#62 Stefano

Pushkin, Karen, I'm I'm sorry to be intruding like this, you know, just calling up at it O.

Hi, oh hi, sorry, my mom called on.

So then you just you just drop whoever you're talking to.

That's the kind of daughter.

I am not.

Very professional, but okay, yes, it actually is. Well, because you know you're a you're a dear friend of Jackie. So I thought maybe you know, I would turn to you with my concern. I I've been trying to call Jackie and she doesn't seem to be accepting my phone calls.

Yeah, I know, I could confirm that she's okay, okay, Oh that's good, thankful, Oh, thank god. Yeah, I could confirm that, and I can confirm that she's annoyed by your persistence that I could confirm, okay, And I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Maybe she just feels that you're using her, well, I am, well, maybe she doesn't like.

That, yeah, because she wants to be the user.

Right, that's an excellent point you've got there.

Okay, Jackie, if you're out there listening, which let's face it, you're probably not. If I am using you, it's on behalf of America in Canada, of course, from Pushkin Industries. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. Stephano right after the break. It's impossible to talk to Debbie without hearing stories about her mom, Anita. Anita was Italian, and in every story it's her autemismo for roach or fierce optimism that takes center stage.

Truly, for her, the glass was beyond half full. It was always full, even if there was a drop of water in there, Jonathan, it was just always full.

As an example, Debbie tells the story of how Anita comforted some cousins who were concerned their child was crying too much.

And my mom said, no, you don't have to worry. She's like me. I was like that for years. I was always crying very easily. My mom was around seventy eight years old at the time. And they said, did you grow out of it? And my mom goes, yeah, and they said when and she said about two years ago, So you know, they had something to hope for.

Anita died in twenty twenty, and her death was hard on Debbi. She misses her mom a lot and thinks about her a lot, and perhaps because of this, she finds herself returning to the one Anita story that has yet to find its happy ending, and that is the story of the airplane and the baby. Anita grew up in a part of Italy called Eastria, and after World War Two the region was seated to Yugoslavia. Suddenly, her family was under oppressive socialist rule. So Anita and her

But my mom said, you know, you're young, and you don't think about that kind of stuff. You just think about freedom.

And her brother made it to Italy, where the police took them to a refugee camp. In the coming years, Anita would live in several such camps.

When I would talk to her other friends about it, her friends would say, oh, it was hard, you know it was. The food wasn't good most of the time, and we didn't have money. But you would never have known that. Talking to her, she was just eternally optimistic. She said, it was wonderful. They opened the doors and I saw so many people that I knew. There we'd play cards, and we'd drink, and you know, the girls would do each other's hair and just had fun.

In nineteen fifty nine, Anita got her chance to leave the camps a visa to the United States, and so all alone, Anita set out to America.

So she was getting ready to get on the flight from Rome to New York. And there was an adoption agency that were taking children from orphanages from Italy to the United States. And they asked my mom if she would babysit this little boy, this little two year old boy, and she said, of course. Did she learn his name, Stephano, It's.

Anita, and you have I got a picture of a little baby Stefano.

This is Anita in a video Debbie filmed a year before her mom's death. In the video, Anita is clutching a photograph taken during the flight.

So you look at how beautiful he is.

The photograph is oddly composed, almost like it was taken by accident when the camera was set down. Anita and Stefano's faces are both partially cut off, but you can tell that Anita is smiling big with the two year old Stefano peaceful in her arms.

How old were you there?

Twenty four? Look at how beautiful and sixty years ago nineteen fifty nine.

It was a long flight to New York and they had to stop three times to refuel, so for eighteen hours, Anita held Stephano close.

I think she just fell in love with him. She just fell in love with that little baby. She said, he was the best baby you could ever see.

How good baby heels. He's the best baby. It was very happy. I was happy, Eddie. The baby was heavy.

It was Anita's first time on an airplane and Stephano's two. They were both leaving behind everyone they knew and setting out alone for a new life in America. Clutching this baby over the ocean, the two of them smiling at each other. Anita and Stefano bonded. They were both off to what she hoped was a better life.

They get to New York, she was holding the baby and the agency came up to her and then just took him right out of her arms. She said, they didn't say anything to her, They.

Just take him away from me, and he started crying. He don't know nobody.

There was no chance to even say goodbye.

And I was crying him. I would crying out.

Yeah, of course that's sad.

It was like my baby.

She would cry. She would cry when she talk about it.

Even after raising two kids of her own, Anita never stopped talking about the child who was hers for a day. All through her life, even into her last years, everyone heard about Stephano. Anita continued to hope, always needed to believe that Stefano's life was a good one.

She would say, I wonder where he is. Was he in a good home? What was his life like?

I would like to know him and see how he's doing. I'm sorry, maybe you're far away. I don't know where are you. I was thinking all this year about him all the time. Yeah, and I love you even if I don't see you too long.

That's a nice story, and I don't know if you understand it. I think so.

When Anita was still alive, there were several attempts at finding Stefano. Anita sought out help from various friends and family, but no one was able to get anywhere. They even looked into a TV show that reunited adoptees with their birth parents, but Anita wasn't Stefano's birth parent. But then One day, Debbie brought up the subject of Stefano with her close friend Lindsay.

Lindsay starts plugging stuff into the computer and she said, up, I found him.

Hang on, but did you even have his last name?

No?

And who's this, Lindsay. Does she work for the state department or something? You would think as someone who makes his living tracking people down, like a nice version of dog the bounty hunter, A dog the bounty hunter who rather than dragging people off to jail, drags them off to heal. I'm professionally piqued by this, Lindsay.

I have a skill for finding digital footprints of people.

This is Lindsay.

I'm the person that people go to if you want to know something.

The only information she knew about Stefano was his age and the date of the flight. But with that she found Stefano's immigration record, which had the name of the man on it who was set to adopt him. From there, Lindsay found the adoptive father's obituary.

Under the list of surviving children, there was the name Stephen, and you know, we put that together.

As Stephaniel Stefano. In America, Stefano became Stephen, although Lindsay now had Stephano's full name, she had no way of getting in touch with them. She call Hied social media, but he was nowhere to be found. She did find his two brothers, though, so she messaged one.

He said that it was a very nice story, but he doesn't speak to Stephen anymore.

Yeah, And when Lindsay tried the other brother.

It was basically this thing that they don't speak either.

And then Lindsay dug a little deeper and it looked like he might have a criminal record.

Debian Lindsay couldn't see what Stephen's criminal record was. It just came up as a flag on one of those people finding websites. But the reality of what they were doing suddenly sank in. They were looking for a potentially dangerous stranger to introduce to the elderly Anita, and it gave them pause.

That paired with them not speaking to his brothers. Just we weren't there. Maybe this was our bapest way to go about this, and we wanted to take some time to kind of figure out a game plan.

The time passed and no game plan emerged. Any year later, Anita died, never having gotten to reunite with Stefano. After the loss of a parent, there's often an attempt to honor a final wish, donating to a beloved cause or scattering ashes in a favorite place. But Debbie feels a need to fulfill a different kind of wish on her mother's behalf. She wants to know that Stefano is okay.

Anita's death was very, very, very difficult, and I think it's healing for Debbie if we find him, and I think that she needs this more than b thinks she does.

Lindsay says, Debbie never got the chance to fully grieve Anita after she died COVID hit. Then her father developed dementia and Debbie became his full time caretaker. Then her father died.

Just always onto this next draining saying, you know, and since it is honoring this wish of her mom, it's helping her feel And I can just see that when we talk about the story, she's so hopeful and she's so determined, and this is something that I haven't seen with Debbie in a very long time.

And for Debbie, she hopes this story might mean something to Stefano too.

Maybe he needs to know that this woman thought of him for most of his life, loving him from a distance, wondering about him, praying for him. I mean, what a thing to know after the break, Let's find him. Let's find that guy, that little Stefano.

So so here we are, here, we are, my producer, Khalila Houlton, I gather in the studio or mission is twofold. We want to find a way to contact Stephen. But before we do, we want to figure out what Stephen's mysterious criminal record actually is. Khalila starts tiptapping away on her computer while I settle in and offer the kind of input that only an investigative journalist with a decades long track record can I've gone through different phases in my life where a V neck was more appealing than

Yeah, please leave your message for five.

Khalila digs up some possible phone numbers for Stephen online, and in the weeks to come, I leave numerous voicemails. Hi there, I'm looking for a Stephen. I call so many numbers. I hear automated messages entirely new to me.

The number is in service?

Is in service?

By your call again.

None of these phone numbers lead me to Stephen. They just lead me to different robotic voices.

You're calling out, all right?

That's it.

Yeah.

With the telephone having crapped on our heads, we decide that what we need is an even older form of communication, the US Postal Service. Khalila uncovers three possible mailing addresses for Steven. So we write three letters and drop them in the mailbox, letting them fly off into the world like three hopeful birds. And then time as is its

Yes, I'm at home.

And where does this ladder lead to?

Oh?

Nowhere, it's ladder to.

We're going nowhere with this ladder.

I hope we're going somewhere with this story. I hope we're not on a ladder to nowhere. It seems Debbie hasn't given up on Stefano. She tells me Lindsay found some of the same phone numbers we did, So Debbie two tried calling and leaving messages. No one ever called back, though still Debbie wants to keep trying, and so more letters are sent, more voicemails left, and two more months go by. I've completely given up hope. And then one afternoon I finally hear from Stephen. You did, I did? You did?

I did?

Wow?

Yeah, sucked. I wasn't holding out a lot of hope me either. I tell Debbie about the phone call. How Stephen told me he dismissed my letters as a scam. I asked if he'd be open to a conversation with Debbie, but he said he doesn't have transportation, and when I said we could do a video call, he said he hasn't a cell phone nor a computer, and he quote doesn't follow the Internet. But eventually he said he'd be okay with a telephone call.

I would love her.

I think it's a gift that he doesn't realize.

You know, So he is available one o'clock green Mountain time, So that would be like, oh, sorry, mountain time, Mountain time, not green Mountain After the break, Stephano at long last, his green Mountain time A thing sounds like a coffee thing. That would be three o'clock in St Cafe, So one o'clock Green Mountain. The next day, at one pm, Green Mountain time, Debbie and I convene. Okay, I'll give him a call, I'll phone him all and I'll introduce you guys.

Okay, okay, Hello.

Hello, Stephen. Y Hi, it's Jonathan phoning. I'm here with Debbie.

Oh you are Hi, Stephen?

How are you?

I'm fine? How are you?

I'm good. I'm really good, and I'm really excited to hear your voice and to know that you're here right now. So, Stephen. My mom her name was Anita.

And Debbie lays it all out for Steven, the plane ride, the love Anita felt for him, and how that love endured for Anita's entire life.

You were always on her mind for many, many years and told many people about you.

Well.

God bless your mom.

I wish she had adopted me.

I think she would have liked that too.

Anita always wanted to know whether, after being taken from her arms, Stephano's life had been a good one. So we started at the beginning with Steven's adoption.

My foster parents told me.

Roughly at the age of eight.

You call them your foster parents. Did they adopt you?

Yes?

Were they good people?

I mean there was three squares a day.

I mean there was no abuse or anything like that.

I don't mind. Uh lickens is what my dad called it.

Did you say, Lincoln?

Yeah? About It wasn't abuse.

It was just for disappoint purposes?

Was that?

Was that? Roth?

Well for a little kid, it is?

Did did you? But did you feel loved?

Yes? I did?

Oh I remember from childhood. Out of the friends and they turned out to be drug addicts. I turned out nominal.

What do you mean when you say nominal?

Well, I have a serious alcohol problem. Okay, I know I sound like I've been drinking, but I haven't. I don't have anything here. I was pretty much known as a boozer.

Back in the day. Stephen says the drinking got bad, which led to the duy.

You don't think when you drink, you get behind the wheel of a vehicle drunk is preposterous.

Did your father?

Did your adoptive father do something similar?

He drank, but not in excess.

I never saw him on a drunken stupor well, nobody's ever seen me.

I won't watch them.

Yeah, so you drink Alone.

Yes, that song by that one guy, George sirgood, I Drink Alone reminds me of me.

As the conversation goes on, Debbie grows increasingly quiet. So I do my best to draw Steven out. Did you did you get married?

No, I've never been married. I've had relationships that they come and go.

Would you say that you that you've been in love?

I've been infatuated, proved that.

And I lived with a lady for many years, but that was back in the eighties.

What can you say about her, Joanne?

Hmm uh, she died in a long camp. Sure, and I lived with her for like nine years.

Oh boy, did she pass away while you were living together?

Yeah?

That must have been hard.

Yeah was, But I moved on.

Stephen tells us that he was in the Navy for four years, that he missed Vietnam by just a month. Most of his professional life was spent working in factories. I asked him about his brothers why they no longer speak, but he says nothing in particular happened. They just drifted. Overall, he says his life has been nominal and fortunate. When I ask how so, he cites the fact that he's never been homeless, although there was a brief period in twenty fourteen when he ended up in a veteran shelter.

I took a video of her telling the story. I don't know if you're interested in hearing it.

DeBie wants Stephen to hear what he meant to Anita in Anita's own words. In response, Stephen says that he doesn't have access to a car right now, plus he's sick in bed. I assume he thinks we're asking him to go somewhere, So I try again to explain, we could try to play a little bit of the video over the phone so that you can hear Anita's voice.

Not right now.

I'm good, it's no misunderstanding. Stephen doesn't want to hear Anita Bill. Debbie tries to explain her mom's feelings for the baby she held during that flight to America.

I think in some ways she felt like sympathical with you, you know, like sympathetic with you that you were both leaving your homeland.

Hm hmm.

I mean, is it strange to think that as a baby you were able to have such a strong effect on somebody.

Well, I don't think of it.

As that, but well, how do you think of it?

That could be anything like I love this little toddler, you know, I love Peta. It could be.

Anything.

The conversation feels like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. If it's a battle between optimism and pessimism, it feels like pessimism is winning.

It was surprising to get the letter, and I thought worries.

People doing Yeah, I just felt like it was a gift.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I'm a little old now to be concerned.

Did you feel like it's too late?

Yeah?

I do.

That.

Baby Stephano doesn't exist anymore. When he was taken out of Anita's arms, he became Stephen, and Stephen is a sixty eight year old man dealing with ill health. Feeling of a stranger who encountered him for one day as a toddler seemed largely irrelevant. Debbie wanted to give Stefano a gift, but Stephen doesn't want that gift.

I'm going to have to discharge now, so I'm going to leave you folks.

Me Before he goes, though, Stephen asks if we could mail him a copy of the photograph of Anita and him on the plane.

Mail that to me.

Yeah, please, okay, thank you, Okay.

Thank you.

It was so nice talking to you. I really appreciate you taking the time. I wish you the best. I wish you well.

Yay, thank you.

After we hang up, Debbie and I sit in silence for a moment. Yeah, hmm.

Yeah.

It's hard to know what to make of any of it. On the one hand, Stephen's reaction is reasonable. It is strange to be called up by the daughter of a woman you spent one day with when you were a two year old. In some ways, the story of Anita and Stephano was an easier one to tell when it was incomplete. A woman immigrates with a baby and thinks about him for the rest of her life, and then what the baby becomes a man and doesn't care. The

He took it differently than I thought, definitely took it differently than I thought it Just I think the part that makes me cry a little bit is that he didn't want to hear my mom. Yeah, but you can't make people, you know, see things the way you see them.

You can never assume a gift, you know. Debbie is disappointed, though, not just because of what she wanted and didn't get, but because of what she did get. Well, our picture of Stephen's life is fragmented. Did the details he shared contained a lot of sorrow.

And I don't know how my mom. I think maybe how would it have been for her if she would have actually met him or talked to him?

You know, maybe it's better that I did.

How do you how do you think she would have dealt with it? Like, what do you think she would have said to him?

Oh, she would have told him she loved him. She probably would have invited him over. Really, she would have figured out a way to feed him. My mom loved deeply. Yeah, she really loved people deeply. The love that was more than pizza. He can't. I don't think he could even comprehend it. I think most people couldn't comprehend that.

In that video of Anita, the one that Stephen didn't want to hear, there's a moment where Anita wonders if she's being understood.

That's a nice story, and I don't know if you understand it. I think so.

When I fir saw it, I assumed she was referring to her accent or less than perfect English. But now I wonder if there was something more behind it. We live our lives in the desperate hope that if we find the right words, tell the story the right way, our love will be understood. We will be understood. We hope, even as we misconstrue and grow offended and talk past each other, we hope love, some iota of it will get through, even though time and time again were disappointed.

Now that the Fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage to pose, take this moment to deserve.

If we meant it, if we turn we remember, felt around for funds from things that accidentally. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Ben Natta, Haaffrey, Lucy Sullivan, and Trina Menino. Emma Monger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, and