Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Blink
Speaker 1: and you'll miss your treasure. Blink again, and you'll realize
Speaker 1: that the truth you thought was safely hidden has materialized,
Speaker 1: some ungainly part of it revealed under new conditions. We
Speaker 1: all know the adage that one lie begets the next deception.
Speaker 1: Takes commitment, vigilance, and a very good memory. To keep
Speaker 1: the truth buried, you must tend to it for years
Speaker 1: and years. My job was to pile on sand, fistfuls, shovelfuls, bucketfuls,
Speaker 1: whatever the moment necessitated, in effort to keep my mother's
Speaker 1: secret buried. That's Adrian Roder reading from her just released
Speaker 1: memoir Wild Game, My Mother, Her Lover and Me. Adrian's
Speaker 1: is a story of being coerced, seduced into the keeping
Speaker 1: of a powerful and day injurious secret. What happens when
Speaker 1: a child is brought into her mother's private world, When
Speaker 1: a daughter is given access to her mother's innermost life
Speaker 1: in exchange for absolute loyalty and fidelity. I'm Danny Shapiro,
Speaker 1: and this is family secrets. The secrets that are kept
Speaker 1: from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the
Speaker 1: secrets we keep from ourselves. Well. I was born in
Speaker 1: New York City, but when I was very young, my
Speaker 1: parents divorced and we moved from New York, my brother
Speaker 1: and I we moved from New York to Massachusetts. And
Speaker 1: I would say that Cape Cod has always felt like
Speaker 1: the home base for me. I go over that bridge
Speaker 1: and I have sort of a have lost dog reaction
Speaker 1: to the briny air and everything else. I really feel
Speaker 1: home there. So just describe Cape Cod more for somebody
Speaker 1: who's never been there. Cape Cod it is um just
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful slices of the country. But
Speaker 1: Cape Cud to me, it's um. It's a very sensuous place.
Speaker 1: It's um. I think of the sand and the seafood
Speaker 1: and what's below the water. I spent so much of
Speaker 1: my childhood in boats, sort of varying across the harbor
Speaker 1: from one of our houses or my mother's house, but
Speaker 1: we'd go fishing and clamming, and it just really sort
Speaker 1: of where most of my happy memories are. Remember the
Speaker 1: big T shirt in the early seventies was happiness is
Speaker 1: low Tide on Cape Cod, and we all believe that
Speaker 1: that's what we did. Early in the book, you describe
Speaker 1: in a way the first secret I would say, which
Speaker 1: is I don't know if you would characterized exactly as
Speaker 1: the secret, but um, the loss of your brother. I
Speaker 1: don't actually remember either of my parents sitting down and
Speaker 1: telling me that I had a brother and his what
Speaker 1: his name was, and how he died. So I do
Speaker 1: remember coming upon it a bit as a secret, and
Speaker 1: yet there were photos of him around, and there were
Speaker 1: um items of his in our home, and I think
Speaker 1: it was probably just a very painful thing from my
Speaker 1: parents to talk about. This idea of secrets that aren't
Speaker 1: completely buried, but that we also don't fully know about
Speaker 1: runs throughout Adrian's story. These secrets exist in the landscape
Speaker 1: that we can apprehend but aren't really supposed to touch upon.
Speaker 1: As a child, she was always aware of a core
Speaker 1: sadness that her mother carried, a sorrow that floated in
Speaker 1: the very air of her childhood homes. Adrian is one
Speaker 1: of three children. Her oldest brother died at two and
Speaker 1: a half by choking on a piece of meat. Her
Speaker 1: mother was already pregnant at the time with Adrian's second brother,
Speaker 1: and then there was Adrian, born four years later on
Speaker 1: her eldest late brother's birthday, So throughout her childhood, Adrian's
Speaker 1: birthday always came with a whiff of sadness. She tried,
Speaker 1: as children do, to assemble the bits of information she could,
Speaker 1: while feeling that somehow the loss of her brother had
Speaker 1: something to do with her. I'm always struck by the
Speaker 1: stories that we make up as children, especially in the
Speaker 1: absence of knowledge or you know, where there's some sense
Speaker 1: that their sadness we don't understand, or there's an absence
Speaker 1: we don't understand, or there's some story that we don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's just human nature as children to make up
Speaker 1: stories to take the place of those stories, and they're
Speaker 1: almost never good. I think those kinds of stories kind
Speaker 1: of boomerang back on the child as this is my
Speaker 1: fault or you take it on absolutely, And honestly, I
Speaker 1: think we do that as adults too. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's also much about, you know, our own lens
Speaker 1: or our own feelings. So you say hello to someone
Speaker 1: and they don't return it, and you make up a
Speaker 1: story for why they didn't do it, rather than oh,
Speaker 1: she didn't hear me, or you know. I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's something we all have to be careful
Speaker 1: of but as children certainly, I mean, there's so much
Speaker 1: for trying to figure out right, and it's so confusing,
Speaker 1: and also people aren't always being straightforward with you. Adrian's
Speaker 1: parents split up when she's eight years old. Her mother
Speaker 1: is already years deep into a relationship with a man
Speaker 1: who's also married, and it takes some time and some
Speaker 1: doing to extricate themselves from their spouses so they can
Speaker 1: find their way toward each other. But then, just before
Speaker 1: they marry, her soon to be husband has a series
Speaker 1: of four profoundly debilitating strokes. So life for Adrian's mother
Speaker 1: suddenly looks very different from what she had thought it
Speaker 1: would be. Instead of this beautiful romance, now she has
Speaker 1: an ailing husband, and Adrian is thrust into the role
Speaker 1: of the adult, waking her mother each morning. For carpool,
Speaker 1: describe a little bit the the home in Chestnut Hill.
Speaker 1: So you move from more more modest circumstances into from
Speaker 1: completely modest circumstances. I mean, I shared a bedroom with
Speaker 1: my brother. You know, I could, I'm sure, although I
Speaker 1: haven't been there in years, reach across and touch him,
Speaker 1: you know, if I needed our twin beds weren't that
Speaker 1: far apart, and we moved into this mansion in Chestnut Hill,
Speaker 1: which had seventeen bedrooms and nine bathrooms and was just
Speaker 1: simply the most enormous thing I'd ever seen in my life. Um,
Speaker 1: And the story we were told, which I think is
Speaker 1: probably true, but I don't know, is that. You know,
Speaker 1: my stepfather had been trying to sort of sell it
Speaker 1: or get rid of it for years, and quite simply,
Speaker 1: no one wanted a house that big. So in the
Speaker 1: end we rented many of the rooms on the top floor.
Speaker 1: I mean it was during the seventies. Just heating the
Speaker 1: thing I can't even imagine. But no, my I mean
Speaker 1: I actually could do my gymnastic routine in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: you know, cartwheel, cartwheel back in spring. Um, it was enormous,
Speaker 1: and it was scary. I mean it was actually really
Speaker 1: scary in the beginning. Um, My brother was on a
Speaker 1: different floor than I was, on a different end of
Speaker 1: the house. My mother was down a very long corridor. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you know New York apartments, you can kind
Speaker 1: of shouting, anyone will come. We lived in Chestnut Hill
Speaker 1: and we would go to the cape. My mom had
Speaker 1: a tiny cottage on the Cape Um where we would go.
Speaker 1: My father would also come up from New York and
Speaker 1: rent a house and spend summers on the Cape. So
Speaker 1: we spent July with my mother's in August with my father,
Speaker 1: and we would also shuttle back to New York or
Speaker 1: Connecticut to visit my father on a lot of weekends.
Speaker 1: Into this world comes this man who in your book
Speaker 1: you refer to as Ben. So the story really begins
Speaker 1: on August night on Cape cod In and I was
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and I was you know, it was
Speaker 1: a late it was late at night. I was sound
Speaker 1: asleep um in my own bedroom, and at some point
Speaker 1: in time the door opened and my mother came in
Speaker 1: and she said Rennie, which is my nickname. She said, Rennie,
Speaker 1: wake up, and I so remember not wanting to wake up.
Speaker 1: I was sort of half thinking about a boy I
Speaker 1: had been kissing earlier on the Bay beach Um and
Speaker 1: I rolled away and she said Ben South or just
Speaker 1: kissed me. And of course with that, my eyes popped
Speaker 1: open because Ben South there was my stepfather's best friend.
Speaker 1: And Ben South was married, which you know, of course
Speaker 1: my mother was married too, but they were a couple
Speaker 1: friends and you know, I didn't know them well, but
Speaker 1: I knew them. I knew who they were. And what
Speaker 1: I didn't know was that evening would mark the beginning
Speaker 1: of just an epic extramarital love affair that my mother
Speaker 1: brought me along on. But at the time it was
Speaker 1: so thrilling and so seductive and so magical. I just
Speaker 1: adored my mother, and I recognized it even in that moment,
Speaker 1: the moment it happened, as um, one of those moments
Speaker 1: that everything changes. So I had gone to bed as
Speaker 1: my mother's daughter, and I woke up as her best
Speaker 1: friend and confidante and sort of co conspirator. And it
Speaker 1: was just it was like some you know, mother daughter
Speaker 1: version of Thelma and Louise, Like I was the girl
Speaker 1: behind the wheel of the getaway car, just waiting for
Speaker 1: her to fly into the car and for me to
Speaker 1: jump on the guess. I mean, it was just it
Speaker 1: was so exciting at first. Earlier that evening, the house
Speaker 1: is filled with what seems a happy, boozy cacophony of
Speaker 1: drinks and food. Adrian's mother, whose name is Malibar, is
Speaker 1: a romantic figure. Malibar. She was born in Bombay and
Speaker 1: named after Malabar Hill. She's a glamorous, beautiful woman who
Speaker 1: was both in control and out of control of everything
Speaker 1: all at once, making food, entertaining, pouring drinks. This is
Speaker 1: not the sad Malabar sleeping through carpool, but quite another. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, Malabar very much lives up to this grand
Speaker 1: name of hers. I mean, she was incredibly glamorous, She
Speaker 1: was charismatic. She also happened to be just an astonishing cook.
Speaker 1: So she had studied at La cordon Bleu, she worked
Speaker 1: in the test kitchen of Time Life Foods of the World,
Speaker 1: and she had had a food column for the Boston
Speaker 1: Globe my whole childhood. And she would throw these fabulous
Speaker 1: parties and make these fabulous meals. She was clearly, you know,
Speaker 1: a narcissist and clearly had dubious maternal instincts. But she
Speaker 1: also was loving and fun, which makes it complicated too.
Speaker 1: She wasn't you know, There was nothing Mummy dearest about her.
Speaker 1: It wasn't She wasn't mean. Adrian stepfather Charles, who has
Speaker 1: now paralyzed on his right side, is in high contrast
Speaker 1: to his old friend, the hale and healthy Ben Souther.
Speaker 1: If my stepfather Charles was all in his head. Ben
Speaker 1: was incredibly physical. I mean he was also successful businessman
Speaker 1: and all those things, and very smart. But what you
Speaker 1: really noticed about Ben was, you know, he had to
Speaker 1: be doing something. He had to be building something. He
Speaker 1: had to be fishing, he had to be hunting, he
Speaker 1: had to be pulling a boat in or out of
Speaker 1: the water. He was just always going, and he loved life,
Speaker 1: and he was very enthusiastically and energetically engaged with whatever
Speaker 1: he was doing, whereas Charles would rather be reading a
Speaker 1: lovely book and have some quiet. What do you think
Speaker 1: your mother was thinking when she first came into your
Speaker 1: room and said Ben's south or kissed me? Um, do
Speaker 1: you think was she bursting with the need to tell someone?
Speaker 1: This is like the big question of all times, Like
Speaker 1: what was she thinking? And I I'm guessing she'd had
Speaker 1: way too much to drink. I'm guessing she was incredibly excited.
Speaker 1: It's also within the realm of possibility that perhaps something
Speaker 1: had happened a little bit earlier, or she knew a
Speaker 1: little bit more than I knew, and was planning ahead
Speaker 1: and knew that she needed my help. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: sort of more calculating than I've ever thought about it before.
Speaker 1: But that's certainly something my mother might have done. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting because of course it was you know, it's
Speaker 1: my childhood, so it seemed normal to me. It didn't
Speaker 1: seem you know. Of course, now I'm just appalled by it,
Speaker 1: and especially because I have a daughter who will be
Speaker 1: fourteen years old when this book comes out, just fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I look at her and I think, is there
Speaker 1: any moment that I can imagine, imagine involving her in
Speaker 1: something like this, And of course the answer is just no.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's heightened my curiosity about why she
Speaker 1: did what she did because it seems so much worse
Speaker 1: now that I have my own child than it ever
Speaker 1: did before. Because as I said it, you know, it
Speaker 1: was somewhat exciting and thrilling at the time. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's it just seems terrible to me now. Well, as
Speaker 1: you say, I think our childhoods, we normalize our childhood.
Speaker 1: It's whatever they are, they're they're the world that we know.
Speaker 1: And so aside from being sort of thrilling and being
Speaker 1: you know, charged with being complicit in something that felt exciting, um,
Speaker 1: it also I would imagine it felt like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is what happens, and you know, maybe parents,
Speaker 1: maybe parents can find these kinds of things in their children. Well,
Speaker 1: it also just it made me feel very special and
Speaker 1: close to her. And one of the things about my
Speaker 1: mother was, you know, you could be on her good
Speaker 1: side or her bad side, you could be in or out.
Speaker 1: And I think in that way, um, my brother and
Speaker 1: I were always in some kind of competition, not as overtly,
Speaker 1: not necessarily so overtly, but in some way just to
Speaker 1: sort of receive her favor and her good wishes. That
Speaker 1: was just a small bit of sunshine and love. Definitely
Speaker 1: was a pie in our case. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: only so much and we we battled for it, and
Speaker 1: sometimes he was ahead and sometimes I was ahead, and
Speaker 1: this certainly put me ahead for a while. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break. So then what happens, How
Speaker 1: does this kind of proceed? Your mother and Ben and
Speaker 1: you're being being part of their affair or helping them
Speaker 1: to go off together, covering for them. So, um, my
Speaker 1: mother quickly set up a ruse for the affair because
Speaker 1: it involved I mean, it was an affair that was
Speaker 1: carried out in plain sight. These were two couple friends.
Speaker 1: So my mother, as a said, was just a brilliant
Speaker 1: cook and Ben was a recreational hunter and fisherman. And
Speaker 1: so the idea that they had was to make a
Speaker 1: wild game cookbook together and this was met with delight
Speaker 1: from all parties. The spouses were into it too. It
Speaker 1: just seemed like great fun. And so, you know, Ben
Speaker 1: and Lily, his wife, would show up at least monthly
Speaker 1: with some big hunk of meat um bore or deer
Speaker 1: or venison, you know, not always big. One time brought
Speaker 1: a squirrel that they'd hit on the way, and my
Speaker 1: mother would transform it. I mean, she just would transform
Speaker 1: these meats into you know, her beautiful delicacies, and we'd
Speaker 1: have these feasts. And my role um at the end
Speaker 1: of these evenings, and there had been a lot of
Speaker 1: alcohol consumed, was to suggest a walk or a constitutional
Speaker 1: as my mother called it. And you know, the whole time,
Speaker 1: we all knew that the spouses wouldn't come. They were
Speaker 1: both in frail health. So my stepfather had had his strokes.
Speaker 1: Then's wife, Lily was a cancer survivor. Um, no one
Speaker 1: was in good health, and so I would suggest a
Speaker 1: walk and we would merrily swing out the door and
Speaker 1: go up the road. We were often sing um okaka
Speaker 1: Katie and I see the moon, and the moon sees me.
Speaker 1: And then at some point we would turn off. My
Speaker 1: mother had a second property that was just a small
Speaker 1: house that she sometimes rented and um but was often unoccupied.
Speaker 1: And I would peel off and they would go visit,
Speaker 1: and I would wait for them on a rock down
Speaker 1: at the bay beach below. The houses were at the
Speaker 1: edge of the property, and and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was what was to suspect. I was like a
Speaker 1: teenage chaperone. I mean, you wouldn't suspect if you who
Speaker 1: your husband or your wife was going off with um
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old president on fifteen and sixteen and seventeen.
Speaker 1: Because it went on for a while. As it went on,
Speaker 1: did your feelings shifted all? I didn't get in touch
Speaker 1: with guilt, if that's what you're asking, which I'm not
Speaker 1: sure it is, but um, I know. I mean mostly
Speaker 1: I was so happy to see my mother happy. And
Speaker 1: also I sort of bought hook line and sinker a
Speaker 1: story that I was told, which was essentially that no
Speaker 1: one meant for this to happen, like they fell in love,
Speaker 1: and who can help that this was not planned, This
Speaker 1: was not intended. They fell madly in love, and that
Speaker 1: that they would no sooner. Above all, they did not
Speaker 1: want to hurt their spouses. They loved their spouses. They
Speaker 1: did not wish to hurt these people. And to that end,
Speaker 1: they sort of presented it to me almost as they
Speaker 1: were sacrificing. So rather than leave these people and run
Speaker 1: off together, which is what they'd love to do, they
Speaker 1: were gonna um do the noble thing and stick to
Speaker 1: their marital vows and wait till death do this part.
Speaker 1: And I think they always hoped that they would be
Speaker 1: together someday. But that was that was the story I
Speaker 1: was told, and for certainly the first several years I
Speaker 1: bought it the whole. Charles dies five years into Malibar
Speaker 1: and Ben's affair, and when he dies, Malibar is not
Speaker 1: by his side. This is the first time that Adrian,
Speaker 1: who is now a sophomore in college, experiences a real
Speaker 1: pang of consciousness and awakening. She feels terrible that after
Speaker 1: being so good to them, they meaning Adrian and her mother,
Speaker 1: had not been as good to him. This haunted her
Speaker 1: for a long time. It still haunts her. Charles had
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in the hospital when he
Speaker 1: had HISS, and he was not heroic about it. He
Speaker 1: let us know how scary he found it, how much
Speaker 1: he hated to be there, and so when he was
Speaker 1: in the hospital, and especially this is the adult me talking.
Speaker 1: You know, if we're my husband, if it were someone
Speaker 1: I loved, a friend, you know, I would want to
Speaker 1: be there, and we weren't there. So then what happens
Speaker 1: after Charles's death. My mother had a very hard time
Speaker 1: for you know, a period of time. And I think
Speaker 1: also you know, she was still in love with Ben,
Speaker 1: but I think it also unmoored her because now the
Speaker 1: situation wasn't balanced. Suddenly she was the third wheel. Were
Speaker 1: they going to continue this sort of friendship, which they
Speaker 1: kind of did, and how to keep the whole charade
Speaker 1: afloat with this new situation. I had confided in different
Speaker 1: people along the way, and um, what I will say
Speaker 1: is that holding these secrets was so high stakes and
Speaker 1: lying was so exhausting. But the secret itself, like the
Speaker 1: the outcome if it were discovered, was so significant that
Speaker 1: I was terrified. So the first time I told someone
Speaker 1: was before my stepfather died, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: my childhood best friend, and I think she was the
Speaker 1: very first person I told. And then, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, she started going out with my
Speaker 1: brother and suddenly he knew, and then my father my
Speaker 1: mother found out that my brother's girlfriend knew, and then
Speaker 1: she blamed my brother, and you know, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just that type of situation was sort of happening
Speaker 1: and ripe and terrified me. So when I was in college,
Speaker 1: Um did it lose some of its power? It did,
Speaker 1: but then I would get pulled back in at different moments,
Speaker 1: so you know, I wouldn't really think about it much.
Speaker 1: I would, you know, I even consciously remember thinking, I'm
Speaker 1: getting away from this. I am moving away from this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna live my own life. I'm doing my own thing.
Speaker 1: When you say it was terrifying, you know, in that
Speaker 1: sort of house of cards kind of way, what was
Speaker 1: what was most terrifying about it? What would have been
Speaker 1: the worst outcome if that secret had come out? I
Speaker 1: think what I felt was that I had huge abandonment fears,
Speaker 1: and I think I felt that, um, I could very easily,
Speaker 1: she could cut me loose somehow, I don't you know.
Speaker 1: That was certainly how I experienced it, Like the fear
Speaker 1: was so enormous. Um and I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: was whatever combination of nature and nurture. I think by
Speaker 1: nature I was a people pleaser and by nurture because
Speaker 1: of my parents divorce, you know, I just did have
Speaker 1: those early childhood abandonment issues. So you know, I was
Speaker 1: a barnicle. My mother was the rock. I mean I
Speaker 1: really clung to her starting from when I was quite young.
Speaker 1: And so the idea that she might think I had
Speaker 1: betrayed her secret, I mean, it just nothing could seem worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so, That's so powerful and so amazing because it
Speaker 1: really was always all about the two of you, Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't about other people finding out. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about consequences of other people finding out. Really, it
Speaker 1: was about that primary relationship, all about the two of us.
Speaker 1: As an antidote to her own neediness and feeling like
Speaker 1: a third wheel with the Suzers, Malibar does what only
Speaker 1: a good narcissist could. She devises a plan to have
Speaker 1: a really big, festive family joint vacation with the Suzers.
Speaker 1: She rents a beautiful house on Harbor Island in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: The Souzers aren't close with their grown children, and so
Speaker 1: the idea is that if Ben sees Malibar in that
Speaker 1: happy family environment, he'll see how delightful it can be,
Speaker 1: and then they'll be able to continue you as they
Speaker 1: had been. So Ben and Lily's two kids arrive, and
Speaker 1: Adrian's brother arrives with her best friend who is now
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. A whole collision of people come and was
Speaker 1: in this collision, another stunning layer develops. Adrian falls in
Speaker 1: love with Ben Souther's son Jack. We're going to pause
Speaker 1: for a moment. We're back. So Adrian and Jack Saucer,
Speaker 1: the son of Ben Southerer, enter into a serious romantic relationship.
Speaker 1: I actually think this is almost embarrassing. I actually think
Speaker 1: we have sort of outsmart at them that they don't
Speaker 1: know about this, that we are having a secret relationship,
Speaker 1: Like I've out Malabard Malabar and I am for three
Speaker 1: or four months. Jack and I see each other. Jack
Speaker 1: lives in San Diego, California. I am in college in
Speaker 1: New York. He's ten years older. Um, and we sort
Speaker 1: of do this, you know, covert back and forth trips
Speaker 1: Um to see each other, and we really do fall
Speaker 1: in love. And all the while I am not telling
Speaker 1: him that my mother and his father are involved in
Speaker 1: a love affair. I was a player in her show,
Speaker 1: and some part of me I took it on, and
Speaker 1: you know, that was really a corrupting moment. The part
Speaker 1: about about then keeping the secret from Jack, about keeping
Speaker 1: the secret and from from Maliba, well they I think
Speaker 1: they obviously probably knew all along, and they found out
Speaker 1: very quickly. So I wasn't so worried about keeping the
Speaker 1: secret from Malabar. I think keeping um the truth about
Speaker 1: our family's situation from Jack as we got more and
Speaker 1: more serious than I moved in with him, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, despite the fact that I was only twenty
Speaker 1: three and I had never been marriage minded in my life,
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, I found myself engaged
Speaker 1: and we are sort of headed towards this alter and
Speaker 1: I had, you know, in sort of a lame way.
Speaker 1: And I should add that Jack does not remember it
Speaker 1: the same way. But I, you know, I have lots
Speaker 1: of journals to corroborate things that I did. You know,
Speaker 1: I did always sort of tell me not I've got
Speaker 1: this secret that you know, probably you don't want to know,
Speaker 1: but let me know. And he didn't want to know.
Speaker 1: He was sort of a verse to, um, you know,
Speaker 1: things that might be traumatic, as some people are. Sometimes
Speaker 1: in life, it seems there are dance steps we simply
Speaker 1: begin to take as if they'd been choreographed, especially for us,
Speaker 1: moves that would seem unthinkable, except that what we've really
Speaker 1: entered into is history on repeat. As Ben and Malabar
Speaker 1: continue their years long love affair, Adrian and Jack begin
Speaker 1: to plan their own wedding. So you and Jack Mary
Speaker 1: before we get married. Um, and just a few months
Speaker 1: before we get married, the unthinkable happens and Lily finds
Speaker 1: out about everything. And how does that happen? I believe
Speaker 1: that Ben thought she was depressed, because I think we
Speaker 1: all thought Lily knew all along. I think we all
Speaker 1: just you couldn't be in a room with all this chemistry,
Speaker 1: with all this energy, this charged particles that just flew
Speaker 1: between Ben and Malibar and not think that something was
Speaker 1: going on, because it seemed like everyone thought that something
Speaker 1: was going on, And it seemed it just seemed all
Speaker 1: of us that she must know. And so I think
Speaker 1: Ben decided to tell her simply to reassure her that
Speaker 1: now that Charles was gone, he wasn't actually going to
Speaker 1: leave her and just run off with my mother. He
Speaker 1: wanted to reassure her that no, he would be you know,
Speaker 1: yes he was in love with Malibar, but no, he
Speaker 1: would be, you know, a dutiful husband. And she shocked
Speaker 1: everyone by um rather than being some sort of guilted flower, saying,
Speaker 1: you know, the hell this is going to keep going.
Speaker 1: And she pretty much told Ben that his name would
Speaker 1: be mud in their community, and he was a very
Speaker 1: popular person in their community of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and that
Speaker 1: it was going to stop immediately. And two my great
Speaker 1: shock and my mother's even greater shock, Ben dropped her
Speaker 1: like a hot potato immediately. And this was all perhaps
Speaker 1: three or four months before we were to get married.
Speaker 1: So we got a call Jack and I got a
Speaker 1: call um in California from Lily. And one of the
Speaker 1: things about Lily was part of her cancer treatment involved
Speaker 1: radiation pellets in her chest from long ago, so her
Speaker 1: vocal cord was atrophying at the same time as Ben
Speaker 1: was becoming deaf. So it was just this torturous situation
Speaker 1: of she couldn't speak, he couldn't hear, and she got
Speaker 1: on the phone to start to tell her son Jack
Speaker 1: what had happened, and she couldn't say it. So then
Speaker 1: Ben got on the phone, and of course I perked up,
Speaker 1: because this was this moment I'd sort of been fearful
Speaker 1: of and expecting or not expecting, you know, since I'd
Speaker 1: gotten together with Jack. Was you know, how was he
Speaker 1: going to feel when he found out that his father
Speaker 1: loved my mother and was going to leave his mother
Speaker 1: and so on, and and yet, as I was overhearing
Speaker 1: this booming voice on this phone, it was not the
Speaker 1: conversation that I was expecting. And Ben was apologizing for
Speaker 1: all the things he had done wrong and how what
Speaker 1: a horrible mistake this relationship was and all of this,
Speaker 1: and I just, I mean, it was one of the
Speaker 1: most surreal conversations. And of course immediately I started to
Speaker 1: wonder if Malibar knew yet, like if she already knew,
Speaker 1: or that they'd called us for a first or had
Speaker 1: he already called and broken it off with her, and
Speaker 1: so almost I mean, that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I remember so clearly. It's just how quickly I went
Speaker 1: from my own concerns to hers. I mean, just there
Speaker 1: was such a blurring of boundaries in our relationship. So
Speaker 1: Adrian and Jack's wedding becomes you guessed it about Malabar,
Speaker 1: and Malabar's one last great opportunity to show Ben Sauzer
Speaker 1: just what he's missing. How could it not, Jackson, My
Speaker 1: wedding becomes this incredibly monumentally important day for my mother,
Speaker 1: and so my wedding is totally usurped because it's it's
Speaker 1: her big day. It's the last chance she might be
Speaker 1: able to see Ben and change his mind. Um. And
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, you know, even though the
Speaker 1: truth has come out, nothing has changed, because we're worried
Speaker 1: about her dress, we're thinking about the menu according to
Speaker 1: like his his deduction were you know, it's it's all
Speaker 1: going in that same vein. And so all that happens,
Speaker 1: and there is some kind of reconnection at the wedding.
Speaker 1: Despite everyone agreeing that there would be no dancing between them,
Speaker 1: there was a dance between my mother and Ben at
Speaker 1: this wedding, and you know, it was electric and it
Speaker 1: was just it just everything happened, um. And there's a
Speaker 1: photo of them together that you know, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: picture of me and my groom on my mother's entryway
Speaker 1: hall afterwards, it was a picture of her and Ben.
Speaker 1: Did Jack feel um the traitor, upset that you had
Speaker 1: kept that secret from him? He didn't. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think probably over the years he probably has come to
Speaker 1: feel that more that way, He's not said that to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, at the time, he was so angry at
Speaker 1: his father and at my mother, and especially just enraged
Speaker 1: that they would involve me as a child and sort
Speaker 1: of how confusing that was for me. And he believed
Speaker 1: that more than I believed, because I felt like I
Speaker 1: felt I should you know, he must be angry. But
Speaker 1: I also think I felt hugely relieved, because I think
Speaker 1: the problem with keeping a secret is, of course you're
Speaker 1: never fully seen or known, right, And I think my
Speaker 1: deep hope at that moment was that he would, you know,
Speaker 1: see me for all the flaws, for what I had
Speaker 1: done on every level, and then actually still want to
Speaker 1: know me and want to be in this real relationship
Speaker 1: with me. And I think instead what happened was there
Speaker 1: was very little examination of my culpability or involvement, and
Speaker 1: a lot of just you know, they were horrible people,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think he still believes to this
Speaker 1: day and in his mind they were, and that's fine.
Speaker 1: But I don't think we ever reflected on what it
Speaker 1: meant that we'd probably been in a relationship for two
Speaker 1: years at that point and you know, I had, I
Speaker 1: had put my mother ahead of him. There's so many
Speaker 1: interesting things about that, because one thing that strikes me is,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a limit to how much rage anyone
Speaker 1: can feel it at any given moment, or how many
Speaker 1: people you can can be mad at, you know, in
Speaker 1: a given moment. And it sounds like he was full
Speaker 1: up with you know, his father and your mother, very possibly,
Speaker 1: but also that that would be a very kind of
Speaker 1: compassionate and kind of normal response to think you were
Speaker 1: a child. No, you're not a child anymore, but you
Speaker 1: were a child. The person who made this choice was
Speaker 1: a child, or didn't even make the choice. The person
Speaker 1: that was you know, kind of co opted and brought
Speaker 1: into the situation was a child. And I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if this was someone else, I think I'd
Speaker 1: have much more compassion. We're always hardest on ourselves, of course, um,
Speaker 1: but I think you know, in all my relationships since then.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I feel like there's been such
Speaker 1: a a pivot in my life from that moment of
Speaker 1: wanting to become, you know, fully a truth teller, fully
Speaker 1: being seen. I mean, I would rather anyone who loves
Speaker 1: me knows, you know, every flaw and bad thought and
Speaker 1: unkind thing I might do and still love me, rather
Speaker 1: than some polished version that's simply not true. A huge pivot.
Speaker 1: I find this extraordinarily moving, because that's what can happen
Speaker 1: when secrets are finally aired out right. Adrian goes from
Speaker 1: keeping a secret for the better part of a lifetime
Speaker 1: to wanting to be seen and known and feeling the
Speaker 1: power and grace in being seen and known. Though this process,
Speaker 1: like many journeys to a kind of grace, does not
Speaker 1: happen overnight. Adrian experiences a huge and profound depression shortly
Speaker 1: after she and Jack Mary. She enters into a state
Speaker 1: of despair for several years and hits a bottom from
Speaker 1: which she begins to realize that she needs to change
Speaker 1: in order to have a more fully authentic life. I
Speaker 1: wasn't living my own life, right, I mean, I just
Speaker 1: hadn't been since I was fourteen. I had put my
Speaker 1: mother's life so far ahead of my own and really
Speaker 1: unthinking Lee, so I kind of woke up um and
Speaker 1: and was so. I mean, I don't know who I
Speaker 1: would have been had I had she not had this affair.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would have done at school,
Speaker 1: or who I would be with or so on. There's
Speaker 1: no question in my mind that I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: married in this certain career, living with this certain person
Speaker 1: in this town, you know, in San Diego. It just
Speaker 1: it's um. But yeah, it was all of it. It
Speaker 1: was the tornado, It was this perfect storm um and
Speaker 1: then you know, I don't know what other biochemical reasons,
Speaker 1: but it was devastating and it was I really had
Speaker 1: to call on my way out of it for several years.
Speaker 1: And I truly feel for people who experienced depression with
Speaker 1: any kind of regularity because I was so scared of
Speaker 1: it for so many years. I mean, I remember just thinking,
Speaker 1: am I going to be someone who fights depression all
Speaker 1: their life? And I and I haven't. It was Carl
Speaker 1: Young who once described secrets as psychic poison, and another
Speaker 1: favorite quote of mine, this one from the Gospel of St.
Speaker 1: Thomas in the Gnostic Gospels. If you bring forth what
Speaker 1: is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
Speaker 1: If you do not bring forth what is within you,
Speaker 1: what you do not bring forth will destroy you. I
Speaker 1: think there are moments in our lives that are ultimately
Speaker 1: great turning points, great reckonings, if we allow them to be.
Speaker 1: Adrian and Jack's marriage doesn't last. Really, how could it?
Speaker 1: Burdened by so many secrets and silences, such wild and
Speaker 1: impossible history. Adrian puts herself together again and becomes a strong, compassionate,
Speaker 1: highly attuned, confident woman. She holds a series of high
Speaker 1: profile jobs in publishing. She marries a wonderful man and
Speaker 1: has two children, a daughter and a son. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: Malabar and Ben had moved on to each other. It
Speaker 1: was in that Lily died, and almost immediately they were
Speaker 1: back together. Ben moved in within a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and they were married nine months later. And then you know,
Speaker 1: they went on to have an almost twenty year marriage.
Speaker 1: U Ben died six years ago at the age of
Speaker 1: so you know it. It was scandalous, but it was
Speaker 1: also lasting. So you alluded to this a little bit before.
Speaker 1: But so I'm wondering I guess I always wonder about
Speaker 1: the lasting impact of secrets, just in terms of your
Speaker 1: daughter being fourteen or will be fourteen at the time
Speaker 1: your book comes out. And I know I've had that
Speaker 1: experience any number of times in my son's life where
Speaker 1: I'll see him at a certain age and I'll realize
Speaker 1: that what was done to me at that age or
Speaker 1: the way that I was treated at that age in
Speaker 1: my own life was just so incomprehensible to me. So
Speaker 1: here you are, and you know, you have this long, stable,
Speaker 1: happy marriage, you have these two beautiful kids, you have
Speaker 1: several wonderful careers, um and now you've you've made you
Speaker 1: a piece of work out of this. Where does all
Speaker 1: this kind of how does it sit with you? Not
Speaker 1: that I ever thought I would be doing this kind
Speaker 1: of thing to my children, but I think keeping it
Speaker 1: in the front of my mind and my heart is
Speaker 1: what makes me aware of of not wanting to go there,
Speaker 1: of not wanting to repeat these mistakes that my parents made.
Speaker 1: I do not want a parent as I was parented,
Speaker 1: and that's that. I love both my parents, I really do,
Speaker 1: but they just they made some incredible mistakes. And my
Speaker 1: mother in particular and there's a history of it in
Speaker 1: our family. Your mother, as you said, is pretty far
Speaker 1: along in her decline, and you have very much been
Speaker 1: there for her during these years. Do you feel it's
Speaker 1: very clear that you love her? Do you feel that
Speaker 1: you've forgiven her? I'm not angry with her. I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: she's such a different person right now that it's sort
Speaker 1: of as if I'm not having the conversation with her
Speaker 1: other than by myself. I truly believe that she was
Speaker 1: a better mother than her mother was to her. I
Speaker 1: don't honestly know the answer. I mean, I think I
Speaker 1: have only because I don't feel anger or upset. I
Speaker 1: feel curiosity and wanting to understand and not wanting to
Speaker 1: replicate um and but at different points in time, I've
Speaker 1: felt all of the above. I feel like most of
Speaker 1: what I learned from my mother was sort of in
Speaker 1: opposition to what she meant to teach me, or at
Speaker 1: least she was not wise in terms of her lessons,
Speaker 1: and most of how I want to be as in
Speaker 1: reaction to who she was many things to Adrian Rodur.
Speaker 1: Her memoir Wild Game, My Mother, Her Lover and Me
Speaker 1: has just been released. You can find out more about
Speaker 1: Adrian at Adrian Rodur dot com. Family Secrets is an
Speaker 1: I Heeart media production. Dylan Fagin is the supervising producer,
Speaker 1: Lowell Brolante is the audio engineer, and Julie Douglas is
Speaker 1: the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd
Speaker 1: like to share, you can get in touch with us
Speaker 1: at listener mail at Family Secrets podcast dot com, and
Speaker 1: you can also find us on Instagram at Danny Writer,
Speaker 1: and Facebook at Family Secrets Pod and Twitter at fami
Speaker 1: Secrets Pod. For more about my book Inheritance, visit Danny
Speaker 1: Shapiro dot com. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,