#21 Rachael

Hello, podcast friends. Jonathan Here. For the protection of those involved in today's story, some of the names have been changed, but not my name. I'm still me Jonathan Goldstein. Boom boom, Let's start the show.

Hello.

Do you remember when you came back from England and you were referring to the bathroom as the loo?

What's wrong with that?

You?

We were in a cafe and you were like, oh, one moment, I just have to find out where the loo is.

And I was like, Lou, I mean, you spent a year in the country.

You pick up stuff that.

I think you were only there like a couple of weeks.

I was there for I think you were.

There for a couple of weeks.

I'm it's been a while, all right, all right, let's let's okay. You know we're getting off on the wrong foot here. Let's walk it back. Do you like eating buttered mashed potatoes? Would you eat a toilet? Do you like noodles? Do you like the sound of the wind in the trees? Do you like climbing trees? Conclusion, I would like to say that this was a very nice telephone call for who from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein

So it sort of starts out in that.

So I never had I never had a boyfriend or anything in high school.

Just for Rachel's a thirty year old PhD candidate in genetics, and she has a decision like that, a choice she made as a college student that's determined the last ten years of her life. Lately, though, she's been wondering if there's something she can.

Do about it.

I was in college, And the.

Story begins when Rachel was eighteen and she took a job at a restaurant to make some extra money.

And as I was working in this restaurant, I started dating this guy.

What was his name?

His name was Oscar Okay, yeah.

Which is the name I've not said in a while.

So Oscar just immediately started like paying attention to me. He like asked if I wanted to come early one day and like help him cook because I really liked. I really like cooking, and I have this like very clear memory of being next to him in him like toasting fennel, which was like.

Super hot.

It was really he made me feel special. And then every now and then I'd look over and they'd.

Be like a perfectly seared scallop on my station.

In the beginning of their relationship, Oscar and Rachel would go out after work, still wearing their chef clothes, and they'd hang out into the night. It was fun, but pretty soon Oscar started demanding more of her time. Rachel was in college and Oscar wasn't.

There would be points where I was studying and he'd be like, we need to hang out and I would be like, no, I'm studying, and he would be like this is unacceptable, Like are you studying with other guys?

Oscar could get needy, moody, and the two of them didn't communicate well. After about a year, Rachel wanted to break up with Oscar, but as a teenager in her very first relationship, it was hard. She kept trying, but you couldn't make it stick. So in a last ditch effort to put some space between them, she took as I'm her job as a nanny in England.

We then had sex one last time, and then I went to England and I never saw him again.

In the autumn, Rachel returned to school oscarless. One Sunday morning, while over at her parents, she noticed them looking at her.

Funny, I guess they.

Hadn't seen me in a while.

And my mom she literally just lifts up my shirt, pokes my stomach and was like, Rachel, go.

Take a pregnancy test.

I went back to my apartment and took the pregnancy test and it was positive. I remember just being just not feeling anything and being on the bathroom floor, and then I called my parents and my dad came and I remember him picking me up off of the bathroom floor.

At that point, without even realizing it, Rachel was already six months pregnant.

Which I find hilarious because I was a biology major and by that time being six months pregnant, I just we were going with it at that point. So I basically had three months to like find a doctor and like build a crib and figure out daycare. Like the health insurance issue was a big enough headache on its own, Like student health insurance doesn't cover maternity On the.

Day of the delivery, a friend posted an open invite to the hospital on Rachel's Facebook wall.

Hey, Rachel's having a baby. Come over.

It's like you're having a keger or something. Yeah, were you like the first of the friends to have a baby?

Oh yeah, by like ten years.

Rachel sent me a photo of everyone hanging out in the maternity ward. They look exactly like what they are, a bunch of kids too young to legally at tande Kegger and with all of these baby faced, sweatshirted classmates rooting for her outside the delivery room.

I like had my daughter.

That night, after her parents left the hospital and her friends returned to their dorms, Rachel was left all alone for the first time with her daughter, Lena, and.

I remember holding around just looking at her and saying, like, I have a baby, Like I have a baby.

It was Friday night, Monday was a holiday. By Tuesday, Rachel was back in class And as for Oscar.

So that's the crazy thing is.

The only thing I really knew was that, like, the one thing that could make this really really hard is if I have to deal with a person that I really really don't want to deal with and so I didn't, So.

You meaning you didn't you didn't tell Oscar?

Yeah, I didn't tell him because I just there were so many things that got on the to do list that the only thing going in my mind with regards to Oscar was like, let's just not deal with that now.

And so Rachel's let's just not deal with that now. Kept getting kicked down the road, one day handing off to the next until today's her birthday, hadn't She's turning ten.

Wow, I have a ten year old.

I still can't believe it, Like she's amazing.

For Rachel, it's been ten years of birthdays and Christmases, ten years of card games, bedtime stories and big Saturday morning breakfast. But ten years too, of not telling Oscar about his daughter, ten years of not telling Lena about her dad. Rachel says that so far it hasn't really come up.

I think she has once in like preschool, when they were doing making a family tree, and she was like, why why don't I have a dad? And I was like, Mary, you just don't, like you have Nana and pops. And then the other cool thing is like one of her good friends has two moms, so I can just be like Eli has two moms, like look.

Over there, Like Eli doesn't have a dad either her like, and she just sort of accepts that. But as my daughter grows up right more and more, it.

Is obvious to me that one day she's actually going to ask me about him. And then I don't know what I'm gonna say, because the thing that scares me is her being God sixteen seventeen eighteen and being like, mom, like why did you do this? And me being like, because it seemed kind of complicated at the time, like it is one hundred percent on me.

Is the reason that like, this person is not in her life.

I've never even been close to trying to, Like I've never googled him. No once or twice a year. I'm just like, hey, like I should tell Oscar, and then it's sort of a passing.

The feeling passes.

It isn't like Rachel doesn't think about Oscar in choosing Lena's name, She intentionally picked something that could be pronounced in Chinese. Rachel's half Chinese, as well as in Spanish because Oscar's Mexican. Rachel doesn't want to live her life wondering if Oscar's out there, oblivious to the fact that he has a ten year old daughter, and she doesn't want another ten years to pass with Oscar still a

Can't you take someone's temperature? Isn't that what you do?

Hew? Do you mean?

I don't?

I want you to do all the work.

I don't know.

I'm not so much a temperature taker. I'm in an interlock. It it's into locator. Yeah, but uh, I could take the temperature.

You would do that.

Yeah?

Wait, so we're doing this.

I think we are. I mean, that's what it sounds like.

And you know what this music sounds like, bargains boogying out your buds, your earbuds. So make room in your wallet for all the Benjamin's coming your way. You're about to save big time, boss, big time. Rachel hasn't seen Oscar in more than ten years, and she doesn't know how to find him to tell him about Lena. Back in the day, an old friend from the restaurant told her that her pregnancy was the talk of the kitchen. So Rachel thinks it's possible Oscar might have already heard.

But we all know what.

Happens when one assumes, or at least I assume we all know. But since I don't want to be indicted for the very crime against which I am building a case, let me just say it outright, And if you already know this, you can press fast forward. When one assumes, one makes an ass out of you and me. Though now that I say it out loud, I realize it makes more sense written out. Let's stroll on over to the chalkboard.

Shall we.

See the letter you stands for yo you, and then the letters M and E spell me and ass.

That makes the ass part.

Of the proverb. Alex might want me to edit out that ass, but I'll just say I was talking about a donkey in the zoo. I assume he's too busy capitalizing on opportunities to even notice the difference.

Hello, can you hear me?

Hey?

I can That's important? Can you hear me, yes, I can hear you. We can hear each other.

This is Diane, the old friend of Rachel's from the restaurant, who thought Oscar might have heard about the pregnancy. So reaching out to her seems like a good way to start the search.

I haven't been in pets Oscar for quite some years. After I left the restaurant, they started working at a the same Crown, Okay, and I had seen him there several years ago when he brought his family there.

He was with a family, as in, like he has kids.

Yeah.

He the last that I knew he had two little girls. He had gotten married to this woman and had two children with her.

So Oscar now has a family of his own, two little girls. Maybe when Rachel finally tells him about Lena, as they get into the little things, Lena's love of chess, how she's getting into anime, he could tell her about his daughters, the things they like. They could talk about being parents. And at the time that you that you saw him, the subject of Rachel didn't come up.

Well, it kind of did. He would like ask me how she was, and I'd be like, well, I haven't seen here.

Diane wasn't sure whether Oscar was fishing around for information, and if he was, she didn't know what Rachel would have wanted her to say, so at the time she just played dumb and after that day she never ran into Oscar again.

I hope that they're able to connect. I mean, just so everybody's in the know.

I guess.

The only problem is it's not just Diane who's lost touch with Oscar. No one from the restaurant has heard from him in years. It's like he's just vanished.

Rachel, let me kick the dogs out of the room.

I'm really glad that you finished that sentence with out of the room. I call Rachel to fill her in about Oscar's two little girls, his marriage. Now, no one knows where he is, and to this last point, Rachel isn't surprised. Since we last spoke, she's gun searching for Oscar on her own.

Is like impossible to find, like for someone in twenty eighteen, Like I cannot find any name because then, you know, when we first talked, I was like, I've never even looked about on Facebook, and now I've been like, I've been cognitomode and look for him on Facebook like all the time, and.

Like, I can't mind any other defining Uh middle does he have a middle name?

The answer is yes, because he has two last names.

Well, I don't remember what the other one.

Do you know what my middle name?

Okay, here's the other the other thing.

My middle name is Stuart. And so I keep searching. I look for Oscar on all the major sites, Facebook dot CA, Twitter, dot Google dot Ca, but no dice. Growing desperate, I even join LinkedIn. But after Jorge in fun adds to my list of professional endorsements, the fact that I quote smell moderately presentable, I delete my account. Just as I'm about to give up, Rachel phones with some good news.

My dad He found a W two form.

Rachel's father found an old W two of Oscars. It was in a box of Rachel's old poetry, and the form contains Oscar's first, last and middle name, which is not Stuart, because why would it be Stuart's my middle name if you've been following along thus far. Armed with Oscar's full name, Rachel did some research and found two possible addresses, and so she drafted.

A letter and I feel like we could send it to both addresses, and just like hope that it gets.

To them, and maybe we'll even get one of those fun stamps, or.

Like you could get a verified.

Letter, right, Oh, that is an idea. That's a really good idea. Then we would know that it's been received and signed for. Yeah, for someone who had asked me to do all the work. It seems like Rachel is really taking care of business. Only her business is the business of putting me out of business.

I feel really good about this. Thank you so.

Much, Rachel. Don't condescend to me.

In the letter, Rachel tells Oscar about her pregnancy and about Lena, my daughter and I have a great life, she writes, and I don't want or need anything all these years later, I just want to be able to have an honest conversation. Rachel makes two copies of the letter, one free to dress and to make me feel like I'm not dead weight. She generously allows me to mail them. At the post office. I'm served by a kind clerk

That it's verified.

Learning about the United States Postal Service was fun, so back at Gimblet headquarters, I decided to further educate myself online. Did you know that the original Pony Express was something of a misnomer. It actually made use of full size horses, and on its inaugural ride, those regular sized horses delivered important bank letters, miscellaneous papers, and five telegrams. Telegrams are

Please record your message.

Hi.

My name is Jonathan Goldstein, and this is I leave a message for Oscar's mother in law, Barb. I don't make mention of Rachel, or Lena or even Oscar. All I say is that I sent a letter to one of her tenants, and I wanted to follow up.

Yes, this is concerning Oscar for mister Goldstein.

Before long, I received a message back from Barb. As it turns out, all my discretion was for not. She knows all about the letter and everything in it. This is because Barb's the one who signed Oscar's name for it.

It's a long story, but Austin's been deported. He is the daddy of my two granddaughters and was a very active father with them. I would like him to know that he has another child. He was a very loving father. But well, things happened. So anyway, give me call and see what you want to do. Bye bye, hello, Yes, hello.

Hello Hello.

When I returned Barbe's call, she's at a school out in the desert where she does mental health work with kids.

Your name is Jonathan something.

Yeah, Jonathan Goldstein.

Okay, all right.

Barb tells me that although she's still in touch with Oscar, he and her daughter are no longer together. I asked her how long ago Oscar was deported.

Ah, exactly two years ago. He got three duys. He was a great guy, and then he suddenly went off the deep end, so he ain't coming back for a while.

Barb says, Oscar's trying to quit drinking, but right now he isn't able to be much of a father.

I mean because even his kids that you know he knew about, and that he was very.

Close to your grandkids.

Yeah, he has very sporadic contact with him. Right His younger daughter knows him well and loves him and was in a terrible shock he got taken away. So we're going to go to Mexico at some point and try to link up with him, but at this point, not yet till you know, he says he's getting sober, so that's sort of the goal. You don't want him to be with him if he's drinking. But he was a good daddy when he was a daddy.

So Barbara can't say if Oscar knows about Lena, but she thinks that if he doesn't know, he'd want to. She has a number for him in Mexico, but says it really goes through. She offers to tell Oscar about Lena the next time he calls, though she can't predict how long the wait will be. As it turns out, though it's not long at all, just A few days later, oscar Facebook message is Rachel, he's received the message about Lena. I'm in Mexico having problems, He responds, the economy here

I went straight to like you don't care about me, Like you don't care about this, which is insane to me because like that's the kind of stuff he would say to me when we were in a relationship, Like if I didn't pick up the phone, it was just immediately very I don't know, it brought back like a lot of things very very quickly, and none of those are.

Good things, right right?

And then she never even wanted to know it was never even tell me about the kid, right right?

I mean I accomplished what I originally set out to accomplish, which is I wanted to find him and I wanted to tell him that he had a kid. I guess the one the part that is like now sort of a U can of worms, is like, what do I tell Lena?

For years, Rachel's assumed Lena's never asked about her dad because she's not curious. But lately a few things have happened that have begun to make her wonder if she hasn't been wilfully naive, if Lena isn't already curious but too afraid to ask. For instance, Rachel's father, Lena's granddad, recently overheard a friend of Lena's ask her over and over who her dad was. Throughout, Lena remained silent.

She's just like a really good kid, and like she broke her.

Toe the other week, and like I didn't even know what happened until like she was like my toe really hurt, and like that was I had this moment of intersection. Then I was like, oh my gosh, like what if I done to my child? Because she's like doesn't want to cause trouble.

And then three weeks after we speak, Rachel finds one of her old college diaries in Lena's room. It's a black moleskin she started when she was pregnant. There's all this writing in there about that time in her life. Her anxiety is about having a kid, a bunch of poems she wrote trying to process her feelings. It's clear that Lena is looking into Rachel's past, doing it in her own way, a way that's private and quiet. Did you read my notebook? Rachel asks? No, Lina says, Are

So.

I was wondering whether.

You had ever wondered about out, maybe why you don't have a father. I haven't wondered in a while about that.

I have in the past.

I didn't know that really.

Yeah, when you wondered, mm hmmm, why didn't you ask me about it?

I didn't know how to ask.

You didn't know how to ask. Is it just because you don't know.

How to ask.

I don't know how to ask, you don't know.

How to ask?

No?

Well, so, now is there anything I want?

All the w's.

You want, all the wu's.

Yeah, the w questions?

Who?

What?

Where?

Why?

When?

Yeah?

Okay? So who?

Uh?

So you.

Have a father. His name is Oscar.

And he is in Mexico. We met when I was in college. We worked at a restaurant together.

Yea.

So one of the things that happened was I didn't know I was pregnant with you, But I also didn't I didn't want to be in a relationship with him anymore.

Mm hmm.

And then he was here. He's from Mexico, so he's Mexican and then he went back to Mexico. Why I was at the that's the w U because that's where he was from. So he is no longer here. So now you know something else, right, So you know that you're half Mexican half half Mexican half half.

So now you know.

Now I know.

And now even if you don't know how to ask, do you feel like you can come talk to me about anything?

Because you totally can.

Thank you.

What else do you want to know?

I don't know what else I want to know.

Okay, but if you think about it, will you tell me?

Yeah?

Okay, okay. So that's all we want to know.

That's all I want to know for now, for now.

Dun dun dum.

Rachel keeps checking in over the next couple months to see if there's anything Lena wants to ask, and while there never is, Rachel's getting into the habit of taking the temperature. It's not until a few months later, when Rachel and Lena are snuggling in bed. Then Lena looks up at her mother and asks mom how tall was Oscar. When Rachel hears the name spoken so casually by Lena, it still gives her a slight twinge in her chest.

Now that the fern entures returning.

To its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is skiming with the damage deposit, take this moment to dissolve, if we mentage, if we tried to remember felt rent for far too from things An Accidentally Heavyweight.

Is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Khalila Holt, Peter Bresnan, and Stevie Lane. The show is edited by Jorge Just, with additional editing by Alex Bloomberg. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Caitlin Bagooki, Andrew Goldberg, Rachel Ward, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our

Take it away.

Bob Alex might want me to edit out that ass. Should I try, but.

No doubt bad ass flex edit out that ass bogging out your.

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Full sized horses