2026 Update: Elyse

Pushkin. Hi, Jonathan, Hi, come on in. You should make yourself at home in the studio because it is like a sec you've been spending so much time in here.

Yeah, I actually sometimes just sleep in here. It's just easier than having to go home.

I don't know if you should be telling me that this might be a conversation out with hr Yeah, what are we listening to today?

Speaking of the studio, Today we're going to revisit an episode that started with us sitting around in the studio. It's called a Lease.

Yeah, of course I love this episode.

It's a really good one that came to us, as you'll hear, in an unconventional way.

Yeah, we were trying something new. We were trying to do a call in show, but in our case that basically failed, but it succeeded because we wouldn't have had this story without it.

And we have a check in with Alease at the end about what's happened since. And truly some of the wildest updates I would say of any of these update conversations.

Yeah, I know, do you have a tendency to to to skew towards clickbait, But in this case it's true it's very eventful.

Yeah.

What else is there to say to quote?

To quote?

Jay Z?

What more can I say?

Hello?

Yeah, okay, I thought you left the studio. Yeah, let's lean.

Back, let the story unfold and let.

This story take us away. Oh but before any of that, a word from our sponsors. Hey, how is it that a seal keeps balls on their nose?

Go?

Now, no, no, I have something serious.

If I happen to groceres in the house and I've got to paint the doors.

So you're painting the door to your house? Yes, it pays the door red.

It's gonna be very nice.

But you know what a red door symbolizes, right, No, le rouge, there is a bordello. You're kidding, right, That's how sailors would know. They would have them down by the viewport and they would be able to know where they could kidding make whoopee for for money?

Sorry, who's that?

That's my neighbor.

Could you ask him about the red door?

Zach?

I need this.

From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode, ilise.

So now what happens They're just gonna call We'll see.

Oh boy, get ready. For a while back, my producers and I decided to try a phone in episode. Larry King, Rush Limbaugh and other Goldstein esque personalities had found success with them. So why, I wondered, from the depths of my ignorance, couldn't die and so full of hubris and hope, we open the phone lines and invite the whole world to call in with a small moment from their past, something to revisit and resolve, all during the course of

Cause everyone's day.

But just as I'm starting to wonder if Gimblet Media has forgotten to pay its telephone bill again, Oh here we go.

We're answering.

All right.

Hello, this is Jonathan speaking.

Hi Jonathan, how's it going?

It's going okay? Is this uh? What's your name?

Elise?

This is You're very surprised I got through. This is so exciting.

I guess you really lucked out. Elise is a longtime listener, first time caller from Washington, d C. And As it turns out, her call proves not only the first of the day, but also the last. And this is not just because we don't receive any other calls. It's because I completely drawn in by the story at least tells me about herself and her dad. What's his name, Billy? Billy?

Yeah, so I guess I basically I am estranged from my father.

When Aalise was a kid, Billy was the fun parent, the one who always had hours to play with her, the guy who, in spite of being something of a macho man, gave himself over to playing beauty salon, even allowing Elise to paint his toenails. Before the estrangement, Billy and Elise were really close, which is why not having any relationship now hurts the way it does.

She was my dad, Like our idea of a family vacation was to like show up in a country with no plan and like rent a car and just like drive around. And it was amazing, Like that's what that's what.

Life with dad would like. It was like every day was an adventure.

Even the way Billy met Alisa's mom was like something out of a movie. The first act of a film noir Billy was an Englishman driving through Chattanooga on a tourist visa when he got into a terrible car accident, and the physical therapist assigned to him was Elisa's mom. Billy was still in a wheelchair when he talked her into sneaking him out of the hospital for their first date. Pretty soon after they got married and had Elise, Billy

I have a lot of things in my upbringing in life with him to be very grateful for. In addition to all the craziness.

In reference to her dad, Elise brings up craziness a lot, like the crazy way Billy ruined her credit by opening a business in her name, or the crazy time he drove home a brand new car only to have cops come looking for it with their guns drawn, or the crazy way he destroyed his twenty four year marriage with a series of affairs. There's one Christmas where he bailed on the family only to spend the holiday with another woman.

About five years ago, he moved out of the country without telling us.

Us is Elise and her mom. Elise's parents had been married her whole life, but had recently separated around the time of his disappearance. Her last good memory of her dad is watching him wave from the crowd as she crossed the stage at our college graduation. Days later, he disappeared, and disappeared is the word for it. Elise says that when she went over to his house, she found food rotting in the refrigerator and all the furniture still there. For a week, Aleist had no idea what had happened

On holidays and my birthday and stuff like that. His emails are very short, like three sentences or less, sort of happy whatever holiday it is I hope you're well, love Dad.

At first, at least tried responding. She'd express some of her pain and anger in hopes of provoking a more substantial dialogue, but Billy would refuse to engage. So after an email pressing her father for answers, a few months would pass with no response, and then an email would land and Elisa's inbox wishing her a happy whatever holiday it is and hoping she's well. Love Dad, as though

We don't have a mailing address for him. I don't know if his phone number. Like the only connection I have to him is a Comcast email address.

Do you do you know where he's living.

He's in the Philippines, and that's all I know. My mom has a pinpoint into like a region. But like there was ever, like he never told me where he was going or why he never he never explained why he left.

And this is what Elise wants, an explanation for his departure, an emotional, honest conversation where she can ask him why and what happened, Because in the five years since she last saw him, a lot has happened.

He started a new family, he also has like a wife and a kid. Uh huh, And then he actually named his new daughter my name Elise.

Oh my god, I.

Just find it so insulting. It's just such a transparent replacement, like I moved to a country and like made a new youth.

So when people search for Elise on Facebook, the first result that comes up is new Elise and the page Billy made for her, which means old Elise is forced to constantly explain that this is her dad's new daughter from his new family, who also just so happens to.

Have her name, Like, he just wants me to like love him and be happy with him again. But the elephant in the room is that he's living mysteriously somewhere for half a decade and we've never discussed it.

At least feels like she and Billy are living in two different realities. She in the one where her father abandoned her, and he in the one where he did nothing wrong. She wants her dad to validate what she's seen and felt to understand. Otherwise, how can they move forward? Are you wanting to have a relationship with him.

Pardon me, is because he's also he's like diabetic, and like he's just kind of old and sick and might die and I might never know. He's sixty five and possibly working a very physically taxing job. She was working on containerships when we first moved over, And I've been passively choosing the root of not having a relationship. But the fear and the guilt gets worse with time, and.

What would what would pursuing a relationship look like?

That's what I'm That's what I'm trying to figure out. It's like, yeah, I mean, he's my dad and I feel like he's trying to maintain a relationship with me, and I just don't know how to work past it.

I know I can sometimes come across as something of a meddler, but I only decide to get involved in the business of upturning people's entire lives after hours, sometimes even days, of careful consideration. But then, I've never hosted a call in show before, and so adrenalized by the single flashing light on my switchboard and the imperial perch of my slightly elevated swivel chair, I dive in would

It's better than any of the ideas that I've had for the past five years. So yeah, I think I think it would be helpful.

My idea is to serve as Elise's emotional advance scout, to call up her dad and see if he might be ready after all this time, to talk to Elise and offer some answers. Given what Elise has told me about her dad, I can't say I'm optimistic about that. But then again, I can't say I'm optimistic about anything.

Good luck for the rest of your calls.

No one's gonna call anyway. So no, this was a good call in show. And so it comes to pass that I email Billy. As I await his response, I imagine various scenarios. Maybe Billy will treat me like a student loan officer. Sorry, sir, you've got the wrong Billy, he might say. Or perhaps he'll try to convince me I have the story all wrong, that Elise and her mom are the real Villains. After a week and a half, I finally hear back from Billy, and his actual response

Hey Jonathan.

It's a terrible evening here again, thunder and lightning. As I told you, rainy seasons.

So but anyway, so Elise contacted you.

Although Elise's last mine memory of her dad was at her graduation ceremony, Billy has a different final memory, and as he describes it, it was one of the most painful moments of his life. He was in the midst of the separation from Elisa's mom.

I was walking out of the garage carrying a box and you can see straight into the house from the driveway.

And Elise was in the dining room.

Well.

When she saw me, she.

Darted back into the living room, and kind of hid herself so I couldn't see her. But I know for a fact that she saw me because we made eye contact.

I get that this had to have been painful for Billy, but as Elisa's interlocutor, I tell him this isn't about his pain. It's about his daughter's pain in her anger, and if they're to speak, he should be prepared for that. I can't imagine that something Billy wants to hear, and I'm worried how he'll react.

As far as her feeling anger on her mother's behalf, that I can assure you is completely understandable.

Once again, Billy has managed to surprise me.

I basically putn't it bluntly shit all over that woman on many occasions. He was one particular Sunday morning that she was up cooking breakfast and the phone rings and there's a woman on the phone. And the woman says, Hey, this is Angela. Can I speak to Billy? And my wife said, well.

Who are you?

And she just openly older she said, well, I'm his girlfriend. Can you imagine a wife getting a owe concos of s like that on a Sunday morning in the middle of breakfast, saying I'm your husband's girlfriend.

If at least broke is that with you, I can assure you that every single word that she says is accurate, and if it's not a really ugly picture, she's left something like because trust me.

It's a really ugly picture.

But there's absolutely nothing that I won't be completely honest and open about. The honest that I have absolutely no problem discussing anything with you.

After hearing everything ALIST had to say about Billy's unwillingness to own up his refusal to engage, I was expecting the worst, but Billy seems genuinely remorseful, apologetic, and even eager to hear his daughter out. He tells me he kept his distance out of fear that at least didn't want to hear from him at all, but he thinks about her all the time.

I don't know if it's because I'm getting over either. I don't know if it's this.

I feel like I've lost my daughter. I don't know what it is, but I.

Was really.

Excited when I found out that she had reached help to you to make contact with me, because to me, that means she wants to get our relationship back, and that is desperately.

What I want?

Elise?

Hi?

How are you nice to meet you?

I've invited Elise to my office in Brooklyn so that we can call her father together. It will be the first time in five years that Alise hears Billy's voice. How are you feeling very nervous? You are? Do you want some coffee? Nothing calms the Kishkas better than a nice cup of coffee. Alise declines, and we settle in for some small talk while I set up the call. As we chat, I'm struck by Elise's cultural sensitivity.

Wasn't it Canada Day? Recently? It was Canada Day?

Thank you? And I fumble around, incapable of an appropriately reciprocal well wish. Hmmm. We're three days after Canada Day, so that makes it the third, maybe the fourth of July. Naw, I got nothing. I tell the Lease about my conversation with Billy. How remorseful and open to talking he seemed. She's still worried, but says she wasn't even expecting things to progress this far.

I'm very surprised he spoke to you. I'm very surprised he was candid with you.

So that's a positive, right, and that's a change. Yeah, so do you wanna shall we try this?

Sure?

Make the call? Yeah, so it's Monday, six in the evening, so it is six a m. In the Philippines. It's really yeah, Well let's try him.

Okay, what.

Right?

Hello is this Bill?

Yes?

Hi Bill, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking.

Hi buddy. What's going on?

Well, I'm here with Elise.

He did.

Hi. Hi, honey. How are you?

I'm I'm good. How are you? Everything is good this end, that's good.

I'm glad that you were approached Johnson. Any communication that we can get I think is really good.

Yeah, I'm sorry it took such a long time.

I just stay what I understand you what gools to work? German problems And yes things went wrong towards the end, and yes they're one fault.

And if you.

Think back, we shared a lot of great.

But Elise isn't here to talk about the great times. She's here to talk about the bad times. In fact, she's written up some notes to make sure she doesn't leave any of her feelings or questions unsaid. The notes are in her hand, but she isn't looking at them. Instead, she speaks from the heart.

Okay, I have thought about emailing you back.

I've just been so angry that I didn't think it would be productive, And like.

I have just wanted to, like yell at you.

Or cry or cuss you out for leaving and not explaining anything. But I don't feel that like intense anger anymore. I'm sad that we don't have a relationship like we used to, but I feel like every time I let you back in and I forgive you for whatever has happened before, you end up just breaking my heart again.

And I.

Do find it very insulting that you gave another child my name, my verse and last name.

And I don't know.

I don't know what relationship we're going to have in the future. I just I had to sort of get some of this out for any of that to be possible.

Billy is silent for a while. When he finally does respond, he skips right over the big question about his leaving with that explanation and focuses on the second question instead, the question of Elisa's name.

Well, I can tell you that it was her mother who loves the name a leash.

I should have contested and said, no, you know, leasure, we think this swam but I didn't, at least to be honest with you, and I should have done.

The Filipino culture and the Filipino thinking is different. I'll give you another example. One of your favorite dogs is Charlie. Okay, I've never owned a German Shepherd over here, but we had a dog. But because of the stories that I've told, what did they call the dog?

Charlie?

By the look on her face, at least doesn't seem reassured by the fact that, like her Charlie, the beloved German shepherd from her chinlihood, had also been replaced. Although I haven't been to the Philippines, it feels as though Billy is throwing an entire country under the bus to save his own hide. In the silence, I try to bring things back to what I think is Billy's strongest suit,

Bill.

You know you you you mentioned feeling regret. What would you do differently if you had a chance to do things over.

I don't think that the final outcome would change much to be honest with you, But I should have called for a family meeting, and I should have gone over it in detail, with times and dates and plans.

A family meeting about leaving your family was not the do over I was expecting. After having heard the level of Old Testament shame head express in our first phone call, I'm surprised that Billy's now talking in the language of meetings and launch dates. Alice stares down at the floor. She looks at me. Billy's not giving her what she needs, so she puts it to him as directly as she.

Can, Like, you have to understand that you just disappeared and I had no context. Like I want to know what you were thinking when you left, and like why you left, so like what happened?

Well, there are lots of things that I would like to explain to you. Is dogging.

Is that I'm here, I'm listening. If there's anything you want to say.

Well, there were several several things that happened at last. It's a long story that I would like to explain to you step by step. Got kind of a really busy schedule today.

Is there any like brief overview?

Well, yeah, honey, I can answer your questions. I have an explanation, you know, for what happened, and I would be more than happy to explain it to you in detail.

But then nothing. The conversation goes round and round. Billy reassures a Lease that he has explanations, explanations of every length and level of detail. It's just that he never actually shares.

Any happy to do that. Every question that you may.

Have, is there anything you've wanted to say to me?

There won't be a question that you will ask me that I won't answer.

Like right now, you're just telling me that you're going to tell me, like do you have anything to have?

Billy likes to talk about talking about hard things, but not actually talking about them. Still, a Lease keeps pushing.

I understand that it's very painful for you, but I.

There have been so many times when we've just glossed over insane things that have happened, penned crazy things.

I understand that there's got to be explanations for things, support said and options, support clothing, and things that got done. And then when all of that is done, you a Lass asked her last question, and I have told her every single.

Thing that I want to call her.

Billy's not making any headway talking about the past, so he turns the conversation to the future.

I'm really hoping that the poor idea she leave this place and I get to see you.

That wish for a more, cos.

I don't want to die without seeing you.

I really don't.

Yeah, I don't. I don't want that either.

And with that, Alise's hands fall into her lap. As an interlocutor, there isn't much for me to do. At least, here's what Billy is saying and not saying, and she doesn't need any help to understand. So I do the only thing I can. I sit beside her, commiserating with raised eyebrows and puzzled looks, saying without words, I see the same things you do, and it's not you. For the rest of the call, at least stays quiet and allows Billy to talk, though it feels as though he's mostly talking to himself.

Wouldn't be ill place.

Don't look backwards anymore, honey, don't go backwards.

There's too much pain back there.

Don't go back there. Yes, just outwards form because that happened back then.

But let's go.

It's just so painful. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

As Billy tries to push away the past while cowering from the future, the present takes hold the when Billy can't deny.

I am totally.

Okay. Just wait one minutely than on the front, I know I'm totally totally responsible for.

And so, but if there are any other.

Explanations that I should give to you, least you know, I'll be more than happy to do that.

So I will be more than happy to spend my evening starting to explain that to you.

Billy promises that that evening he'll send a lease an email, an email that will explain everything. But it never arrives, not that night, or the next, or any night in the months that follow.

I will email you later today, okay.

Luc Yeah, okay, well, Luce, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Okay, Bill, Well, have a good rest of the day.

Yeah, thanks for thanks for talking Dad. I appreciate it.

Okay, I have a great day, Honey.

You too, thank you.

Bye, Okay, how you doing.

Once we're off the phone, Alise and I go over what just happened. She tells me she felt steamrolled, and I tell her that I felt it too.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to get out of it. I don't think that everyone gets sort of equally agreeable, compromised ending. But for a long time I felt like the burden of us not having a relationship was on me because he would email and I would never respond, and that was kind of the end of it. And I feel like, now that I have tried to contact him, like the burden of us not having whatever relationship I think we should have is not as much

People, and other people have been affected. In recent months, Elise has been corresponding with a British man named Martin, and Martin was able to help Alise answer the question of why her father left in a way that Billy himself couldn't. Martin believes he's Billy's son, born before Billy left England for Chattanooga. So, unlike Elise, Martin grew up without a father, because, like Alise, one day, without warning, his father left, moved to another country and started another family.

Knowing how much I wanted to closure, it would definitely be good to be able to provide him some.

So the next time she and Martin speak, she'll offer him this.

Whatever relationship you have in your head that you want with him is probably not possible, and I can confirm that you're genetically related, but that doesn't guarantee that he will be a presence in your life in a way that you want, because he's not able to do that for me.

In other words, Alise will tell Martin, I see the same things you do and it's not you. A few months after our call with her father, Alise and I check back in. She tells me she still hasn't heard from Billy, but she suspects that around the holidays, like always, she'll get that three sentence email, and when she does, this time she'll write him back happy whatever holiday it is, she'll write, hope you're well, Love Elise.

Now that the.

Third atures returning to its goodwill.

Home, Now that the last month's RNT is skiming with the dam problem, take this moment to dissolve.

If we meant him, if we tried to.

Remember, felt around.

For far too months.

To Elise, Hi, how are you.

Good?

Do you have another room? It's it sounds very roomy, which which is a good quality for a room normally.

But not for recording.

Let me, I'm going to go I think sitting on the floor in our closet.

That's the spirit.

It's going to take me a second to me, so just totally.

Take take your time. This is a very big thing that I'm asking of you.

She hold on, don't put her in.

The grate because that's where I'm gonna be.

Yeah, okay, can you hear me now?

Yes?

Thank you, Thank you for your indulgence. Who were you explaining to that you were headed for the closet?

He actually was.

Thinking about it because it's been like eight years since we first chatted.

Yeah.

When we first chatted, I had just started dating him and he's not my husband.

Oh cool and sorry. One last unrelated question the crating was that a dog you were talking about? Yes, thank god? How are you?

I'm good. I have a number of updates about dad. Oh, things have transpired. So there was eventually a younger sibling in the Philippines from a different woman.

Wait sorry, wait, we're talking about little elies.

No, there was another one after that.

Oh wow, okay, and she was the last.

Woman he took up with romantically, was younger than me. Her name is Faith.

How did you learn about this development? Have you and your father been in touch very little, like birthdays and Christmas kind of thing.

Yeah, maybe even less frequent than he had been doing beforehand. And then at some point between then and twenty twenty four, I can't remember exactly when his lack of legal immigration status and the Philippines did eventually catch up to him and they put him in prison, like in detention essentially for a couple of years.

For he was in prison for a couple of years. Yes, in the Philippines, Yes, wow, I.

Does it?

Does it even make sense? I mean, I don't know anything about Filipino law that being there legally would have been enough to put a person in prison for two years. Do you think maybe there's more to the story.

I think it's very possible, because I feel like I remember Faith saying to mom that he was getting charged with like additional other things that she was so sure he didn't do, and me and my mom were like, it's much more likely that he did them.

Wow.

So how old a man was he at the time that they were that he was sent to prison.

Probably in his seventies at that point, or like just close to. Then eventually they did deport him to Guam. He eventually ended up in Thailand, and then in fall of twenty twenty four, the US embassy started reaching out

Oh I'm sorry.

Very mixed feelings.

Yeah, I actually have his ashes and.

I don't know what to do with them right now.

And what is the feeling of of having them there? Do you feel like, I mean, do you have any feelings left?

It's I was because I after you all reached out, I went back and listened to the initial podcast reporting and I remember immediately after because we recorded that it sort of ended with the phone conversation that you facilitated between the two of us, and then within a couple of hours that I was driving back from New York to DC, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed emotionally. I was feeling I think mostly anger at that point because I felt so stonewalled and like I couldn't really break

I was so.

Angry and sad, and I stopped at like a rest stop and called my mom and tried to like work through my feelings because I didn't want to drive in a rage.

For three more hours.

I think I had grieved our relationship so much at that point that with his passing, it was more of a okay, this is over.

Do you think that conversation where we called him up? I mean, do you think ultimately it was helpful.

I think it was helpful in.

Showing me.

That our relationship, like in many ways, was effectively over and that that was unlikely to change. I'm sure there are small things that I could have done differently, but I don't think there was any I don't think I could have behaved in such a way that I got my dad back in any meaningful way.

Yeah.

Story ends up, you know, with the story of Martin. What what became of that? Did you do the Yeah?

I haven't done. Yeah, I haven't done any DNA testing. More from like a data privacy concern.

Is that the only thing that keeps you from doing it?

I mean I'm sure there, I'm sure there are other uninspected reasons. Yeah, I've clearly never made the effort to do it, which is I guess a signal in and of itself.

Yeah.

So, I mean just generally, like top line, things are good. You're doing okay you guys? Yeah, I mean, your husband, your dog, Thanks.

Were great. I'm so glad the dat updates are all wild, but I'm grateful for my personal life being relatively stable.

Thanks Elise, you may exit the closet now.

Excellent. Thank you, it was good to catch up.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together. We'll be back in two weeks time with something a little different. You might even say wildly different. You might say it's something of a wild card.

Oh.

Also, if you haven't heard, we've started a free newsletter loaded with all kinds of fun word puzzles.

Much to my sugar, and we are now including a word.

Puzzle movies that we like. Photographs. It's a po POORI would you say it's a poor POORI?

I would say it's a pot pourri.

Oh, excuse me. It smells as good as a pot pourri, and it looks great sitting on the basin of your toilet bowl.

You know it's online, right is it.

Everything's online these days, even toilet bowls. So sign up for our exciting newsletter.

You need to give the link.

Oh, yes, of course everything needs a link these days. The link is patreon dot com. Slash Heavyweight