Speaker 1: Hey, how is it that a seal keeps balls on
Speaker 1: their nose? Now, no, no, I have something serious.
Speaker 2: If I have to grocer in the house and I've
Speaker 2: got to paint the door.
Speaker 1: So you're painting the door to your house?
Speaker 2: Yeah, paints the door red. It's gonna be very nice.
Speaker 1: But you know what a red door symbolizes, right, noge
Speaker 1: is a bordello. You're kidding, right, That's how sailors would know.
Speaker 1: They would have them down by the view pole and
Speaker 1: they would be able to know where they could kidding
Speaker 1: me right, make whoopee for for money? Who's that neighbor?
Speaker 1: Could you ask them about the red door?
Speaker 3: Zach?
Speaker 2: I need this.
Speaker 1: From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight
Speaker 1: Today's episode ilise. So now what happens? Ara's gonna call
Speaker 1: We'll see, Oh boy, get ready. For a while back,
Speaker 1: my producers and I decided to try a phone in episode.
Speaker 1: Larry King, Rush Limbaugh and other Goldstein esque personalities had
Speaker 1: found success with them. So why, I wondered from the
Speaker 1: depths of my ignorance, couldn't die and so full of
Speaker 1: hubris and hope, we open the phone lines and invite
Speaker 1: the whole world to call in with a small moment
Speaker 1: from their past, something to revisit and resolve, all during
Speaker 1: the course of a five minute phone call. This is
Speaker 1: why I got into this business, the you know, the
Speaker 1: feeling of live radio. As I'm to learn the thing
Speaker 1: about a phone in show is that you need people
Speaker 1: to phone in and nobody.
Speaker 4: Is cause everyone's day.
Speaker 1: But just as I'm starting to wonder if Gimblet Media
Speaker 1: has forgotten to pay its telephone bill.
Speaker 4: Again, Oh, here we go, ready, we're answering.
Speaker 1: All right, Hello, this is Jonathan speaking.
Speaker 2: Hi Jonathan, how's it going.
Speaker 1: It's going okay?
Speaker 4: Is this uh?
Speaker 1: What's your name?
Speaker 2: Elie? This is You're very surprised I got through. This
Speaker 2: is so exciting.
Speaker 1: I guess you really lucked out. Is a longtime listener,
Speaker 1: first time caller from Washington, d C. And as it
Speaker 1: turns out, her call proves not only the first of
Speaker 1: the day, but also the last. And this is not
Speaker 1: just because we don't receive any other calls. It's because
Speaker 1: I'm completely drawn in by the story. At least tells
Speaker 1: me about herself and her dad. What's his name, Billy? Billy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I guess I basically I am a strange
Speaker 2: from my father.
Speaker 1: When Aalise was a kid, Billy was the fun parent,
Speaker 1: the one who always had hours to play with her,
Speaker 1: the guy who, in spite of being something of a
Speaker 1: macho man, gave himself over to playing beauty salon, even
Speaker 1: allowing Elise to paint his toenails. Before the estrangement, Billy
Speaker 1: and Elise were really close, which is why not having
Speaker 1: any relationship now hurts the way it does.
Speaker 2: She was my dad, like already of a family vacation
Speaker 2: was like show up in a country with no plan
Speaker 2: and like rent a car and just like drive around
Speaker 2: and it was amazing. Like that's what That's what life
Speaker 2: with dad was like. It was like every day it
Speaker 2: was an Indvanshire.
Speaker 1: Even the way Billy met Alisa's mom was like something
Speaker 1: out of a movie, the first act of a film noir.
Speaker 1: Billy was an Englishman driving through Chattanooga on a tourist
Speaker 1: visa when he got into a terrible car accident, and
Speaker 1: the physical therapist assigned to him was Elisa's mom. Billy
Speaker 1: was still in a wheelchair when he talked her into
Speaker 1: sneaking him out of the hospital for their first date.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon after they got married and had Alise. Billy
Speaker 1: never went back to England. Instead, he stayed with his
Speaker 1: family in Chattanooga and became a successful used car salesman.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of things in my upbringing in
Speaker 2: life with him to be very grateful for. In addition
Speaker 2: to all the craziness in.
Speaker 1: Reference to her dad brings up craziness a lot, like
Speaker 1: the crazy way Billy ruined her credit by opening a
Speaker 1: business in her name, or the crazy time he drove
Speaker 1: home a brand new car only to have cops come
Speaker 1: looking for it with their guns drawn, or the crazy
Speaker 1: way he destroyed his twenty four year marriage with a
Speaker 1: series of affairs. There's one Christmas where he bailed on
Speaker 1: the family, only to spend the holiday with another woman.
Speaker 1: And for all of these things, no matter how jarring
Speaker 1: or painful, Elise's found it in herself to forgive her father.
Speaker 1: But there's one thing she hasn't been able to forgive.
Speaker 2: About five years ago, he moved out of the country
Speaker 2: without telling.
Speaker 1: Us us is Elise and her mom. Elisa's parents had
Speaker 1: been married her whole life, but had recently separated around
Speaker 1: the time of his disappearance. Her last good memory of
Speaker 1: her dad is watching him wave from the crowd as
Speaker 1: she crossed the stage at our college graduation. Days later,
Speaker 1: he disappeared, and disappeared as the word for it. Elise
Speaker 1: says that when she went over to his house she
Speaker 1: found food rotting in the refrigerator and all the furniture
Speaker 1: still there. For a week, Alise had no idea what
Speaker 1: had happened to her father, and then she received an email.
Speaker 1: It simply said he'd be gone for a little while
Speaker 1: and that email was the best way to stay in touch.
Speaker 1: There was no further explanation. The next time she heard
Speaker 1: from him was on her birthday six months later, a
Speaker 1: Christmas note. And that's more or less been the pattern
Speaker 1: for the last five years.
Speaker 2: On holidays and my birthday and stuff like that. His
Speaker 2: emails are very short, like three sentences or less, sort
Speaker 2: of happy whatever holiday it is. I hope you're well,
Speaker 2: love Dad.
Speaker 1: At first, Alise tried responding. She'd express some of her
Speaker 1: pain and anger in hopes of provoking a more substantial dialogue,
Speaker 1: but Billy would refuse to engage. So after an email
Speaker 1: pressing her father for answers, a few months would pass
Speaker 1: with no response, and then an email would land in
Speaker 1: Alisa's inbox, wishing her a happy whatever holiday it is,
Speaker 1: and hoping she's well. Love Dad, as though nothing was
Speaker 1: ever expressed and nothing was ever asked of him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Alie stopped responding to his emails entirely.
Speaker 2: We don't have a mailing address for him. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's phone number. Like the only connection I
Speaker 2: have to him is a concast email address.
Speaker 1: Do you do you know where he's living.
Speaker 2: He's in the Philippines, and that's all I know. My
Speaker 2: mom has a pinpointed like a region. But like there
Speaker 2: was ever, Like he never told me where he was
Speaker 2: going or why he never he never explained why he left.
Speaker 1: And this is what Elise wants, an explanation for his departure,
Speaker 1: an emotional, honest conversation where she can ask him why
Speaker 1: and what happened, because in the five years since she
Speaker 1: last saw him, a lot has happened.
Speaker 2: He started a new family. He also has like a
Speaker 2: wife and a kid. Uh huh. And then he actually
Speaker 2: named his new daughter my name Elise.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I.
Speaker 2: Just find it so insulting. It's just such a transparent replacement,
Speaker 2: Like I moved to a country and like made a
Speaker 2: new youth.
Speaker 1: So when people search for Elise on Facebook, the first
Speaker 1: result that comes up is new Elise and the page
Speaker 1: Billy made for her, which means old Elise is forced
Speaker 1: to constantly explain that this is her dad's new daughter
Speaker 1: from his new family, who also just so happens to have.
Speaker 2: Her name, Like, he just wants me to like love
Speaker 2: him and be happy with him again. But the elephant
Speaker 2: in the room is that he's living mysteriously somewhere for
Speaker 2: half a decade and we've never discussed it.
Speaker 1: At least feels like she and Billy are living in
Speaker 1: two different realities. She in the one where her father
Speaker 1: abandoned her, and he in the one where he did
Speaker 1: nothing wrong. She wants her dad to validate what she's
Speaker 1: seen and felt to understand. Otherwise, how can they move forward?
Speaker 1: Are you wanting to have a relationship with him?
Speaker 2: Pardon me? Is because he's also he's like diabetic, and
Speaker 2: like he's just kind of old and sick and might
Speaker 2: die and I might never know. He's sixty five and
Speaker 2: possibly working a very physically taxing job. He was working
Speaker 2: on container ships when we first moved over, And I've
Speaker 2: been passively choosing the root of not having a relationship,
Speaker 2: but the fear and the guilt gets worse with time.
Speaker 1: What would pursuing a relationship look like?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm That's what I'm trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, I mean, he's my dad and he's
Speaker 2: I feel like he's trying to maintain a relationship with me,
Speaker 2: and I just don't know how to work past it.
Speaker 1: I know I can sometimes come across as something of
Speaker 1: a meddler, but I only decide to get involved in
Speaker 1: the business of upturning people's entire lives after hours, sometimes
Speaker 1: even days, of careful consideration. But then, I've never hosted
Speaker 1: a call in show before, and so adrenalized by the
Speaker 1: single flashing light on my switchboard and the imperial perch
Speaker 1: of my slightly elevated swivel chair, I dive in, would
Speaker 1: you want me to call him up? And I say this,
Speaker 1: by the way, like with the idea that it's could
Speaker 1: be a terrible, terrible idea, I'm not championing this idea.
Speaker 1: This could be a stupid idea.
Speaker 2: It's better than any of the ideas that I've had
Speaker 2: for the past five years. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: think it would be helpful.
Speaker 1: My idea is to serve as Elise's emotional advanced scout,
Speaker 1: to call up her dad and see if he might
Speaker 1: be ready, and after all this time, to talk to
Speaker 1: Elise and offer some answers. Given what Elise has told
Speaker 1: me about her dad, I can't say I'm optimistic about that.
Speaker 1: But then again, I can't say I'm optimistic about anything.
Speaker 2: Good luck for the rest of your calls.
Speaker 1: No one's going to call anyway.
Speaker 5: So no, this.
Speaker 1: Was a good call in show. And so it comes
Speaker 1: to pass that I email Billy. As I await his response,
Speaker 1: I imagine various scenarios. Maybe Billy will treat me like
Speaker 1: a student loan officer. Sorry, sir, you've got the wrong
Speaker 1: he might say. Or perhaps he'll try to convince me
Speaker 1: I have the story all wrong, that Elise and her
Speaker 1: mom are the real villains. After a week and a half,
Speaker 1: I finally hear back from Billy, and his actual response
Speaker 1: is more surprising than any I might have imagined. It's
Speaker 1: just a simple note apologizing for the delay. Billy explains
Speaker 1: it's the rainy season in the Philippines and it's been
Speaker 1: messing with his internet. But he says he really wants
Speaker 1: to talk to me, to be honest with you, He writes,
Speaker 1: you are the only hope I have of communicating with Elise. Hello,
Speaker 1: oh hi, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking.
Speaker 5: Hey Jonathan. It's a terrible evening here again thunder and lightning,
Speaker 5: as I told you season. But anyway, so Elise contacted you.
Speaker 1: Although Elisa's last memory of her dad was at her
Speaker 1: graduation ceremony, Billy has a different final memory, and as
Speaker 1: he describes it, it was one of the most painful
Speaker 1: moments of his life. It was in the midst of
Speaker 1: the separation from Elisa's mom.
Speaker 5: I was walking out of the garage carrying a box,
Speaker 5: and you can see straight into the house from the driveway,
Speaker 5: and Elise was in the dining room. Well when she
Speaker 5: saw me, she darted back into the living room and
Speaker 5: kind of hid herself so I couldn't see her. But
Speaker 5: I know for a fact that she saw me because
Speaker 5: we made eye contact.
Speaker 1: I get that this had to have been painful for Billy,
Speaker 1: But as Elisa's interlocutor, I tell him this isn't about
Speaker 1: his pain. It's about his daughter's pain and her anger.
Speaker 1: And if they're to speak, he should be prepared for that,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that something Billy wants to hear, and
Speaker 1: I'm worried how he'll react.
Speaker 5: As far as her feeling anger on her mother's behalf,
Speaker 5: that I can assure you is completely understandable.
Speaker 1: Once again, Billy has managed to surprise me.
Speaker 5: I basically putn't it bluntly shit all over that woman
Speaker 5: on many occasions. He was one particular Sunday morning that
Speaker 5: she was a cooking breakfast and the phone rings and
Speaker 5: there's a woman on the phone, and the woman says, Hey,
Speaker 5: this is Angela. Can I speak to Billy? And my
Speaker 5: wife said, well, who are you? And she just openly
Speaker 5: older she said, well, I'm his girlfriend. Can you imagine
Speaker 5: a wife getting a own concosation like that on a
Speaker 5: Sunday morning in the middle of breakfast, saying I'm your
Speaker 5: husband's girlfriend. If at least broke is that with you?
Speaker 5: I can assure you that everything will word that she
Speaker 5: says is accurate, And if it's not a really ugly picture,
Speaker 5: she's left something like, because trust me, it's a really
Speaker 5: ugly picture. But there's absolutely nothing that I won't be
Speaker 5: completely honest and open about. The honesting that I have
Speaker 5: absolutely no problem discussing anything with.
Speaker 1: You, hearing everything at least had to say about Billy's
Speaker 1: unwillingness to own up his refusal to engage. I was
Speaker 1: expecting the worst, but Billy seems genuinely remorseful, apologetic, and
Speaker 1: even eager to hear his daughter out. He tells me
Speaker 1: he kept his distance out of fear that at Least
Speaker 1: didn't want to hear from him at all, But he
Speaker 1: thinks about her all the time.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's because I'm getting older either.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's because I feel like I've
Speaker 5: lost my daughter. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 5: I was really excited when I found out that she
Speaker 5: had reached help to you to make contact with me,
Speaker 5: because to me, that means she wants to get our
Speaker 5: relationship back, and that is desperately what I want.
Speaker 1: Elise, Hi, how are you nice to meet you? I've
Speaker 1: invited Elise to my office in Brooklyn so that we
Speaker 1: can call her father together. It will be the first
Speaker 1: time in five years that Alise hears Billy's voice.
Speaker 4: How are you feeling very nervous?
Speaker 6: You are?
Speaker 1: Do you want some coffee? Nothing calms the Kishkas better
Speaker 1: than a nice cup of coffee. Alise declines and we
Speaker 1: settle in for some small talk while I set up
Speaker 1: the call. As we chat, I'm struck by Elise's cultural sensitivity.
Speaker 4: Wasn't it Canada Day? Recently? It was I'd be Canada Day?
Speaker 1: Thank you? And I fumble around, incapable of an appropriately
Speaker 1: reciprocal well wish. Hmmm. We're three days after Canada Day,
Speaker 1: so that makes it the third, maybe the fourth of July. Naw,
Speaker 1: I got nothing. I tell the Lease about my conversation
Speaker 1: with Billy. How remorseful and open to talking he seemed.
Speaker 1: She's still worried, but says she wasn't even expecting things
Speaker 1: to progress this far.
Speaker 7: I'm very surprised he spoke to you. I'm very surprised
Speaker 7: he was candid with you.
Speaker 1: So that's a positive, right, and that's a change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So do you want to Should we try this?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 1: Make the call?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's Monday, six in the evening, so it is
Speaker 1: six a m. In the Philippines. It's really yeah, Well
Speaker 1: let's try him.
Speaker 8: H Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hello is this Bill?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: Hi Bill, This is Jonathan Goldstein speaking Hi buddy.
Speaker 5: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm here with Elise he did.
Speaker 5: Hi, Hi, honey, how are you?
Speaker 4: I I'm good, how are you? Everything is good to end,
Speaker 4: that's good.
Speaker 5: I'm glad that you were approached Johnson. Any communication that
Speaker 5: we can get I think is really good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sorry it took such a long time.
Speaker 9: I just still pay what I understand. You want Gools
Speaker 9: to work German problems. And yeah, things went wrong towards
Speaker 9: the end, and yes they're one fault if she shanked.
Speaker 5: Back when we shared a lot of great times.
Speaker 1: But Elise isn't here to talk about the great times.
Speaker 1: She's here to talk about the bad times. In fact,
Speaker 1: she's written up some notes to make sure she doesn't
Speaker 1: leave any of her feelings or questions unsaid. The notes
Speaker 1: are in her hand, but she isn't looking at them. Instead,
Speaker 1: she speaks from the heart.
Speaker 7: Okay, I have thought about emailing you back. I've just
Speaker 7: been so angry that I didn't think it would be productive.
Speaker 5: Uh And like.
Speaker 4: I have just wanted to like.
Speaker 7: Like yell at you or or cry or cuss you
Speaker 7: out for leaving not explaining anything. But I don't feel
Speaker 7: that like intense anger anymore. And I am sad that
Speaker 7: we don't have a relationship like we used to. But
Speaker 7: I feel like every time I let you back in
Speaker 7: and I forgive you for whatever has happened before, you
Speaker 7: end up just breaking my heart again.
Speaker 4: And I.
Speaker 7: Do find it very insulting that you gave another child
Speaker 7: my name, my verse and last name.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know what relationship we're going to have in
Speaker 7: the future. I just I had to sort of get
Speaker 7: some of this out for any of that to be possible.
Speaker 1: Billy is silent for a while. When he finally does respond,
Speaker 1: he skips right over the big question about his leaving
Speaker 1: with that explanation and focuses on the second question instead,
Speaker 1: the question of Elisa's name.
Speaker 5: Well, I can tell you that it was her mother
Speaker 5: who loves the name Alice.
Speaker 10: I should have contested and said, no, you know, Leasure,
Speaker 10: we think them. But I didn't, at least to be
Speaker 10: honest with you, and I should have done. The Filipino
Speaker 10: culture and the Filipino thinking is different. I'll give you
Speaker 10: another example. One of your favorite dogs is Charlie. Okay,
Speaker 10: I've never owned a German shepherd over here, but we
Speaker 10: had a dog. But because of the stories that I've told,
Speaker 10: what did they call the dog Charlie.
Speaker 1: By the look on her face at least doesn't seem
Speaker 1: reassured by the fact that like her, Charlie, the beloved
Speaker 1: German shepherd from her childhood, had also been replaced. Although
Speaker 1: I haven't been to the Philippines, it feels as though
Speaker 1: Billy is throwing an entire country under the bus to
Speaker 1: save his own hide. In the silence, I try to
Speaker 1: bring things back to what I think is Billy's strongest suit,
Speaker 1: his seemingly renewed capacity for repentance. I want at least
Speaker 1: to hear what I heard in Billy during our first conversation,
Speaker 1: so I try to steer things in that direction.
Speaker 3: Bill.
Speaker 1: You know you you mentioned feeling regret. What would you
Speaker 1: do differently if you had a chance to do things over?
Speaker 5: I don't think that the final outcome would change much.
Speaker 5: To be honest with you, I should have called or
Speaker 5: a family meeting, and I should have gone over it
Speaker 5: in detail, with times and dates and plans.
Speaker 1: A family meeting about leaving your family was not the
Speaker 1: do over I was expecting. After having heard the level
Speaker 1: of Old Testament shame head express in our first phone call,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that Billy's now talking in the language of
Speaker 1: meetings and launch dates. Alice stares down at the floor.
Speaker 1: She looks at me. Billy's not giving her what she needs,
Speaker 1: so she puts it to him as directly as she.
Speaker 7: Can, Like, you have to understand that you just disappeared
Speaker 7: and I had no context. Like I want to know
Speaker 7: what you were thinking when you left, and like why
Speaker 7: you left?
Speaker 4: So like what happened?
Speaker 5: Well, there are lots of things that I would like
Speaker 5: to explain to you. Is dogging my leaving?
Speaker 7: Is that I'm here, I'm listening. If there's anything you
Speaker 7: want to.
Speaker 8: Say, Well, there were several several things that happened, Alice.
Speaker 8: It's a long story that I would like to explain
Speaker 8: to you step by step. Got kind of a really
Speaker 8: busy schedule today.
Speaker 4: Is there any like brief overview?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, honey, I can answer your questions.
Speaker 9: I have an explanation.
Speaker 5: You know what happened, and I would be more than
Speaker 5: happy will explain it to you in detail.
Speaker 1: But then nothing. The conversation goes round and round. Billy
Speaker 1: reassures a Lease that he has explanations, explanations of every
Speaker 1: length and level of detail. It's just that he never
Speaker 1: actually shares any more than.
Speaker 5: Happy to do that. Every question that you may.
Speaker 4: Have, is there anything you've wanted to say to me?
Speaker 5: There won't be a question that you will ask me
Speaker 5: that I won't answer.
Speaker 7: Like right now, you're just telling me that you're going
Speaker 7: to tell me, like do you have anything to happen?
Speaker 1: Billy likes to talk about talking about hard things but
Speaker 1: not actually talking about them. Still at least keeps pushing.
Speaker 4: I understand that it's very painful for you, but I.
Speaker 7: There have been so many times when we've just glossed
Speaker 7: over insane things that have happened, crazy things.
Speaker 10: I understand that there's got to be explanations for things,
Speaker 10: support said and actions, support cloton and things that got done.
Speaker 5: And then when all of that is done, you a
Speaker 5: lass act for last question. And I have told her
Speaker 5: every single thing.
Speaker 8: That I want to call her.
Speaker 1: Billy's not making any headway talking about the past, so
Speaker 1: he turns the conversation to the future.
Speaker 5: I'm really hoping that before idea, she leave.
Speaker 8: This place and I get to see you that which from.
Speaker 2: More cos.
Speaker 5: I don't want to die that I've seen you with them.
Speaker 5: I really don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't. I don't want that either, and.
Speaker 1: With that, Alise's hands fall into her lap. As an interlocutor.
Speaker 1: There isn't much for me to do. At least, here's
Speaker 1: what Billy is saying and not saying, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: need any help to understand. So I do the only
Speaker 1: thing I can. I sit beside her, commiserating with raised
Speaker 1: eyebrows and puzzled looks, saying without words, I see the
Speaker 1: same things you do and it's not you. For the
Speaker 1: rest of the call, at least stays quiet and allows
Speaker 1: Billy to talk, though it feels as though he's mostly
Speaker 1: talking to himself.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't be ill place. Don't look backwards anymore. Just don't
Speaker 5: go backwards. There's too much pain back there.
Speaker 9: Don't go back.
Speaker 5: It's just respond that happened back then. But let's move forward.
Speaker 5: It's just so painful it hurts.
Speaker 9: It hurts a lot.
Speaker 1: As Billy tries to push away the past while cowering
Speaker 1: from the future, the present takes hold the when Billy
Speaker 1: can't deny.
Speaker 5: I am totally okay. Just wait one minute than one
Speaker 5: the I know I'm totally totally responsible for and so,
Speaker 5: but if there are any other.
Speaker 10: Explanations that I should give to you least you know,
Speaker 10: I'll be more than happy to do that.
Speaker 5: I will be more than happy to spend my evening
Speaker 5: starting to explain that to me.
Speaker 1: Billy promises that that evening he'll send a lease an email,
Speaker 1: an email that will explain everything. But it never arrives,
Speaker 1: not that night, or the next, or any night in
Speaker 1: the months that follow.
Speaker 9: I will email you later today, Okay.
Speaker 11: Lush, Yeah, Okay, Well, LEI thank you.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Bill, Well, have a good rest of the day.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks for thanks for talking, Dun, I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Okay, I have a great day, honey.
Speaker 4: You too, thank you.
Speaker 12: Bye, Okay, how you doing.
Speaker 1: Once we're off the phone, Elise and I go over
Speaker 1: what just happened. She tells me she felt steamrolled, and
Speaker 1: I tell her that I felt it too.
Speaker 7: I wasn't really sure what I wanted to get out
Speaker 7: of it. I don't think that everyone gets sort of
Speaker 7: equally agreeable, compromised ending, But for a long time I
Speaker 7: felt like the burden of us not having a relationship
Speaker 7: was on me because he would email and I would
Speaker 7: never respond, and that was kind of the end of it.
Speaker 7: And I feel like now that I have tried to
Speaker 7: contact him, Like the burden of us not having whatever
Speaker 7: relationship I think we should have is not as much
Speaker 7: on me. I feel a lot less guilt now. Will
Speaker 7: never be as close as it sounds like he wanted
Speaker 7: us to be. I don't think that's likely, and like
Speaker 7: maybe it's okay that I don't push for that. I
Speaker 7: think he creates his own universe like I lived. I
Speaker 7: was a permanent resident of like Billy world for a
Speaker 7: number of years, and I was glad to get off
Speaker 7: the ride. Like you don't get to live in the university.
Speaker 7: You create and expect it not to affect other.
Speaker 1: People, and other people have been affected. In recent months,
Speaker 1: Elise has been corresponding with a British man named Martin,
Speaker 1: and Martin was able to help Elise answer the question
Speaker 1: of why her father left in a way that Billy
Speaker 1: himself couldn't. Martin believes he's Billy's son, born for Billy
Speaker 1: left England for Chattanooga, so unlike Elise, Martin grew up
Speaker 1: without a father because, like Alise, one day, without warning,
Speaker 1: his father left, moved to another country and started another family.
Speaker 1: And from what Martin is saying, he's not the only one.
Speaker 1: There's another man living in England, he tells her, who
Speaker 1: also believes that Billy is his father. The two of
Speaker 1: them have been trying to reach Billy for years. In fact,
Speaker 1: it turns out that Martin and Elise have brushed against
Speaker 1: each other before, a long time ago, when Elise was
Speaker 1: growing up. She remembers the home phone ringing, usually around
Speaker 1: the holidays, and a young man with her father's accent
Speaker 1: on the line asking to speak to Billy. Back then,
Speaker 1: Billy said Martin was a distant cousin, and all these
Speaker 1: years later, Martin still feels like he's being pushed away.
Speaker 1: He just wants Billy to acknowledge him. In learning about
Speaker 1: Martin and her other possible half brother, how her story
Speaker 1: has repeated itself over and over, Alise has found the
Speaker 1: answer she needed, the answer Billy himself was never able
Speaker 1: to give her. It isn't about her or about Martin
Speaker 1: or anyone else. The reason Billy did what Billy did
Speaker 1: is because that's what Billy does. Martin and the other
Speaker 1: possible half brother are planning to take a DNA test,
Speaker 1: and they'd like a lease to take one too. If
Speaker 1: their DNA matches hers Martin says, it's all the proof
Speaker 1: they'll need. Billy will have to accept them as his own.
Speaker 1: When I talked to her on the phone about it
Speaker 1: later on, Elise says she isn't sure a DNA test
Speaker 1: will give Martin the thing he's looking for, but she
Speaker 1: does want to help.
Speaker 6: Knowing how much I wanted to close here, it would
Speaker 6: definitely be good to be able to provide him some.
Speaker 1: So the next time she and Martin speak, she'll offer him.
Speaker 6: This, whatever relationship you have in your head that you
Speaker 6: want with him is probably not possible, and I can
Speaker 6: confirm that you're genetically related, but that doesn't guarantee that
Speaker 6: he will be a presence in your life in a
Speaker 6: way that you want, because he's not able to do
Speaker 6: that for me.
Speaker 1: In other words, Elise will tell Martin, I see the
Speaker 1: same things you do, and it's not you. A few
Speaker 1: months after our call with her father, Alise and I
Speaker 1: check back in. She tells me she still hasn't heard
Speaker 1: from Billy, but she suspects that around the holidays, like always,
Speaker 1: she'll get that three sentence email, and when she does,
Speaker 1: this time she'll write him back. Whatever holiday it is,
Speaker 1: she'll write, hope, You're well, Love Police.
Speaker 3: Now that the Fernentures return into its goodwill home, now
Speaker 3: that the last month's rant is skiming with the damage,
Speaker 3: the pos take this moment to deserve flee. Traps felt
Speaker 3: around for far too.
Speaker 1: From things accident Lee. This episode of Heavyweight was produced
Speaker 1: by me Jonathan Goldstein along with Ba Parker, Khalila Holt,
Speaker 1: and Stevie Lane. The show is edited by Jorge Just
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Kaitlin Roberts, Alex Goldman, Caitlyn Kenney,
Speaker 1: Alex Bloomberg, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode
Speaker 1: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst,
Speaker 1: and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on
Speaker 1: our website, gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is by The Weaker Bands courtesy of Epitaph Records, and
Speaker 1: our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia
Speaker 1: dot com. You can listen for free on Spotify or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Will be gone for the holidays,
Speaker 1: but back with a new episode in December. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we'll leave you with something you didn't even know you
Speaker 1: were waiting for. This year's Thanksgiving song by heavyweight audio
Speaker 1: engineer Bobby Lord. It's a special treat to share with
Speaker 1: the whole family once you're tired of talking to each other.
Speaker 1: Take it away, Bob, Jonathan Jonathan Boldstein.
Speaker 13: It is Buldsteine old Buldstein, Boldstein, Bullstein, Buldsteine, bold Stein,
Speaker 13: bold Star, Bullstop, bullstops.
Speaker 1: I don't listen to podcasts rapidly becoming Tony Shalou.
Speaker 13: I think bullshineld Stop, bold Stop bold.
Speaker 2: Stock, because.
Speaker 13: Shine, we've wasted our lives become
Speaker 1: We've wasted our lives becoming s