#39 Stephen

Today's episode is part two in a series. If you haven't listened to the first part, Justine, go back. Listen to that and I'll meet you back here for part two. Remember when we did karaoke for my b day?

We never did karaoke on your first day.

Johnny, Yes, we did. You and I did a duet Island's in the Stream.

Never.

And then we got into a fight on stage because you wanted to do the Kenny Rogers part. So we're talking, John, Honestly, I really enjoyed this conversation, that conversation.

I really enjoyed talking.

You didn't enjoy it at all. Talk again, really looking forward to it. Oh well you wish me. Well, that's like your way of telling me to drop dead. From Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. Steven right after the break.

Hello, Justine, can you hold on just one second? Okay, Sorry, I lost the remote from my TV and so I have to use my phone as a remote.

A phone is a remote. Brave new world we live in.

I know it's amazing, but.

We have more important things to talk about.

That's true.

So tell me what happened when we last spoke. Justine and her mother had hatched a plan. They were going to sit Justine's brother Stephen down so their mom could tell him the truth that his dad, Gary wasn't actually his biological father. Stephen is trying to save up money, so he's currently living with their The idea was for Justine to go over to the house and lend emotional support while her mother came clean. But on the day in question, she said, she.

Literally doesn't know what words she's going to say. She doesn't know how she's going to form the sentence.

After being afraid for over thirty years. Her mother was at a total loss about how to finally explain things to Stephen. She was paralyzed, so Justine stepped up and said she would tell Stephen the news. She'd tell him the truth about his father. When Justine got to the house, she sat down in the living room with Stephen and her mom. Justine began by telling Stephen that when she was a little kid, Gary had told her a secret

Was okay, I'm just like, okay, what's about to happen?

This is Stephen?

And then she just said dad is not your real dad.

As Justine spoke the words, Stephen's mouth broke into a huge smile, but no jokes came out. Stephen's smile was one of relief.

I had had all this pent up frustration with my father. To find out that I wasn't actually related to him made me feel better that way, as like, oh, so I don't have to care about him anymore, you know, I didn't have to feel guilty about that.

Throughout his life, Stephen had to deal with all of Gary's bad parenting without the pluses that Justine received. Try as hard as Stephen might to bond with his dad, Gary remained emotionally remote. In fact, there were long periods where Stephen and Gary didn't even speak. But despite the years of bad blood, Stephen says he'd never actually suspected Gary wasn't his father. That day when he first asked Justine if he was adopted, he was just doing what he always does, joking around.

Like what was the most off the wall thing that I could guess that she was trying to keep from me? And I was like, there's no way this is it, right? And if she had his look on her face, and I was just like, oh, I'm just kidding. My reality was that Gary was my dad, right, and so really didn't have any reason to question that at all.

After discovering his true paternity, Stephen decided not to confront Gary because it seems that after all the years of pretending to be on death's door, this time Gary really was dying, and along with his failing physical health, his mind was also deteriorating. Recently, Gary's wife let him know that the secret about Stephen was out, but it didn't throw Gary into a rage. In fact, he didn't react

No, I felt, I don't want to say lost, because I feel like that's potentially cliche. Couldn't really focus at work. I just couldn't really get it out of my head. One thing I kept on telling myself was that it doesn't change anything. It's like I was still raised the way I was, But then I at the same time, it changes everything right as I got I'm thirty three years old and I'm just now finding this out. It's like having a reality just crushed.

Stephen began spending a lot of time on Facebook. Facebook is where he found his biological father, Brian Kirby. From there, he discovered the profiles of Brian's children, Steven's half siblings. Stephen would click through, looking at each of their photos over and over.

I'd look at it constantly. But it was around Thanksgiving where things kind of just came to head. I just really felt sad. I felt depressed. We were supposed to go as a family over to my Grandma Jones' house, and I just kind of told my mom, it's like I can't because I was just thinking, like, it's there's something missing, you know, what is what is the holidays to the Kirby's, What are your Thanksgivings?

Like?

So Stephen went down to the basement, put on his headphones and started playing a favorite song of his by a band called Liars. Stephen likes listening to it when he's trying or writing. Then he chose a half sister to message on Facebook.

She had a smile that just maybe reminded me of my own smile. So I wrote her a letter just kind of explaining who I was, with the hopes that this one had come across as some Arabian prints that has millions of dollars. But I can't get to it now. So send me this and then I'll send you that.

What was it that you that you wrote?

Well? I could, I mean like I could pull it up and read it, but honestly, I am god awful at reading out loud. Let me find it real quick. I've been struggling to figure out how to approach this. So here I go. All my life, I've never been able to relate or connect with my dad. I felt different than him in so many ways and never knew why. Within the last six months, I discovered that my dad quote unquote, is not my father.

Steven starts the message by offering up all the names and dates he can anything to prove he's not a scammer.

And I can't help but wonder what your life's like, what are your hobbies? Who broke your heart? Who do you love? Dang it? Sorry, try not to cry. Oh, the choice is yours. I know this is a lot, and I don't know if you know about me, but I'd rather try to reach out than live a life of regret. I would love to meet you, slash hear from you, but I unfortunately understand that may take time. I don't want anything except to know you. I am happy, I love a good life. I have a great job.

Our.

After Steven sent his message, Kirby started coming out of the woodwork. In total, he had six new siblings and he exchanged messages with several of them. Stephen spent a particularly long time messaging with a sister named Shannon, who became a sort of point person for the family. Stephen asked if Brian, his biological father, had heard what was going on.

And she said, he's actually right here, and then there was a pause. She messaged back and said, he wants to know if you if you want to meet I was like, I was trying to hold back because all I wanted to be like was all caps, like yes, exclamation marks right, And I was like, that would be good.

Shannon suggests that she and Stephen meet up after the holidays, and so in early February, they make a plan to get a drink at a bar where Shannon used to work, and the lead up to meeting Shannon and Stephen worries he gets uncomfortable in social situations and has trouble maintaining eye contact. What if he's too awkward? What if they have nothing to talk about. When the night arrives, Stephen don's jeans and a plaid shirt and heads to the

Okay, so a couple of things. I went, let's thank you on.

So Stephen and his biological father still haven't met, but Justine tells me that Stephen is about to meet the rest of the Kirby siblings, all of them and all at once. But it won't be over dinner or drinks.

They are all going to scirch for his biological dad, who went missing a couple days ago. Whoa, and it's like not looking good.

The Indiana State Police put out a missing person's alert the day before, stating that Brian Kirby was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt with Tennessee printed in white letters and blue jeans. He has blue eyes and red hair. He is believed to be in danger and may require

There was some kind of a dispute and I don't know. At first. The girlfriend said that her boyfriend came back home and like she had to change his clothes, that his shirt was bloody. Then a couple days later she changed that story and said it was muddy.

Stephen and Brian were supposed to meet a few weeks earlier, but Brian has lung disease, and when COVID hit, Stephen worried that it might be better to postpone. So now Stephen is heading out in the height of a pandemic with siblings who are strangers to him, to help search for the missing father he never got to meet locally. Now this he is waged three news. The Kirby siblings never find their father, but the police do.

A murder mystery over tonight after a Jennings County man's body was found burned with his remains scattered in different parts of the county.

In May of twenty twenty, the police arrest a man named Alan Morantos, who pleads guilty to the murder, loading the body in the vehicle, burning the body at another location, and then discarding.

The remains in very spots around the county.

Brentos James kind of jails. Steven stops going to work for weeks. He just crashes with his new sister Deanna. Although they just met, she lets him sleep on her cow in the trailer she shares with her two kids. In Brian's obituary, Stephen is listed among his children. I reach out to Stephen, but don't hear back. Justine tells me that Stephen's been depressed, that he's not ready to

So this is your daddy. We again to the real end of this stape. I love him more than anything in my life.

Take care.

Mike.

Hello, you have reached Justine's voice fan. Leave a message. Oh and tell me what is something that you are really good at?

I Hey, Justine, it's Jonathan uh And I guess I'm really good at keeping in touch over the years. Okay, I'll talk to you soon.

I hope.

At this point, it's been over two years since Justine and I first spoke. In a year since Brian was murdered. When Justine and I connect, she tells me that in recent months, she's been worrying that her decision to reveal Stephen's paternity was a bad decision.

I think, like I'm still at a point where I feel part of me a little guilty for like, this sounds so silly that for telling the secret that I wasn't ever supposed to tell.

You know, and you mean guilty toward to your.

Father, I guess so, or even like even towards it doesn't make sense. I know it was the right thing to do, but it's hard for me to say that like that it was a good that I feel good about. I don't know. Maybe part of me feels guilty that I held it.

In so long.

Maybe that's what it is.

I think I'm just not fully I haven't fully processed it to the point where I feel like I did a good thing.

Justine is left wondering what telling Stephen actually accomplished. There was a wall between them before telling him the truth, and now there was still a wall, and because of her, Stephen's grief was doubled. He was forced to live through the death of not one but two fathers all in the space of less than a year. Stephen has been distant, pulling away, and Justine fears he might be angry with her, like.

Things just haven't been the same with us, and.

I don't I don't know.

If that's because of.

The situation with me telling him or maybe I just maybe at some point I need to hear it from him. You know that it was a good thing.

It's a hard question to ask someone. Was my crushing your reality a good thing? But after the break, Justine tries to ask Stephen.

Just that.

We had my son Griffin's third birthday party.

Today's the day Justine and Stephen are set to talk, and Justine joins the zoom first.

This is the best age for presents, he like. After the day's ever, he was like, Mom, I love presence, just like.

In the close to two years since that day in their mom's living room when Justine told Stephen the truth, the two of them have never sat down for a heart to heart. Stephen and Justine have both recently moved and are living farther apart than they ever have. Justine in Illinois, Stephen in Arkansas.

Hello, howdy.

Steven's been alone in the small rural town for a few months. Now he's down there fixing up their grandmother's cabin, and his red hair and beard have grown shaggy. He joins the zoom from a couch a quaint curtain behind him. Are there grandmotherly type things in the back? It looks like there's some little chatchkiz.

What are some Betty Boop figurines? She's much to collect things.

Before the call, Justine told me she was feeling nervous. So I take it upon myself to get the ball rolling. One of the things that I talked about with Justine was whether her telling you, But then I stopped myself. After years of having their relationship middlemanned by parents by secrets, maybe Stephen and Justine need a chance to talk to one another directly. Well, maybe I should, I should allow just justin. Maybe like you should just you should just ask.

Yeah.

I don't know why. It's making me feel emotional, but you know, I guess I.

Never thought to ask you, like directly, Like, uh, do you think it was a good thing that that the truth came out? I guess that I I guess that I told you you know about that?

Well, Justine wipes her eyes. Stephen tries to offer an answer by way of a story. It seems that a few months after Brian's murder, Steven set off on a trip to Kentucky to meet Brian's brother Barry. They ended up spending the day together. Stephen helped Barry feed his cats, and Barry took Stephen around to some Kirby family landmarks in the area. Then they sat down to eat together with some cousins, young nieces and nephews.

And then that afternoon where we went outside and we were sitting out there, and then Barry came out and he said called ambulance. You could just barely understand what he was saying because he had just started coughing up blood. Oh my god, I mean like it was. It was splashing on a driveway.

As it turns out, two weeks earlier, Barry had been in a car crash. He was while being examined at the hospital that Barry learned he had undiagnosed lung cancer. That's how he came to be coughing up blood on the driveway that day.

And the first thing that I thought of was the kids. I told the kids. As I get in a four wheeler, and I need you to drive down the driveway and then go up that trail and I'll be right there, because I didn't want them to see that. And I remember me walking down on a hill to go meet up with the kids, and I looked back at Barry and he was just looking at me with big eyes. I just kind of nodded my head because we all knew that that was the end.

By the time Stephen comforted the kids and walked back to the house, Barry was dead.

The way I always like to tell it, because I try to look on the bright side, is said it was a beautiful day for Barry. It was his last day on earth, and he got to visit his grandma's house, his great grandma's house in the family cemetery.

This story about Uncle Barry doesn't feel like the reassurance Justine had been hoping for. In fact, it feels like the opposite. Yet another blood relative was gone no sooner than Steven had learned about him.

I mean, I cannot understand what it feels like to discover one father, lose him horrifically, meet a new uncle, lose him horrifically, basically in front of your eyes.

You know, to hear the fact of you know, what you went through, A lot of people would say, man like that, not to cause offense or any of it. That guy's pretty unlucky.

No, one hundred percent. I know that that's got to be everybody's response. But it's all the things that happened, We're going to happen regardless of whether I was there or not. And it's a sad story, but same times, like, there's so many good things that come out of it, you know, as far as me being.

There, Stephen was able to be a comfort to the kids and give Barry a great last day that makes him proud.

And the fact of the timing of Brian being murdered, it's if you can find it positive in that, it's that it brought me and my sister brothers and sisters on a curby side closer together a whole lot faster than what have ever happened before.

Stephen looks over at Justine and directly addresses the question of whether learning the truth was a good thing.

Yeah. No, I want to change. There's a lot of things I would change, but I don't regret it. I should have known and I one of my biggest fears always you or mom, the feeling bad or regret or sorry for me, or like, man, we really shouldn't have told him. And really it was the greatest thing to ever It's difficult to say, but it's the greatest thing

Well, Stephen struggled in school. Justine excelled, attending a gifted program and eventually becoming a teacher. Doing well in school so you can go to college, so you can start a career that becomes your life. Stephen tried to do those things because Justine and his mom had. He wanted to please them, be like them, but he always felt like he was falling short with the Kirbys, Stephen saw a different way to live than the one he'd grown

They really have changed me. And it's like I've told the Kirby's, Do you guys help me make sense? The way I've lived this last year is the night and day compared to what I have in the past as far as just kind of there's really kind of going for a lot of stuff and living for metaphorically for the first time in my life.

Stephen says he's always wanted to travel, to just get in a car and drive. He remembers countless conversations with Justine where she'd encourage him to go.

We've talked about it over and over again.

Yeah, I remember so vividly, like Stephen coming to my house and we're on the couch and he's just like, I have this urge, like I just want to go somewhere. And I'm like, okay, so just do that. You know what's stopping me? And he's like, well, what's mom going to think? Or who's going to watch the dog or whatever. I'm like, I'll watch the dog. Mom will be a fine, you know, Like he and even in my mind I knew, like he's probably not going to go.

But about a month after Barry's death. In two months after Brian's Stephen jumped in his car in Indianapolis and just started heading west the Badlands Glacier National Park, Washington State, all the way to the Canadian border. On the road, he slept in a hammock bathed in the river, fried up spam and eggs at rest stops, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the very first time.

I had Barry and Brian looking over me, and honestly all the time I really kind of felt felt their presence. I just kind of drove, just said either felt right or didn't feel right, and for Nettville right will then take a left turn instead of a right term. You know, It's like in those moments, which I had so many on that trip, It's like, what have I been doing for the past thirty three years when I could have been doing this?

You know, the Stephen that I am talking to today is like the real Stephen that was always inside like wanting to get out, But like, hey guys, is this okay?

No?

Okay? So I like it's obvious to me that this other side of the family is his has like completed him in a way.

So to Justine's question, it seems clear that she did do the right thing. Stephen thinks back on that day, Justine told him the truth, how she gave him the permission to react however he wanted, be it with sadness or anger or even by joking around. It was all Okay, Stephen could just be Stephen.

And I've never felt like that's right until that moment. It meant a lot. It made me feel if you were really good and accepted. There's nobody, nobody else on this planet that I would have wanted to tell me the news than you.

It was amazing to hear you say that you wouldn't have wanted it to be anyone other than me. It makes me feel really special. I'm really close to you, and it makes me feel like it was right.

The secret that had become a wall between Justine and Stephen was coming down. They didn't share the same father, but they shared the same fact. Finally there was reality and it wasn't crushing either of them.

O cans ok, I canais be found.

I canlis be found.

Now that the Fernditures rip turning to its good will home, now that the last month's rent is skating with the damage, POS take this moment to dissolve, if we meant it.

If we turn.

Remember felt around for five to.

From things that leaves. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Senior producer Khalila Holt, along with Stevie Lane, Moheeny mcgauker, and me Jonathan Goldstein Special thanks to Emily Condon, Jorge just Alex Bloomberg, Sharon Mashihi, Connie Walker, and Jackie Cohen. News footage courtesy of Gray Media Group, Incorporated and Wave three News. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music

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