WEBVTT - The Confidante 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.840 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Blink 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.840 and you'll miss your treasure. Blink again, and you'll realize 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.200 that the truth you thought was safely hidden has materialized, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.799 some ungainly part of it revealed under new conditions. We 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.119 all know the adage that one lie begets the next deception. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:29.360 Takes commitment, vigilance, and a very good memory. To keep 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.240 the truth buried, you must tend to it for years 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:39.199 and years. My job was to pile on sand, fistfuls, shovelfuls, bucketfuls, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.120 whatever the moment necessitated, in effort to keep my mother's 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:49.280 secret buried. That's Adrian Roder reading from her just released 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:55.240 memoir Wild Game, My Mother, Her Lover and Me. Adrian's 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.760 is a story of being coerced, seduced into the keeping 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.600 of a powerful and day injurious secret. What happens when 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.200 a child is brought into her mother's private world, When 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.679 a daughter is given access to her mother's innermost life 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:22.880 in exchange for absolute loyalty and fidelity. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.120 and this is family secrets. The secrets that are kept 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.200 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:37.280 secrets we keep from ourselves. Well. I was born in 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.520 New York City, but when I was very young, my 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.920 parents divorced and we moved from New York, my brother 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.400 and I we moved from New York to Massachusetts. And 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.480 I would say that Cape Cod has always felt like 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.680 the home base for me. I go over that bridge 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.440 and I have sort of a have lost dog reaction 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.240 to the briny air and everything else. I really feel 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.640 home there. So just describe Cape Cod more for somebody 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:07.680 who's never been there. Cape Cod it is um just 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.600 one of the most beautiful slices of the country. But 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.400 Cape Cud to me, it's um. It's a very sensuous place. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.400 It's um. I think of the sand and the seafood 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.160 and what's below the water. I spent so much of 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.560 my childhood in boats, sort of varying across the harbor 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.799 from one of our houses or my mother's house, but 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.359 we'd go fishing and clamming, and it just really sort 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.880 of where most of my happy memories are. Remember the 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.440 big T shirt in the early seventies was happiness is 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.519 low Tide on Cape Cod, and we all believe that 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.120 that's what we did. Early in the book, you describe 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.240 in a way the first secret I would say, which 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.000 is I don't know if you would characterized exactly as 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.600 the secret, but um, the loss of your brother. I 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.720 don't actually remember either of my parents sitting down and 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.120 telling me that I had a brother and his what 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.960 his name was, and how he died. So I do 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.560 remember coming upon it a bit as a secret, and 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.919 yet there were photos of him around, and there were 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.079 um items of his in our home, and I think 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.720 it was probably just a very painful thing from my 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.800 parents to talk about. This idea of secrets that aren't 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.400 completely buried, but that we also don't fully know about 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.480 runs throughout Adrian's story. These secrets exist in the landscape 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.679 that we can apprehend but aren't really supposed to touch upon. 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.800 As a child, she was always aware of a core 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.320 sadness that her mother carried, a sorrow that floated in 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.680 the very air of her childhood homes. Adrian is one 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.800 of three children. Her oldest brother died at two and 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.240 a half by choking on a piece of meat. Her 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.680 mother was already pregnant at the time with Adrian's second brother, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.160 and then there was Adrian, born four years later on 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:03.320 her eldest late brother's birthday, So throughout her childhood, Adrian's 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.080 birthday always came with a whiff of sadness. She tried, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.920 as children do, to assemble the bits of information she could, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.760 while feeling that somehow the loss of her brother had 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:20.400 something to do with her. I'm always struck by the 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.080 stories that we make up as children, especially in the 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:29.400 absence of knowledge or you know, where there's some sense 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.599 that their sadness we don't understand, or there's an absence 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.360 we don't understand, or there's some story that we don't know, 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.120 and it's just human nature as children to make up 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.279 stories to take the place of those stories, and they're 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:47.960 almost never good. I think those kinds of stories kind 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.479 of boomerang back on the child as this is my 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:55.080 fault or you take it on absolutely, And honestly, I 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.240 think we do that as adults too. I mean, I 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.360 think it's also much about, you know, our own lens 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.920 or our own feelings. So you say hello to someone 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:04.400 and they don't return it, and you make up a 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.680 story for why they didn't do it, rather than oh, 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.640 she didn't hear me, or you know. I think, I mean, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.240 I think it's something we all have to be careful 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.159 of but as children certainly, I mean, there's so much 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.840 for trying to figure out right, and it's so confusing, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:23.120 and also people aren't always being straightforward with you. Adrian's 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.800 parents split up when she's eight years old. Her mother 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.000 is already years deep into a relationship with a man 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.400 who's also married, and it takes some time and some 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.640 doing to extricate themselves from their spouses so they can 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.599 find their way toward each other. But then, just before 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.320 they marry, her soon to be husband has a series 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:49.640 of four profoundly debilitating strokes. So life for Adrian's mother 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.320 suddenly looks very different from what she had thought it 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:56.120 would be. Instead of this beautiful romance, now she has 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.440 an ailing husband, and Adrian is thrust into the role 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.799 of the adult, waking her mother each morning. For carpool, 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.560 describe a little bit the the home in Chestnut Hill. 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.280 So you move from more more modest circumstances into from 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.520 completely modest circumstances. I mean, I shared a bedroom with 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.680 my brother. You know, I could, I'm sure, although I 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.120 haven't been there in years, reach across and touch him, 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.240 you know, if I needed our twin beds weren't that 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:31.000 far apart, and we moved into this mansion in Chestnut Hill, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.280 which had seventeen bedrooms and nine bathrooms and was just 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.719 simply the most enormous thing I'd ever seen in my life. Um, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:42.880 And the story we were told, which I think is 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.080 probably true, but I don't know, is that. You know, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.680 my stepfather had been trying to sort of sell it 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.039 or get rid of it for years, and quite simply, 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.200 no one wanted a house that big. So in the 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.239 end we rented many of the rooms on the top floor. 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.479 I mean it was during the seventies. Just heating the 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.200 thing I can't even imagine. But no, my I mean 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.600 I actually could do my gymnastic routine in my bedroom, 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.960 you know, cartwheel, cartwheel back in spring. Um, it was enormous, 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.200 and it was scary. I mean it was actually really 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.360 scary in the beginning. Um, My brother was on a 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.680 different floor than I was, on a different end of 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.160 the house. My mother was down a very long corridor. Um. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.400 You know, you know New York apartments, you can kind 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.320 of shouting, anyone will come. We lived in Chestnut Hill 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.760 and we would go to the cape. My mom had 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.960 a tiny cottage on the Cape Um where we would go. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.680 My father would also come up from New York and 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:38.760 rent a house and spend summers on the Cape. So 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.480 we spent July with my mother's in August with my father, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.200 and we would also shuttle back to New York or 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.560 Connecticut to visit my father on a lot of weekends. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:53.080 Into this world comes this man who in your book 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:58.800 you refer to as Ben. So the story really begins 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:05.600 on August night on Cape cod In and I was 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.560 fourteen years old and I was you know, it was 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.600 a late it was late at night. I was sound 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.280 asleep um in my own bedroom, and at some point 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.080 in time the door opened and my mother came in 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.840 and she said Rennie, which is my nickname. She said, Rennie, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.760 wake up, and I so remember not wanting to wake up. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.120 I was sort of half thinking about a boy I 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.880 had been kissing earlier on the Bay beach Um and 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.800 I rolled away and she said Ben South or just 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.520 kissed me. And of course with that, my eyes popped 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.600 open because Ben South there was my stepfather's best friend. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.760 And Ben South was married, which you know, of course 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.760 my mother was married too, but they were a couple 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.080 friends and you know, I didn't know them well, but 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.760 I knew them. I knew who they were. And what 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:55.000 I didn't know was that evening would mark the beginning 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.440 of just an epic extramarital love affair that my mother 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.080 brought me along on. But at the time it was 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:07.120 so thrilling and so seductive and so magical. I just 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:13.320 adored my mother, and I recognized it even in that moment, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.600 the moment it happened, as um, one of those moments 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.160 that everything changes. So I had gone to bed as 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.640 my mother's daughter, and I woke up as her best 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:30.320 friend and confidante and sort of co conspirator. And it 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.440 was just it was like some you know, mother daughter 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.920 version of Thelma and Louise, Like I was the girl 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.320 behind the wheel of the getaway car, just waiting for 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.520 her to fly into the car and for me to 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.040 jump on the guess. I mean, it was just it 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:50.440 was so exciting at first. Earlier that evening, the house 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.640 is filled with what seems a happy, boozy cacophony of 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.760 drinks and food. Adrian's mother, whose name is Malibar, is 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.320 a romantic figure. Malibar. She was born in Bombay and 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:06.120 named after Malabar Hill. She's a glamorous, beautiful woman who 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.920 was both in control and out of control of everything 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:14.000 all at once, making food, entertaining, pouring drinks. This is 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:20.080 not the sad Malabar sleeping through carpool, but quite another. Well, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:24.360 I mean, Malabar very much lives up to this grand 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.640 name of hers. I mean, she was incredibly glamorous, She 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:34.000 was charismatic. She also happened to be just an astonishing cook. 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.720 So she had studied at La cordon Bleu, she worked 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.840 in the test kitchen of Time Life Foods of the World, 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.880 and she had had a food column for the Boston 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:48.359 Globe my whole childhood. And she would throw these fabulous 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:54.040 parties and make these fabulous meals. She was clearly, you know, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.360 a narcissist and clearly had dubious maternal instincts. But she 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.320 also was loving and fun, which makes it complicated too. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.160 She wasn't you know, There was nothing Mummy dearest about her. 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:11.760 It wasn't She wasn't mean. Adrian stepfather Charles, who has 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.200 now paralyzed on his right side, is in high contrast 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.959 to his old friend, the hale and healthy Ben Souther. 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.600 If my stepfather Charles was all in his head. Ben 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.959 was incredibly physical. I mean he was also successful businessman 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.840 and all those things, and very smart. But what you 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.040 really noticed about Ben was, you know, he had to 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.120 be doing something. He had to be building something. He 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:37.760 had to be fishing, he had to be hunting, he 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.079 had to be pulling a boat in or out of 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.000 the water. He was just always going, and he loved life, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:49.280 and he was very enthusiastically and energetically engaged with whatever 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.360 he was doing, whereas Charles would rather be reading a 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.360 lovely book and have some quiet. What do you think 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.160 your mother was thinking when she first came into your 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.240 room and said Ben's south or kissed me? Um, do 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.920 you think was she bursting with the need to tell someone? 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.160 This is like the big question of all times, Like 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:18.520 what was she thinking? And I I'm guessing she'd had 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:23.719 way too much to drink. I'm guessing she was incredibly excited. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.880 It's also within the realm of possibility that perhaps something 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.560 had happened a little bit earlier, or she knew a 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.040 little bit more than I knew, and was planning ahead 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:35.880 and knew that she needed my help. I mean, that's 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.800 sort of more calculating than I've ever thought about it before. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:44.760 But that's certainly something my mother might have done. But 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.679 it's interesting because of course it was you know, it's 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.000 my childhood, so it seemed normal to me. It didn't 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.000 seem you know. Of course, now I'm just appalled by it, 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.840 and especially because I have a daughter who will be 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.120 fourteen years old when this book comes out, just fourteen, 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.240 and I look at her and I think, is there 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:12.240 any moment that I can imagine, imagine involving her in 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.360 something like this, And of course the answer is just no. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:20.160 But it's it's it's heightened my curiosity about why she 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.120 did what she did because it seems so much worse 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:24.839 now that I have my own child than it ever 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:26.920 did before. Because as I said it, you know, it 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.640 was somewhat exciting and thrilling at the time. Um, but 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.600 it's it just seems terrible to me now. Well, as 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.240 you say, I think our childhoods, we normalize our childhood. 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.400 It's whatever they are, they're they're the world that we know. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.319 And so aside from being sort of thrilling and being 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:48.560 you know, charged with being complicit in something that felt exciting, um, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.200 it also I would imagine it felt like, oh, well, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.240 maybe this is what happens, and you know, maybe parents, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.559 maybe parents can find these kinds of things in their children. Well, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.320 it also just it made me feel very special and 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.800 close to her. And one of the things about my 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.160 mother was, you know, you could be on her good 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.160 side or her bad side, you could be in or out. 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.040 And I think in that way, um, my brother and 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.880 I were always in some kind of competition, not as overtly, 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.240 not necessarily so overtly, but in some way just to 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.080 sort of receive her favor and her good wishes. That 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.880 was just a small bit of sunshine and love. Definitely 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:28.960 was a pie in our case. I mean, there was 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:33.400 only so much and we we battled for it, and 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.240 sometimes he was ahead and sometimes I was ahead, and 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.960 this certainly put me ahead for a while. We're going 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:46.320 to take a quick break. So then what happens, How 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.520 does this kind of proceed? Your mother and Ben and 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:55.040 you're being being part of their affair or helping them 0:14:55.080 --> 0:15:01.320 to go off together, covering for them. So, um, my 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:05.120 mother quickly set up a ruse for the affair because 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.400 it involved I mean, it was an affair that was 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.160 carried out in plain sight. These were two couple friends. 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.120 So my mother, as a said, was just a brilliant 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:19.120 cook and Ben was a recreational hunter and fisherman. And 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.960 so the idea that they had was to make a 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.960 wild game cookbook together and this was met with delight 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.160 from all parties. The spouses were into it too. It 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:33.000 just seemed like great fun. And so, you know, Ben 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.200 and Lily, his wife, would show up at least monthly 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.280 with some big hunk of meat um bore or deer 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:45.040 or venison, you know, not always big. One time brought 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.440 a squirrel that they'd hit on the way, and my 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.680 mother would transform it. I mean, she just would transform 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.400 these meats into you know, her beautiful delicacies, and we'd 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.880 have these feasts. And my role um at the end 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.120 of these evenings, and there had been a lot of 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.080 alcohol consumed, was to suggest a walk or a constitutional 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.280 as my mother called it. And you know, the whole time, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.120 we all knew that the spouses wouldn't come. They were 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.880 both in frail health. So my stepfather had had his strokes. 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.080 Then's wife, Lily was a cancer survivor. Um, no one 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.640 was in good health, and so I would suggest a 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.200 walk and we would merrily swing out the door and 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.600 go up the road. We were often sing um okaka 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.200 Katie and I see the moon, and the moon sees me. 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.560 And then at some point we would turn off. My 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.520 mother had a second property that was just a small 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:44.120 house that she sometimes rented and um but was often unoccupied. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.600 And I would peel off and they would go visit, 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.680 and I would wait for them on a rock down 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.280 at the bay beach below. The houses were at the 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.760 edge of the property, and and it was, you know, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.640 I was what was to suspect. I was like a 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.600 teenage chaperone. I mean, you wouldn't suspect if you who 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.520 your husband or your wife was going off with um 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:10.160 a fourteen year old president on fifteen and sixteen and seventeen. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.600 Because it went on for a while. As it went on, 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.520 did your feelings shifted all? I didn't get in touch 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.399 with guilt, if that's what you're asking, which I'm not 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.360 sure it is, but um, I know. I mean mostly 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.320 I was so happy to see my mother happy. And 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.879 also I sort of bought hook line and sinker a 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.920 story that I was told, which was essentially that no 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.440 one meant for this to happen, like they fell in love, 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.400 and who can help that this was not planned, This 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.200 was not intended. They fell madly in love, and that 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.960 that they would no sooner. Above all, they did not 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.720 want to hurt their spouses. They loved their spouses. They 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.880 did not wish to hurt these people. And to that end, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.600 they sort of presented it to me almost as they 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:07.080 were sacrificing. So rather than leave these people and run 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.280 off together, which is what they'd love to do, they 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.840 were gonna um do the noble thing and stick to 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.560 their marital vows and wait till death do this part. 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:18.760 And I think they always hoped that they would be 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.800 together someday. But that was that was the story I 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.280 was told, and for certainly the first several years I 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:31.320 bought it the whole. Charles dies five years into Malibar 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.840 and Ben's affair, and when he dies, Malibar is not 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.360 by his side. This is the first time that Adrian, 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.880 who is now a sophomore in college, experiences a real 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.160 pang of consciousness and awakening. She feels terrible that after 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.480 being so good to them, they meaning Adrian and her mother, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.919 had not been as good to him. This haunted her 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:57.400 for a long time. It still haunts her. Charles had 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.399 spent a lot of time in the hospital when he 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.280 had HISS, and he was not heroic about it. He 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.160 let us know how scary he found it, how much 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.199 he hated to be there, and so when he was 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.240 in the hospital, and especially this is the adult me talking. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.920 You know, if we're my husband, if it were someone 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:15.679 I loved, a friend, you know, I would want to 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.479 be there, and we weren't there. So then what happens 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.879 after Charles's death. My mother had a very hard time 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.160 for you know, a period of time. And I think 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.600 also you know, she was still in love with Ben, 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.119 but I think it also unmoored her because now the 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.360 situation wasn't balanced. Suddenly she was the third wheel. Were 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.480 they going to continue this sort of friendship, which they 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.520 kind of did, and how to keep the whole charade 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:47.159 afloat with this new situation. I had confided in different 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.600 people along the way, and um, what I will say 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:57.600 is that holding these secrets was so high stakes and 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.840 lying was so exhausting. But the secret itself, like the 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.159 the outcome if it were discovered, was so significant that 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.359 I was terrified. So the first time I told someone 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.639 was before my stepfather died, and it was, you know, 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.119 my childhood best friend, and I think she was the 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.879 very first person I told. And then, you know, a 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:23.760 couple of years later, she started going out with my 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.080 brother and suddenly he knew, and then my father my 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.600 mother found out that my brother's girlfriend knew, and then 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.159 she blamed my brother, and you know, I mean, it 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.160 was just that type of situation was sort of happening 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.920 and ripe and terrified me. So when I was in college, 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.879 Um did it lose some of its power? It did, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.640 but then I would get pulled back in at different moments, 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.520 so you know, I wouldn't really think about it much. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.680 I would, you know, I even consciously remember thinking, I'm 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.159 getting away from this. I am moving away from this. 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.160 I'm gonna live my own life. I'm doing my own thing. 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.439 When you say it was terrifying, you know, in that 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.159 sort of house of cards kind of way, what was 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.320 what was most terrifying about it? What would have been 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.040 the worst outcome if that secret had come out? I 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:21.480 think what I felt was that I had huge abandonment fears, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:26.040 and I think I felt that, um, I could very easily, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.040 she could cut me loose somehow, I don't you know. 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:34.200 That was certainly how I experienced it, Like the fear 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:41.400 was so enormous. Um and I think, you know, I 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.000 was whatever combination of nature and nurture. I think by 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.639 nature I was a people pleaser and by nurture because 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.679 of my parents divorce, you know, I just did have 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.399 those early childhood abandonment issues. So you know, I was 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:59.439 a barnicle. My mother was the rock. I mean I 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.480 really clung to her starting from when I was quite young. 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:07.240 And so the idea that she might think I had 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:13.000 betrayed her secret, I mean, it just nothing could seem worse. Yeah, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.520 that's so, That's so powerful and so amazing because it 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.520 really was always all about the two of you, Yes, 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:20.919 I mean, it wasn't about other people finding out. It 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.159 wasn't about consequences of other people finding out. Really, it 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:28.719 was about that primary relationship, all about the two of us. 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:32.600 As an antidote to her own neediness and feeling like 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.040 a third wheel with the Suzers, Malibar does what only 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.879 a good narcissist could. She devises a plan to have 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.960 a really big, festive family joint vacation with the Suzers. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.880 She rents a beautiful house on Harbor Island in the Bahamas. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.280 The Souzers aren't close with their grown children, and so 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.199 the idea is that if Ben sees Malibar in that 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.840 happy family environment, he'll see how delightful it can be, 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:00.479 and then they'll be able to continue you as they 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.119 had been. So Ben and Lily's two kids arrive, and 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.680 Adrian's brother arrives with her best friend who is now 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.600 his girlfriend. A whole collision of people come and was 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:16.439 in this collision, another stunning layer develops. Adrian falls in 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:23.399 love with Ben Souther's son Jack. We're going to pause 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:39.240 for a moment. We're back. So Adrian and Jack Saucer, 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:43.680 the son of Ben Southerer, enter into a serious romantic relationship. 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:50.320 I actually think this is almost embarrassing. I actually think 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:54.560 we have sort of outsmart at them that they don't 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:57.560 know about this, that we are having a secret relationship, 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:02.440 Like I've out Malabard Malabar and I am for three 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:05.200 or four months. Jack and I see each other. Jack 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.199 lives in San Diego, California. I am in college in 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:12.560 New York. He's ten years older. Um, and we sort 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.240 of do this, you know, covert back and forth trips 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:19.600 Um to see each other, and we really do fall 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:23.639 in love. And all the while I am not telling 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:28.119 him that my mother and his father are involved in 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.920 a love affair. I was a player in her show, 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:35.600 and some part of me I took it on, and 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:40.359 you know, that was really a corrupting moment. The part 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.920 about about then keeping the secret from Jack, about keeping 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:47.440 the secret and from from Maliba, well they I think 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:50.160 they obviously probably knew all along, and they found out 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:52.679 very quickly. So I wasn't so worried about keeping the 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:57.119