WEBVTT - The Family Business 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.759 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.719 I never thought I would tell this story. For years, 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.200 I deflected and demurred when people asked me questions about 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.440 where I grew up and what my parents did. Guarding 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.520 secrets was so ingrained in me that I could not 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.080 imagine a world where I actually discussed them, let alone 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.159 put them down on paper. But as my comics have 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.680 become more personal, there has been a small and persistent 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.520 voice growing within me that has insisted, this is my life, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.840 my story to tell. But these stories and secrets also 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.600 belong to all the other people who share my history, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.320 some of whom have devoted their lives to protecting such secrets. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.520 At the early stages of this project, I would tie 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:46.879 myself up in knots over what to say and how 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.720 to say it. Would my parents approve what I embarrass 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.960 my family? Would I hurt someone's feelings? But sometimes the 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.600 trick to writing is giving up the pretense of pleasing 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:58.360 anyone at all. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.080 So I began to right. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.880 That's Sophia Glock, a cartoonist who lives in Austin, Texas, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:13.440 and author of the recent graphic memoir Passport. Sophia's is 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.080 a story of a childhood spent moving around a lot 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.760 to some exotic, dangerous places. And the reason for all 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:26.040 those moves, well, that, of course is the family secret. 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.880 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.319 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.800 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:58.080 The landscape in my childhood was pretty evert changing, but 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:03.000 the majority of it was tropical to subtropical. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:05.640 I lived in very kind of. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.960 Verdant, overgrown type of places. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:12.960 There were a lot of flowers. 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.400 The landscape in my childhood were the kind of places 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.000 where fruit was falling off the trees almost year round. 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.200 And there were any number of these different tropical and 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.160 subtropical places in your childhood. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.600 Yes, the majority of the places I lived in would 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:33.160 have a rainy season and a less rainy season, not 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:33.600 all of them. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.080 But the countries I lived. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.440 In as a child were warm, and I craved like winter. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.720 I wanted four seasons. You know, A lot of the 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.519 literature I read as a kid was based more sort 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.520 of like northern climates, so I definitely thought I was 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:55.440 missing out on snowy adventures. But of course now I 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.080 realized that I was living in like really gorgeous weather 0:02:59.240 --> 0:02:59.800 year round. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:02.679 I should not have been sad about it. I was 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:03.799 actually born in the States. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.760 I am the only one of my siblings who was 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:07.160 born stateside, but. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.359 I have no memory of it, and my very early 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:11.600 years were spent in Europe. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.400 Actually, if you, as a child, if somebody had said 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.399 to you, where do you consider home is, what would 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:17.840 you have said? 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:20.840 I would have said the USA. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.280 I might have, you know, claimed the city of my birth, 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.520 which is New York City, But I, as I like 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.160 to say, born, not raised. It wasn't until I got 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.640 older that I comprehended the United States in all of 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:38.160 its sort of regional glory. It was just the States, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:45.280 good roads, great malls, and possibly snow. In early childhood, 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.080 I was very deeply in love with my mom, and 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.760 I think that we all were, including my dad. My 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.840 father was more of a sort of like intimidating, frustrating 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.960 presence in my life. I think that I tim I 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:06.040 was a very sort of headstrong kid, and I resented 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.680 him being in charge, if. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:10.240 That makes sense. 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.840 But sort of the central fact my parents, like the 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.960 first and foremost thing about my parents in our lives 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.920 was that they were in love with each other and 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.840 that nothing was better than the experience. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:23.960 They were having been married. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.599 They were very much not just genuinely attached to each other, 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.159 they were also invested in their own love story. And 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.599 that's kind of how I always imagine them as a 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:37.960 unified sort of pair. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:40.880 What did you know about their love story? 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.279 Very little, because they've met at work, and they didn't 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.960 talk to us about work. That was very grapotent. 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.760 They were very sensitive to the fact that, like, you know, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:52.800 I guess they didn't want us to eavor to say 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.919 anything even in confidence, that we might then repeat to 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.720 the wrong person or speak about casually in public. They 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.440 even to people. You know, we socialized with other Americans, 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.440 but not all Americans that we socialized with overseas were 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.640 doing what my parents were doing, So, you know, I 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.560 kind of just thought like any American overseas was kind 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.960 of doing the same sort of work, but I didn't 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.200 know what that work was. I remember asking my mom 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.919 once where she met my father, and she said in 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.960 a parking lot, And we were literally walking in a 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.080 parking lot when I'd asked her, and I think that's 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.320 why she said that. So I didn't have details about 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.400 their love story. Until much later in life, I was 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.120 less aware of my mother's work. They kind of hid 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.119 that from me, and I'm not even really sure why. 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.159 I mean, I think that she made more sacrifices in 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.720 her career. My father's career sort of took the center stage, 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.359 and we were going around on his assignments, and she 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.560 had five children altogether, so there was a lot of 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.280 childcare to contend with. So it wasn't really until later 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.560 that I began to appreciate that she was working as well. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:06.800 I think she also once told me. 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.200 That when I kind of like confronted her and asked 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.719 her why she hadn't let me know where she was 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.599 going for huge chunks of time, she said she didn't 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:17.840 want to hurt my feelings. And I don't know if 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:19.640 that's true or not, if she was just being like 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.159 very circumspect, or if she really thought that her child 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.080 would be like hurt if they realized that their mother 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.880 had a job. My parents also did a really good 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:35.520 job of selling us this lifestyle as totally normal, you know, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.280 inasmuch as we were ever in danger or ever had 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.040 to be on the lookout for danger. When I was 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.279 a small child, I took it for granted that everybody 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.920 kind of like looks over their shoulder, So I never 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:51.440 felt scared. It was either my own disposition or they 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.960 did a really good job of sort of protecting me 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.560 from the idea that I should be scared. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:06:59.919 It was more that we should always be aware. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.240 I think it's interesting that when we're children, we just 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.480 assumed that whatever our lives are are just quote unquote normal, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.039 or everybody's life is like that. 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:09.960 Yeah. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.200 It wasn't until I was eight years old and I 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.400 asked my friend where she was born and she said here. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.600 And I was like, no, what country were you born in? 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.640 And she said here in, not just this country, this town, 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.480 like around the corner, you know. And I was like, wait, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.960 I thought everybody in the world was just born in 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:33.200 a different country. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:34.280 And moved constantly. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.760 And then that's when I fully appreciated that our lifestyle 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:38.440 was special. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:47.160 Nine apartments, eight schools, seven uniforms, six countries, five quote 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.360 unquote best friends, and the list goes on. This is 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.120 the kind of motion and disruption that defines Sophia's childhood, 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.640 picking up, then settling down, then picking up again, going 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.160 to a new school, making new friends, then leaving them. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:07.600 Soon thereafter. How's a child supposed to act during all 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.120 this change? What's she supposed to say? According to her parents, 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.360 not much. She's told not to volunteer too much information 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.840 about herself. At one point, her mom tells her to 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.840 stop broadcasting to strangers that they're American. 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:28.960 I was a friendly kid, and it wasn't in step 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.679 with my parents' objectives. 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:33.880 To be too obvious. 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.679 They modeled and often instructed me on how to draw 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:45.000 people out, and sometimes that was by like acting guylus 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.280 and you know, seemingly open. But we were Americans. There 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.760 was no hiding that we looked like Americans. We sounded 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.760 like Americans. When I was five year olds around that age, 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.880 I was approached constantly on the street by men who 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.120 wanted to talk to me about being an American. And 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.120 I don't know if those were casual people. I don't 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.400 know if those were people with bad motives. But I 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.679 tended to answer honestly, and I had to be instructed 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.520 out of that habit as a pretty small kid. 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.440 Yeah, there's a word that you were taught about that, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:20.640 which is deflect. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.040 Yes, you ask them questions, right, I. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.680 Was about to say, it's an interesting social skill. To 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:27.400 learn as a kid. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.200 My dad gave me this piece of advice and it 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.800 was very free. And you know, this came to me 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.880 in many ways. I watched my parents do it. I 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.480 was often instructed specifically to do it. My mother always 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.000 wanted to know what all my friends' fathers did, why 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.640 they were there, why was ex child's family And she 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.040 might be coming from a country in southeag Asia, what 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.440 was she doing in this particular country in Europe? You know, 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.920 and usuallybe I'm sure, I doubt I passed anything useful 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.079 on to my mother, you know. Oh, he's an engineer, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.480 you know, But that was her remo, that was the 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.760 machine that made her work. She was literally collecting information, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.400 even if it felt, you know, haphazard, even if it 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.080 was about like her children's classmates, and both by like 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.880 sort of modeling it and often just instructing it. 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:16.160 You know. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.840 Told me that if you're uncomfortable, if somebody's asking you 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:24.800 too many questions, you can always turn those questions. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.280 Back around on them and begin the. 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.559 Process of redirecting it to them. Because one, people love 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:36.400 talking about themselves, and two they're not paying too much attention. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.679 People probably aren't going to notice that you deflect. And 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:41.000 it was one of the most freeing. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.840 Things that my father ever told me was that people aren't. 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.880 Usually paying too much attention, which is of course ironic 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.959 because they were paying attention to everything, but it is wonderful, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.000 Like we're all pretty, you know, narcissistic and as a 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.440 teenager when you're kind of want to crawl out of 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.440 your own skin and you're for self conscious and you 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.040 feel like the ugliest, strangest, weirdest creature that has ever 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:11.040 dared to exist, to truly internalize the idea that people 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.320 aren't caring as much as you think was deeply freeing 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.120 and you know, opens you up to a world's possibility. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.320 Yeah, I would imagine too, Because you were in a 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.200 situation where you had to make new friends over and 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.160 over again. That must have been a pretty useful tool 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:28.440 for you. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.080 I had all sorts of useful tools. Ask people questions. 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.240 People love being asked questions. I know I do, so 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.960 this is a treat. These were tips my mom gave me. 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.640 You know what I mean, use people's names. People love 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:43.640 the sound of their own name. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:45.160 Yeah, things like that. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.360 I mean, you know, these are people's skills, right, And 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.280 I'm not saying that I was actually even very good 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.120 at it. I had made success moving as stressful moving. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.080 It's hard, it's hard to start over. But there's again 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.520 something very freeing about knowing, like, oh, is it not 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.000 working out here? Guess what you're going to get another 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.520 go in about a year, and maybe it'll be better 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:03.080 next time. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:25.080 We'll be right back. Sophia is not alone in her 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:29.320 deflection training. She's in solidarity with her siblings Christopher and Julia, 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.040 who Sophia calls the perfect one, who are older than 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.400 she is, and Byron and Patrick, who are younger than 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.280 she is. And then there's Michael, the mysterious half brother 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.800 from her dad's first marriage. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.560 The subject of my father's first marriage was fairly tabboo 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.760 in the house. Nobody ever told me about it. 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.160 It was information that was shared with me by my 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.520 older siblings kind of in secret again when I was 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:02.440 about eight years old, and nobody ever doubled check to 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:03.160 make sure I knew. 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:03.320 It. 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.640 Was just kind of assumed that it had gone through 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.560 the grapevine my younger brothers because I never talked about 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.320 it with them, they didn't find out until they were. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.840 Teenagers about the existence. 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.600 Of this other brother, and it was one of the 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.320 great preoccupations of my adolescence because when I was around 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.760 twelve years old, I realized that I had a dad, 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.600 and I'd always had a dad, and my dad was 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.679 in my life, and I really took it in that 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.560 my dad hadn't been in my brother's life, and he 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:36.520 was my brother. You know, he's my half brother, but 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.679 that's my brother. You know, I'm surrounded by these siblings, so. 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.280 I adore we were all really close. 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.040 And there was somebody else out there who's a part 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.280 of me who I didn't know who he was. 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.760 Well, you know, it's interesting because there's this thread of 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.360 the unspoken or the unseid or what can be said 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.960 that runs throughout your story in a whole variety of ways. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.280 You know, I was struck by your saying when your 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.200 dad would go to work that he was going out, 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:07.880 you know, and if you pressed, you know, like where 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.080 you're going, what are you doing, he'd say, to see 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.720 a man about a horse, And that was like his deflection. 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:20.000 He was practicing what he preached. When Julia the perfect 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.640 One goes off to college, this now makes Sophia the 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.600 newly appointed eldest sibling at home with her two younger brothers. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.840 Sophia's in high school, a chaotic and dramatic time for 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.640 most of us. I mean, would any of us really 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.920 want to go back? But Sophia's peculiar family life certainly 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.240 doesn't make matters easier. Plus she really misses Julia, her 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.320 north star. One day, a letter from Julia arrives in 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.680 the mail. It isn't addressed to Sophia though, it's for 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.760 her parents, and they don't want Sophia to read it, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.880 but she does, and in it she reads Julia's confession 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.960 that she's told friend in school what their dad does 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.360 for work. She writes, in abject apology, that she's spilled 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:06.840 the beans. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:14.080 She very rarely wrote me, and I had express permission 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.200 to read all of her letters. So when my mother 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.160 hid this letter from me, I lost my mind. I 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:25.880 couldn't believe that they were denying me this basic need 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.440 that I had to be in touch with my sister, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.200 and I felt like I had a write to it. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.640 So I just waited until the letter wasn't guarded. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:36.920 I'd seen that my mother had put it away in 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:42.200 her purse, and like I said, I felt I had 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.520 the right to know what my sister was talking about, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.960 and it was all coded. Basically, she told the secret. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.000 She was so disappointed in herself. She was begging my 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.200 parents for forgiveness. She was clearly alarmed. And what had 0:15:57.200 --> 0:15:59.720 happened was there was a boy at school who found 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.160 out how often she moved and began to say, your 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:03.880 dad's a spy. Your dad's a spy, and he was 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.520 harassing her at school. And I don't know how long 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.080 she sort of tolerated the harassment from this kid, who 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.360 I'm sure thought he was being incredibly clever, but she 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.840 snapped and kind of more or less confirmed his suspicions 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.280 and then felt compelled to confess to my folks. So 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.720 I find the letter, and he just all clicked into place, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.240 you know what I mean, like that one thing and another. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.200 It was all just like these little tiny things. It 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.280 was like realizing Santa Claus doesn't exist. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.720 That's right, the moves, the secrecy, the need to keep 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:45.080 their nationality under wraps. Sophia's dad is a spy and 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:46.360 her mom is too. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.680 You don't necessarily need to find the closet full of toys. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.720 It's a random comment that your grandmother makes about where 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.760 she bought the headband and your stocking, and you go. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.680 Wait a second, none of this makes sense. So yeah, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:03.640 and I just knew. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.720 And then I couldn't even tell them that I knew, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.080 because then I'd have to confess this, you know, this 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.000 sin of going through their stuff. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:16.160 So it became this. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.320 Kind of like double ended lie that I had to balance. 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.120 And the greatest tragedy was that I had to pretend 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:24.800 to be amazed when they told me. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.639 That's just fascinating. So that was the moment that you 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.080 put it together for yourself, like all of the little 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.920 pieces added up. So then you're keeping a secret about 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:36.399 a secret. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.480 Yes, I couldn't tell my sister that I knew. It's 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.879 easy to speculate about it now, but I might speculate 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:49.639 that the information on some level also was as well green, 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.000 and that it gave me permission to have a double life, 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.760 for whatever life, to have a secret life, to have 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.800 any sort of amount of secrets. I didn't really feel 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:09.280 guilty about, you know, pursuing friends or activities or interests 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.520 that weren't lining up with what my parents you know, 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.560 thought was appropriate for me, because clearly they felt fully 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.520 justified to have, you know, a deeply secret. 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:20.840 Life, and you know that it was official. 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.119 They were doing it out of deep sense of like 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.200 conviction and patriotism. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.200 But you know, I just felt like, if they can, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:28.959 so can I. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.040 Yeah, that's so interesting. So it kind of gave you 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:38.320 carte blanche to have a teenage rebellion and feel no guilt. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:39.240 Yes. 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.320 So once I figured out that, you know, and I 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.600 knew it was CII how one, it was really the 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.840 only intelligence organization that I knew of, And this is like, 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.359 this is the way I conceived of it, you know, spy, 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.760 like technically officially and unofficially. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:58.600 Cover, you know, uncovert. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.920 This word spy's like it's a bit of an euphemism, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.080 you know, for all sorts of intelligence work. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:04.720 Right. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.959 Also even things like the fact that, you know, I 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.879 loved the movie Patriot Games as a kid, and we 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.920 thought that my dad looked like Harrison Ford. We always like, oh, 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:14.800 it's just like daddy. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:15.719 It's just like daddy. 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.520 And my parents were just delighted in that. They would 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:19.800 laugh too hard. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:20.320 You know what I mean. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.119 And I just knew it was agency because it was 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.320 the only acronym that I was actually familiar with at 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.560 the time, and I just happened to be right, and 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.040 then yeah, No, it was strange to keep the fact 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.120 that I knew that they were quote unquote spies from 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:33.640 them because I'd been. 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.720 Spine on them and the irony wasn't lost on me. 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.399 But it just wasn't worth the risk, you know, I 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.119 knew that if they wanted me to know, they would 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:44.840 have told me. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:20:05.040 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. Meanwhile, 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.960 things are also fraught outside the home. There is the 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:12.760 ever present sense of instability and danger. A massive historic 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:17.320 hurricane hits where they're living at the time, it's international news. 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:22.439 People are being evacuated, but not Sophia's family. Her parents 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.200 aren't going to leave. There are city curfews and rationed 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.600 food and all sorts of restrictions, but Sophia's parents stay put. 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:36.640 And against this backdrop, Sophia is courting danger herself. She's 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.280 in the midst of a teenage rebellion and in a 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.439 third world country in the midst of a crisis. She 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.160 sometimes finds herself in unsafe situations. 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.679 Maybe what I was doing was more risky than the 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.600 average teenage rebellion for a number of reasons. Like I said, 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:58.920 I was conspicuously American. My parents were pretty convinced that 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:03.560 we were easy targets for all sorts of things. Kidnappings 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.640 were fairly common in many of. 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:07.720 The countries I lived in. 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:13.119 A few years before I started at the school I attended, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.240 one of the student body had been murdered during his 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:21.160 kidnapping ordeal, and it was a horrifying shock to the community, 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.520 which was a very sort of privileged, ensconced type of 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.040 community like this was definitely like the elite of the 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.120 country attended the school I ultimately attended in high school, 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.720 you know, in that sense, it was risky. In the 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.920 other sense, I think that my parents used their perceived 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.960 risks of living in a third world country during a 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.159 crisis or not during a crisis, as a way to 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.160 keep me under wraps. I think that being a teenage 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:56.360 girl was just simply a lot for them to handle. 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.080 The fact that I was a teenage girl rather just 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.919 petrified them. They, like many parents, thought that there was 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:09.119 something inherent in my girlness that made me vulnerable, and 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.160 perhaps they were right. But you know, there's another side 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:14.840 to it where you can like actually repress someone. So 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.439 I did do it with very little guilt in the 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:20.440 sense that I also felt like they put me here, 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.439 like they put me in that country. They took me 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.760 to all of these countries, and then in the end, 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.520 we're literally asking me to stay behind a wall, and 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:31.879 I definitely. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.520 Sort of carrying their secret around with me. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:40.679 I felt deeply justified in ignoring that advice because you 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:41.399 gave this. 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:43.639 To me, You gave me. They literally gave me the world. 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.239