time to get over it?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 12: Sure? One one thing I.
Speaker 10: Learned people are not supposed to get divorced.
Speaker 12: What do you mean?
Speaker 10: I was always taught that if something's broken, you should fix.
Speaker 2: It, because you know, I remember my parents and have
Speaker 2: fight so bad.
Speaker 3: But you know, the found a divorce just never came up.
Speaker 10: Yeah, of course you'll never know the whole story, just
Speaker 10: like Toby and Heidi will never know the whole story.
Speaker 6: It seems like he kind of intuitively knew that we
Speaker 6: would always have questions, and that thread continues today.
Speaker 2: As we continue on beyond the divorce, Toby's wife, Lauren
Speaker 2: joins him to listen to some of the tapes, like
Speaker 2: this one, Hi Dad, This is a five year old
Speaker 2: Toby on the phone with Doug. Adult Toby, hearing his
Speaker 2: own voice, exchanges a smile with Lauren.
Speaker 10: Hey, hey, you got new cereal? Yeah? Yeah, what are
Speaker 10: you trying to do? You trying to rot all your
Speaker 10: teeth out?
Speaker 2: Bye?
Speaker 12: Bye? I love you one night, Okay, I.
Speaker 6: Love I don't remember that kind of relationship with him,
Speaker 6: Like what kind of relationship silly and playful and saying
Speaker 6: I love you when you hang up the phone, Like,
Speaker 6: I don't really remember that at all.
Speaker 2: The I love yous had existed, Toby had just forgotten them.
Speaker 2: The parents on the tapes are different from the parents
Speaker 2: Toby remembers in other ways too.
Speaker 3: How to bring along her care bear blanket too.
Speaker 2: Not only are they working as a team, but Terry
Speaker 2: sounds clear headed and on top of things.
Speaker 10: Yeah, she wrote it on some bog and it's like
Speaker 10: a bedspread type. Yeah, it's the one.
Speaker 3: Well, it goes on a little bed.
Speaker 10: Tobby knows who Robert is.
Speaker 3: That's who he's bowling the doubles with, and make sure
Speaker 3: he gets a ten ball.
Speaker 2: Whenever Terry calls to talk to the kids at Dougs,
Speaker 2: young Toby runs to the phone.
Speaker 3: Toby, I suppose so okay, I'll don't get through the son.
Speaker 7: I guess him right here here.
Speaker 10: Oh that was good.
Speaker 3: One another again, yad thirsty?
Speaker 7: Are you really gurgling?
Speaker 3: I really got ruper.
Speaker 2: And whenever they say goodbye, Terry, just like Doug tells
Speaker 2: Toby how much she loves him, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 3: Love you bye bye, love you bye bye. I love you,
Speaker 3: love you do.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit.
Speaker 6: It's a little bit sad knowing what happened in her
Speaker 6: life over the next ten or fifteen years. Like my
Speaker 6: memories and my mom don't have any of that lightheartedness
Speaker 6: or happiness to him.
Speaker 4: I remember a lot more.
Speaker 10: Of the.
Speaker 4: Of the bad stuff.
Speaker 2: The bad stuff continued into Toby's young adulthood. Not long
Speaker 2: before she died, Toby saw his mother at a family Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: Toby was in college and it just dyed his hair black.
Speaker 2: Terry was so out of it that she didn't recognize him,
Speaker 2: and she.
Speaker 6: Looked at me and said hi, and then like turned
Speaker 6: away and was like, where's Toby at? And it's like, well,
Speaker 6: I'm right here. My hair is a different color, but
Speaker 6: I'm still here. And that's a core memory.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 6: I think that was the last time I saw her.
Speaker 2: You know that story, Lauren.
Speaker 5: I didn't remember that story.
Speaker 1: It's not a fun Friday night conversation.
Speaker 7: I've noticed today as we've been talking about stuff, like
Speaker 7: you'll get choked up and then you know you've got
Speaker 7: to sort of diffuse it, like you smile afterwards.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like, it's a funny joke I can
Speaker 1: put in here now.
Speaker 2: Knowing how Toby tends to brush over difficult feelings, the
Speaker 2: next clip I play him feels like one of those
Speaker 2: origin stories you'd see in a superhero film.
Speaker 10: Toby Stop.
Speaker 2: Doug is on hold with joe Anne, the babysitter.
Speaker 10: Okay, we'll get your jammies on that. Allen, shove up.
Speaker 10: Act a little happier. Acts a little happier.
Speaker 2: Okay, hello, Joanne, Act a little happier. The marching orders
Speaker 2: Toby would continue to obey all the way into his adulthood.
Speaker 2: But when Toby listens to the tape, I think it's funny.
Speaker 2: All he can do is laugh it off. Shall we continue?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Hellow, we're here.
Speaker 2: This is Toby's sister Heidi, asking Doug if can have
Speaker 2: dinner with her at her mother's house.
Speaker 10: No, I don't think. I don't think too. Why I
Speaker 10: don't go over her anymore?
Speaker 2: Hyle you over you?
Speaker 10: Well? I don't eat Tipper over there?
Speaker 14: Why?
Speaker 10: Because of your mom and I are divorced?
Speaker 3: Why they're true?
Speaker 12: Oil?
Speaker 10: I don't know. I will understand it better when we're older.
Speaker 2: In spite of Toby's being older, in spite of cassette
Speaker 2: tapes unspooling lives, there are many questions Toby will never
Speaker 2: have the answers to. But then one day, while going
Speaker 2: through the tapes, I come across one answer to a
Speaker 2: big question. How things between Doug and Terry got so bad?
Speaker 2: It happened after the divorce on one particular evening in
Speaker 2: April of nineteen eighty eight. Suddenly I can see the
Speaker 2: whole arc of the relationships fall. The recordings are heavy
Speaker 2: and scheduling these tape listening sessions over zoom. During Toby's
Speaker 2: lunch breaks no longer feels appropriate, and so I have
Speaker 2: a new idea. I decide I'll travel to Portland, where
Speaker 2: Toby lives, so we can sit down together and over
Speaker 2: the course of a dedicated weekend play these last tapes
Speaker 2: in person.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, oh okay.
Speaker 2: After the break Portland, Hello, Hello, Toby, Lauren and I
Speaker 2: meet in a hotel suite in downtown Portland. Ah, Lauren
Speaker 2: and Toby sit next to each other on the couch.
Speaker 2: We all don our headphones to listen so we can starts.
Speaker 2: If that's good with you, guys. Yeah, and so we
Speaker 2: dive into that pivotal evening from nineteen eighty eight in April.
Speaker 2: For the first time we hear Doug narrating directly into
Speaker 2: the recorder. It's because this is the moment when he
Speaker 2: knows he's not merely documenting as a precaution, but potentially
Speaker 2: preparing evidence.
Speaker 12: In her house alone. That's when I called the police.
Speaker 2: It seems that Terry left Toby and Heidi at home
Speaker 2: all by themselves one night, and Doug called the police.
Speaker 2: Toby remembers that night.
Speaker 4: We were at mom's house.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and she went I don't know how long she
Speaker 6: was gone, but I was like five, I got scared
Speaker 6: and I called my dad and I didn't know.
Speaker 4: He was going to call the police or whatever.
Speaker 6: So my mom came home at some point and then
Speaker 6: like the police came by.
Speaker 2: Toby doesn't recall his dad talking to him about what happened,
Speaker 2: but it seems he did.
Speaker 12: Are you upset about last night? And see? I called
Speaker 12: the police because I don't think you guys should be
Speaker 12: left there alone. And I didn't know what else to
Speaker 12: do because I can't go in your mom's house, okay.
Speaker 10: But the.
Speaker 2: House they said we might get taken away to go
Speaker 2: to your house.
Speaker 12: I don't think you will because I don't think your
Speaker 12: mom will leave you alone anymore. And that's good because
Speaker 12: you know, when you're older, I think you guys need
Speaker 12: to be left alone. But not when you guys threw
Speaker 12: this yim.
Speaker 3: You know you.
Speaker 12: I know, I know, but you were scared, and I
Speaker 12: was scared for you.
Speaker 2: Terry, on the other hand, didn't think there was anything
Speaker 2: to be scared of. When she calls Doug sometime later
Speaker 2: to talk to the kids, how do he brings up
Speaker 2: that night and Terry explains it this way, Well.
Speaker 3: Come when hang left, no pay because I had to
Speaker 3: go check out my work and I was gone for
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes. Haven't you ever been left alone before you
Speaker 3: were asleep? You didn't even know it. And if Toby
Speaker 3: had been asleep, do you know what? I would not
Speaker 3: have left at all. But I thought Toby was old
Speaker 3: enough that he could sit here for fifteen minutes by
Speaker 3: himself and watch the movie he was watching without freaking out.
Speaker 3: But obviously not.
Speaker 1: Pretty shitty to put that on me, a six year
Speaker 1: old who got scared.
Speaker 11: So now that just caused the big that caused a big, big,
Speaker 11: big big problem. You still through the whole thing, Heidi,
Speaker 11: Toby knows all about it, and from now on your
Speaker 11: debit or never believe you guys learned either?
Speaker 3: Never ever?
Speaker 11: If he does, you call me how come you did?
Speaker 3: Because honey, you were absolete for the night. But that's
Speaker 3: the half kind of fine. The house, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 3: catch them far. We got that. How many? We've got
Speaker 3: two smoke alarms downstairs here, don't we? And we scored
Speaker 3: about the house. One catch the fire with fast climate matches?
Speaker 3: Are you guys gonna play with matches?
Speaker 12: But that's the right.
Speaker 3: We got all new wiring in the.
Speaker 2: House Because of what happened that night, Family Services paid
Speaker 2: a visit to Terry's house, but nothing came of it.
Speaker 2: Legally that was that. Still, Terry felt betrayed by Doug.
Speaker 2: Here they are later that week relitigating.
Speaker 3: Are you flying for full cut? Are you gonna doll
Speaker 3: at that?
Speaker 10: What?
Speaker 12: I want you to straighten your act up?
Speaker 3: My app big war straight Why.
Speaker 11: You made that yet?
Speaker 4: Four year old?
Speaker 12: A six year old alone?
Speaker 11: I left four I was begun for some of them.
Speaker 3: Hoar.
Speaker 4: She didn't sound sober.
Speaker 6: I think my sister and I were there with her
Speaker 6: at that point, like she was taking care of us.
Speaker 12: What was probably doing up at eleven o'clock on the
Speaker 12: school right?
Speaker 11: What was because one of the.
Speaker 12: Welcome the other day you said you were going to
Speaker 12: kill yourself. If I had gut see kids, I would never.
Speaker 11: Tell my own, you know how religious boot star.
Speaker 2: What begins is anguish hardens into anger. A few weeks later,
Speaker 2: Terry phones Dog and accuses him of being out at
Speaker 2: a bar called Windy O'Leary's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's Heary. We are you hanging out Winny o'larry's.
Speaker 3: Should I call the cops on you? You're told the
Speaker 3: wanting to talk to you. I think that's a little
Speaker 3: bit of neglect. I didn't really call it a bitch
Speaker 3: or anything, but what I do want to say is this,
Speaker 3: I don't like standing on my front porch spying. I
Speaker 3: told you to park in front of the house, and
Speaker 3: that's exactly what I meant. And if you can't get
Speaker 3: in an answer with the honk, then you just better
Speaker 3: start hollering in the door to behind it, because far
Speaker 3: as I did it, it was fying to listen to
Speaker 3: what was going on in the house. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: a little upset, and I've been upset and I've been
Speaker 3: holding it in. And that's just the kind of mood
Speaker 3: I'm in, and that's just the kind of.
Speaker 11: Mood that I have been holding within.
Speaker 3: So why did I just give a call?
Speaker 11: We know a Larius and see if you'll answer?
Speaker 3: Goodbye?
Speaker 2: So this next clip is the last tape between them.
Speaker 2: It's a long one. Let's let's listen if you if
Speaker 2: you're ready, I think so.
Speaker 10: That's very important I got hold of. You know, is
Speaker 10: there a problem?
Speaker 3: Can they talk to you about the month of June?
Speaker 2: The month of June? This is where the argument begins.
Speaker 2: Doug has custody in June, but Terry has registered Toby
Speaker 2: for summer softball. Doug says the problem there is that
Speaker 2: he and the kids will be out of town for
Speaker 2: two weeks in June. So Terry says, well, great, if
Speaker 2: Toby's going to miss that much softball, he'll probably end
Speaker 2: up with some horrible position like right field, and his
Speaker 2: self esteem will be shot to hell.
Speaker 10: You know that the kids come here in June and
Speaker 10: you just scheduled it.
Speaker 3: The damn league scheduled at that. Well, you didn't contact me, Okay,
Speaker 3: certicipate in any summer sports? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3: What's that Toby can never participate in any summer sports
Speaker 3: his whole life till he's eighteen.
Speaker 10: No, I didn't say anything like that. I said I
Speaker 10: would like to know. I find that.
Speaker 3: Let's let the child be just an invalid hum be
Speaker 3: a vegetaball all summer.
Speaker 10: What.
Speaker 2: Terry wants to change the custody agreements so she can
Speaker 2: take Toby to the softball games, but Doug says he's
Speaker 2: already booked the childcare he'll need for the whole month here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Terry, now I am, I'm not following. Don't wait
Speaker 10: a second, let me talk.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 10: Joanne and Caprice have scheduled their time around when they
Speaker 10: can watch my kids, Caprice our kids. Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: So Terry turns it back on Doug. Okay, she says,
Speaker 2: if I can't see the kids in June, then you
Speaker 2: won't see them in July.
Speaker 10: Yes, I will see them.
Speaker 3: How maybe my men is still left.
Speaker 10: I can see them on weekends my normal visitation.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll have to look at up because I do
Speaker 3: tend to look every little thing up.
Speaker 10: Are you going to look up about the school that
Speaker 10: you pull them out of?
Speaker 3: School?
Speaker 12: Is getting paid off?
Speaker 2: In those early calls, Doug and Terry tended to resolve
Speaker 2: their disagreements in just a few minutes, But now they
Speaker 2: go on fighting for over half an hour straight. Terry
Speaker 2: begins to leave from one unrelated grievance to the next.
Speaker 3: The other day, God damn it, Jonathan walked Toby home
Speaker 3: from kindergarten.
Speaker 10: Yeah, capriest went too.
Speaker 3: Caprice did not take them home. Toby told me this,
Speaker 3: that's not true. Oh Toby lied. You know, Toby, he
Speaker 3: is not a liar. When I walked to her, also
Speaker 3: to talk to the kids Friday afternoon, Caprice, after you
Speaker 3: can get up the phone, Get up the own kids,
Speaker 3: get up the phone, get off the phone, because I
Speaker 3: always make a point of calling them on Friday and Saturday,
Speaker 3: which I don't see you making a.
Speaker 10: Point of calling the kids during the week.
Speaker 3: But when I call, I don't appreciate the babies. They
Speaker 3: were telling the kids to get off the phone. Now
Speaker 3: I don't appreciate. Also, you standing on my front porch
Speaker 3: hearing what's going on inside of my house. To me,
Speaker 3: that is fine and low down and dirty. You were
Speaker 3: standing with one foot on the porch and one.
Speaker 2: And then finally Terry raises the thing that really underlies
Speaker 2: her rage, the night of the police, when two weeks.
Speaker 3: Ago, in the cops with here, you couldn't even come
Speaker 3: up to check on your own son's welfare when you
Speaker 3: were supposedly so dimnn concerned. So what's the difference. I mean,
Speaker 3: either you're gonna do it or you're not gonna do it.
Speaker 3: That's kind of double.
Speaker 10: Standards, because I don't think it would have been a
Speaker 10: good idea to make a big scene.
Speaker 3: Oh, make a big scene when you're taken upstairs and
Speaker 3: talk to the cops. You know, four policemen. You don't
Speaker 3: consider that a big scene. Four cops, right, that's Orange said,
Speaker 3: four cops is a big scene.
Speaker 10: What I consider big was leaving the kids alone.
Speaker 3: But you don't know our lifestyle. You don't know our situation,
Speaker 3: and no.
Speaker 10: Second lifestyle has nothing to do with it. You don't
Speaker 10: leave a four year old and a six year old
Speaker 10: in a house alone in the middle of the night,
Speaker 10: let alone in the middle.
Speaker 3: Of the day, Copsas has it ever happened before?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 3: And another thing that has or still is that you did, Doug.
Speaker 3: Was you sitting around, actually sitting around? Actually nobody can
Speaker 3: believe this in your suit, kai your jacket, your dress pants,
Speaker 3: your dress shoes and all that at eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was a matter of fact, as you were.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact.
Speaker 10: No, I didn't. I didn't have a tie on.
Speaker 3: No you had a tie on when you was out
Speaker 3: here in front of my house.
Speaker 10: No I didn't.
Speaker 3: I had How can we see it? She was so
Speaker 3: far away when they came up here and check on Toby.
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean, do you talk so serious that the
Speaker 3: kids you guys ever laugh? I know you do a
Speaker 3: lot of things that the kids. I know you guys
Speaker 3: go to zoo, and I know you guys go boating,
Speaker 3: and I know the kids enjoy it. But I also
Speaker 3: know they're getting to spoiled little burger bets over a
Speaker 3: lot of things too. They're getting expected a little bit
Speaker 3: too my child life, I think. But is there any
Speaker 3: humor and laughter in their life? Or is it all
Speaker 3: materialism and soberness. I don't know what's going on? But
Speaker 3: why is it? The other day Toby didn't for the
Speaker 3: first time, Toby didn't want to go to your house?
Speaker 3: And why did Toby draw a picture of the devil
Speaker 3: and say it was you? How do you have to bead?
Speaker 10: Dream?
Speaker 3: Last night? And it was at your house?
Speaker 10: That's the dream was?
Speaker 3: What is going on? I am really concerned.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I don't know. The kids hold a lot of anger.
Speaker 3: They don't hold a lot of anger here. Everything's funky
Speaker 3: dory here. As matter of fact, laugh to night. The
Speaker 3: kids have woke up with bad dreams, and both nights
Speaker 3: have been dreams. Had something to do with the house.
Speaker 10: Well, they don't wake up with bad dreams over here.
Speaker 3: They sleep as well from over there. They're not dreams here.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm thinking, is there a perversion going on
Speaker 3: or what?
Speaker 10: Well, I think that's pretty strong allegation.
Speaker 3: I don't hear the allegation, but I wonder.
Speaker 10: Well, exactly what are you trying to say?
Speaker 3: I had it happen to me? Is there a friend
Speaker 3: of yours that you are maybe think that's a good
Speaker 3: friend of yours? You maybe not be a friend good
Speaker 3: friend as you think?
Speaker 10: Well, I think you're wrong.
Speaker 3: No, that's that's not impossible. That it's not impossible.
Speaker 10: How can you comprehend leaving a four and a six
Speaker 10: year old at home alone.
Speaker 3: For fifteen minutes? And you know what? The DCFS worker
Speaker 3: died laughing. She said, tell me, do you know why
Speaker 3: I'm here? He says yes, because I have no sense
Speaker 3: of time till tell me. I'll be right back.
Speaker 10: I ran three blocks.
Speaker 3: I was right back.
Speaker 10: Well, you don't leave a four year old care because,
Speaker 10: by God, the first time, there won't be no cops involved.
Speaker 3: It'll be me and my family involved. Because nobody in
Speaker 3: my family can believe they said right or wrong. They
Speaker 3: can't believe that you called in the outside.
Speaker 10: Your family thinks it's okay to leave kids alone.
Speaker 3: No, but they think you should have come over yourself.
Speaker 3: But no, you can't even come up on the front porch, Terry.
Speaker 3: The police, the police.
Speaker 10: Did not want me to come up on the front porch.
Speaker 3: The police didn't want you to come talk to your
Speaker 3: own son. Did they say that, Terry? No? Did they
Speaker 3: say that they.
Speaker 10: Got the information they needed? They told me they thought
Speaker 10: it would be best if I left.
Speaker 3: Did you say, well, I would like to talk to
Speaker 3: my son. Did you take the police advice, Terry.
Speaker 10: I'm not gonna argue no, No.
Speaker 3: I want to know how much you care about tell
Speaker 3: me you took the police advice over your own son's welfare.
Speaker 3: I personally, I don't know. Maybe it's the maternal instinct.
Speaker 3: I would have said, well, can I at least see
Speaker 3: my son or talk to him?
Speaker 10: Okay?
Speaker 3: But the police advice when the police got thousands and
Speaker 3: thousands of thousands of calls to make and only one son.
Speaker 10: My own concern for Toby is why why the police
Speaker 10: were at your house. You don't leave a four year
Speaker 10: old at six year old place.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you just track your suit, tie, shoes, and
Speaker 3: your jacket over here in the first place. I did,
Speaker 3: you would have been here before they would have been here,
Speaker 3: I was you was here before they was here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that just goes to show me that your concern is
Speaker 3: not what your son is, but how it looks reflex
Speaker 3: on you. First time I ever ever left the kids,
Speaker 3: they told that lady that they told the policeman that
Speaker 3: they told you that. I can't even begin to tell
Speaker 3: you my anger about this.
Speaker 10: Well, that's good because I'm not gonna allow you to
Speaker 10: do that.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna allow me kiss my ass. I don't
Speaker 3: ever gonna happen again.
Speaker 10: I don't regret calling the police when you call the.
Speaker 3: Police, Okay, fine, anything ever happens, I call the police
Speaker 3: on you. Then neither one of us have children. How
Speaker 3: do you like them? Apples? You want to calling up
Speaker 3: on organizations?
Speaker 2: That's tip cut off, Tip cuts off. It's not at
Speaker 2: the end of the cassette. The tape abruptly cuts off
Speaker 2: in a way that suggests Doug had pressed stop. For
Speaker 2: all of his rigor and scrupulousness and recording, It's like
Speaker 2: this moment was just too painful to document. In the end,
Speaker 2: Doug never needed the tape for evidence, as there was
Speaker 2: no court case. Terry agreed to allow him full custody
Speaker 2: without contest when Toby was in the third grade, he
Speaker 2: and Heidi went to with their dad for good Toby
Speaker 2: sits in silence, taking in what he just heard. Lauren
Speaker 2: studies his face.
Speaker 7: The thing I just get pulled back to again and
Speaker 7: again is like, that's my person in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: It's really hard.
Speaker 5: I wish there were like better words. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Toby's always been grateful to his dad for taking him
Speaker 2: out of a bad situation, but hearing this conversation, he says,
Speaker 2: he suddenly understands the extent of what his dad was
Speaker 2: dealing with and why it might have been so important
Speaker 2: that Doug remained the stolid one in the face of
Speaker 2: so much intensity. Perhaps someone had to be My.
Speaker 4: Mom was being awful, just being pretty awful.
Speaker 3: Jerry and good.
Speaker 13: They were happy, They were happy until she was.
Speaker 2: This is Toby's aunt, Tracy, Terry's sister. I reached out
Speaker 2: to her to try to get more context for some
Speaker 2: of the things Terry says in the tapes. Specifically, Tracy
Speaker 2: was able to explain the abuse that Terry referenced.
Speaker 13: My parents' best friends that mom and dad ran around
Speaker 13: with all the time. It was that man, the husband
Speaker 13: and Terry never told because she absolutely loved the lady
Speaker 13: and loved going over there and hanging out with her.
Speaker 10: She just just loved her.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until well into Terry's adulthood that the truth
Speaker 2: came out. She called her parents one night and told
Speaker 2: them what their friend had done to her all those
Speaker 2: years ago. Her parents didn't know what to do, so
Speaker 2: they did nothing. Terry's boyfriend at the time convinced her
Speaker 2: to phone the man's wife. They called together and.
Speaker 13: They told her these people are still married. And I
Speaker 13: guess in a day or two found out that she
Speaker 13: had confronted.
Speaker 11: The name, and.
Speaker 2: Just a few days later the husband died by suicide.
Speaker 10: Told her it was true suicide. Oh my yeah.
Speaker 13: I think that was one of Terry's demons. I think
Speaker 13: that his mom lived with a lot of regrets.
Speaker 3: I think she died with a lot of regrets.
Speaker 13: I mean, it's sad I look back and how sad
Speaker 13: it is that the kids didn't have her growing up.
Speaker 13: Anybody that's in addiction don't want to be an addiction.
Speaker 13: That addiction was always dumber than her. I'd believe with
Speaker 13: my whole heart if she could come back today and
Speaker 13: go okay, let's do this over. It would have been
Speaker 13: an amazing mom.
Speaker 2: The argument about the police was the last tape between
Speaker 2: Toby's parents, but there are two other tapes. Tapes that
Speaker 2: were not recorded surreptitiously. You were recorded explicitly for Toby
Speaker 2: is a.
Speaker 13: Bore start on Friday next to eighty one.
Speaker 2: This is a tape that Terry made recounting the story
Speaker 2: of Toby's birth directly to him.
Speaker 15: DEVI and I've got a whole viewing Xcus.
Speaker 11: That was your dad recurring.
Speaker 2: I was just so happy because this tape was found
Speaker 2: among Doug's things. Because Terry sounds so young and optimistic,
Speaker 2: you can tell that this was recorded years before the divorce,
Speaker 2: back when things were different. Terry explains how she and
Speaker 2: Doug got into a spat and it's what I argument,
Speaker 2: but then swore to never argue in front of Toby
Speaker 2: again and.
Speaker 3: Incent police but we don't like it, and soth.
Speaker 2: Main we made it. All these years later, it's hard
Speaker 2: for Toby to picture his parents as people who were
Speaker 2: once in love, who could argue and then make up,
Speaker 2: who cared about him in tandem. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: Terry died from complications due to addiction. The lasting image
Speaker 2: Toby has of his two parents finally sharing the same
Speaker 2: room took place at her funeral. Toby was surprised to
Speaker 2: see his dad seated at the back of the church.
Speaker 2: Doug left as soon as the service was over, and
Speaker 2: Toby could never figure out why his father had shown
Speaker 2: up at all. Maybe it was for the Terry he
Speaker 2: used to love. Maybe it was for their kids. Me
Speaker 2: and you naw kid, No, mister an, let's get this sleeper.
Speaker 5: You come.
Speaker 2: The final tape I play for Toby is one of
Speaker 2: Toby himself as a baby with his parents.
Speaker 4: You get the tickets, yo, you get the hiccups.
Speaker 3: This is pretty tricky getting his clothes on you would
Speaker 3: use for him and all our.
Speaker 2: Arm In another part of the tape, Terry sings to
Speaker 2: a baby Toby.
Speaker 5: See Toby, Gene, I'm so lovely, Jean.
Speaker 2: And I need to be Gene.
Speaker 3: We never pad so Hello, Toby.
Speaker 10: Gen.
Speaker 3: Give.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to put a kid through what I
Speaker 1: went through as a kid.
Speaker 2: Even back when he was just a kid himself, Toby
Speaker 2: remembers thinking, when I'm an adult, it won't be like this.
Speaker 2: When I have my own kids, I'm going to do
Speaker 2: things so much differently, and now he does have kids,
Speaker 2: a six year old and a nine year old.
Speaker 6: Something that has always been important to me is like stability.
Speaker 6: That's something I've intentionally built into my life. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: I knew what it was like to be a kid
Speaker 6: and not have that. And I think we've built a
Speaker 6: really good life for us and our family and our kids.
Speaker 7: Tobya told me a story from when he was a
Speaker 7: kid closed to do BMX racing, and you should tell
Speaker 7: the story.
Speaker 5: How to answer your story calling.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I wanted to do BMX racing really bad.
Speaker 4: I'd seen it on TV. I was like, that's the
Speaker 4: coolest thing ever. I want to do this. And so my.
Speaker 6: Dad called the one bike shop in our town and
Speaker 6: was like, is there any BMX around or whatever? And
Speaker 6: they're like nope. And then I never got to do BMX.
Speaker 6: But our six year old really is into it, and
Speaker 6: so like, I've got him.
Speaker 4: I'll be an ex bike can work.
Speaker 15: Sorry, We're like, I'm going to a skate park all
Speaker 15: the time, and he's in mountain bike classes and yeah,
Speaker 15: doing that stuff for him that like, it's clear to
Speaker 15: me that my dad.
Speaker 1: Went the extra mile in the ways that he could.
Speaker 4: I want to do that for my kids.
Speaker 5: So he doesn't get emotional very often. This is the
Speaker 5: most I've ever seen him emotional. And we've been through
Speaker 5: some life together. You're sleep good tonight, buddy.
Speaker 7: Like you know, this is this type of emotional work
Speaker 7: that's exhausting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, said Doug. Well, I know stand it better
Speaker 2: when we're older, which is something that people just say.
Speaker 2: But in this case, Doug inadvertently left something behind to
Speaker 2: make that understanding possible and yet to become the dad
Speaker 2: that he is, to give the things that he didn't get.
Speaker 2: Toby didn't need the tapes at all.
Speaker 5: Just really proud of you, Toby, Thank.
Speaker 14: You because I know that you feel that way.
Speaker 7: Now that the furniture's riturned to its goodwill, now that the.
Speaker 14: Last months rant is scheming with.
Speaker 1: The damage to pozzle, take this moment to deserve.
Speaker 14: If we if we too.
Speaker 3: Felt around for far.
Speaker 1: From things accidentally.
Speaker 2: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khalila
Speaker 2: Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our
Speaker 2: supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production assistants by Mohemy Micgauker.
Speaker 2: Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Alex Bloomberg,
Speaker 2: Max Green, Blythe Terrell, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed
Speaker 2: the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson,
Speaker 2: and he himself, Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
Speaker 2: found on our website Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Speaker 2: Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast. Follow us on Twitter
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Speaker 2: at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. You can also follow
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