« Modern Love

Encore | Sharing The Shame With Anna Chlumsky

2019-04-10 | 🔗

Anna Chlumsky ("Veep") reads Brooks Rinehart's essay, on 90 days that changed the entire course of one family's life.

This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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oh the from the New York Times and W B- U R Boston. This is modern. The stories of love loss and redemption. I'm your host magnetron puberty. The ninety days may seem like a passing phase, but for Brooke Reinhardt. It was the amount of time when her beautiful life matters. The new house and plans to start a family all came to Please stop Annika, the stars in the hit HBO Comedy Vive now in its final season. She reads: Us Brooks essay sharing shame. After my arrest
we've been married for just over a year when the FBI showed up at our house at six, a dot m and arrested me I my husband to, although at the time that seemed beside the point, a stickler for Rules who had never even gotten a speeding ticket, I was handcuffed in my mismatch. Pajamas and hauled away. My teeth won't even brushed. the charges against me against us both were wire, fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. state of shock. I began babbling to the FBI agents that I would never open mail that wasn't addressed to me. Never ever Show me were that simple, When the indictment was unsealed, I learned my dear husband had in the simplest terms use my identity to embezzle tens of thousands of dollars from his workplace among other crimes.
If using my identity made it look as if I was involved. I wasn't appeared in a federal courtroom to plead not guilty. A newspaper photographer chased me down the street trying to get a picture of my face. I handed over my passport to the court. It took drug tests, Does that almost made me laugh what would show up my Clarendon. I was assigned a probation officer that I had to see. Every week I took more drug tests wasn't allowed to leave the state unless the court approved. I died inside day by day. I vacated the beautiful house, my husband and I had bought eight months earlier, leaving my clothes, new kitchen gadgets for my bridal shower leaving the new neighborhood where I had begun to make friends and leaving
My husband and I moved home the twenty eight year old, going back to my parents house, while my personal life was plastered across News everyone saying I had conspired to commit crimes at first has been tried to communicate with me, try to apologize, my lawyer contended, it was unwise to be in touch given the charges, so my contact with my husband, my love of five years, ceased completely. the federal charges were held against me for ninety days. That might not like a long time when discussing say party plans, but when facing criminal charges losing your home and leaving the man you loved or thought you loved, because after all, who was he really. Without so much as a word of goodbye when that's your life. Ninety days is an eternity. I decided to sleep on the couch at my parents, house
able to go into my bedroom, where I had played with dolls, learn to paint my nails and held slumber parties. You seem like a sign true aggression and failure to sleep in my childhood bed at twenty eight. So I slept on the couch which was perpendicular to the tv, so I could lie down and watch mindless programming. All night it was parallel. the matching love seat furniture set covered in stiff green, outdated fabric. I slept on that couch for ninety nights, the full period I faced federal charges And for those ninety nights, my mother slept on the loveseat her limbs hanging off at odd angles. I didn't ask her to sleep there. She just did
We have so many beds in this house. My father said: why isn't anyone using them because Brooke camped my mother, answered, I mostly stopped eating my mother mostly stop eating. My father tried to encourage us to take a few bite at each meal. We can't Yeah my days were spent in a dark haze sides about accidental death while driving. I would think fast. What I need to go to MR turn. In his tree Walking upstairs, I would think what, if I were to trip and fall backwards. Might I hit my head and never wake up. He could barely see my mother during the night, even with the light from the tv, though she was only ten feet away. Occasionally
I could hear her breathing or her movements as she adjusted in arm or leg and her cramped quarters. I stare in her direction wondering if she was staring back. I didn't sleep for more than thirty minutes. At a time. My heart pounding me: okay sheet, whisper, the okay, For back was our code, there is no real answer, but asking the question was enough and the answer- the repeated question at least meant that we were alive. During those nights we learned about infomercial inventions from snug to magic, jacks, Discuss their merits and pitfalls each morning.
With sleeves, I said: have you ever thought your so called you couldn't move your arm out from under your blanket to grab your coffee, the buzz of the television filled, our nights, you, ok, ok,. At her lowest point, my mother spent a full day on the laundry room floor, slumped against the washing machine unable to move the sea. If my situation had consumed her, her heart had broken so so. early that her body and mind broke too. I knew she needed help. So did I. I wasn't ready for help
so I anticipated that some day when this was over, my weeks would be filled with therapists and doctors all trying to make me whole again, but not yet so. I helped my mother look up psychiatrists on her insurance plan. We drove thirty miles. Her first and only appointment. I waited outside on the way, home, she recounted how the psychiatrist had asked her to make goals her mangle, my mother, was to stop making this about her, she felt guilty that her before somehow stealing the show my mother's making this about her was actually saving me. to know that someone loved me so much was willing to feel my pain so intensely that it kept her on the laundry room floor for a day made me feel encased in a bubble of protection.
I began to wonder if sadness was this finite thing, a big black mass, of which there was only so much in the world. If so, my mother was sharing it with me, so that I did not have to bear the full weight the more she took the more she was unable to eat and sleep the faster her heart raced, the less of it. There was for me. It wasn't just my mother who came to my rescue during those months and the men months after I navigated a painful divorce, so my new house lost many possessions much of my money. It was my father to made sure I kept him forward and didn't give up. It was my friend from high school and her husband who dubbed their home the halfway house a place where I was welcome at any time, It was my college roommate who flew from St Louis to help me clean my house, so I could sell it.
Sorority sister in Canada who sent me a dozen emails every day to keep my mind occupied. It was many of the people in the small town, where I grew up, who sent endless cards, flowers and food each trying to show love and support until after ninety days, the charges against me dropped, my husband pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison. Few months later, I had a routine o b g Y n checkup. My doctor came into the room glancing at my file I hadn't seen her for more than a year when I was rested at its Iterated traded local news coverage. Everyone knew, or so it seemed to me- and I grew a to averting my eyes to feeling that
your shame and humiliation whenever I went out in public, but somehow my doctorate miss the news seeing her friendly expression. I could tell she had no idea. I buy she said smiling. So when you were here last year, you said you might want to try to get pregnant around this time. I went numb. She was right, I had been here in my newlywed bliss talking about babies in prenatal vitamins. I stared at her something bad happened to me. I said unsure of how to begin. Then it all came out my arrest,
my husband's deceit, the charges, the end of my marriage, the loss of my house, the whole harrowing ordeal when I finished her eyes were wet. Have you survived this? She asked I thought for a second. While the charges were held against me, I slipped on the couch in my parents house spent ninety days on that couch and my mom. She slept for ninety nine on the love seat. My doctor blinked unable to hold back her tears what a palm she said softly what mom.
Hm Anna Chlumsky Reading Brook Reinhart's essay sharing shame after my arrest will hear from brook. and her mom in a minute, Hmm, Hmm Hmm, I laughed following my friend and I often play falling, be forgotten.
if, by together I mean sitting next to each other playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes when I open a spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed. It may have happened again. I have one friend. who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words. Then I was get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something like that me and my dad. We like a sponge together, and I wish to out I it said A c k, p o t yeah now run nice. I'm same as earth's sky? The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try spelling bee and all our games at N Y Times dot com. Slash games were back. It's modern love, the podcast I Magna Chakrabarti.
Dan Jones. Editor of modern love for the New York Times says: Brooke Reinharts essay is one of those that really asks an important question. What do we think is love? What is it really and the love that really ends up rescue her and sustaining her is her familial love and her mother and her father and that is really the lifelong love for her. Well, we talk to Ex mom, Joe and and oh says, she'll, never forget when Brook half crying half laughing looked at her and said mom. We don't have any practice at this job. Is the family had lived a charmed life until then, so he asked her if she ever doubted her daughters, innocence. I know her. I knew she couldn't have done such a thing.
and when we got to court on that morning she was sitting at this big long table and it was heartbreaking and she turned around and said kind of mouth. I didn't do it and I have chuckled to myself like will. I know that I didn't do anything like. I just know it. I just knew it so that was the beauty. In this whole horrible situation was happening. Faith and trust in your child. But weeks later, with no clear end in sight, job and to unravel. She said she replied
added her own despair and pulling attention away from Brooke. Then she read the modern love essay, the story. She wrote with such a love story to me and I I truly ah I so greatly appreciated, but it helped me understand that and it got rid of a lot of my guilt because I felt guilty. I was a terrible feeling as a mother, so then to read those lines I thought. Oh, maybe it did help her. She felt that I was carrying some of her paint and maybe that just help that's Joe Reinhart Brooks mother. Next, we'll have an update from Brook herself and it's worth the wait
I love spelling bee my boyfriend and I often play spelling bee together by together it's sitting next to each other playing individually and not cheating. Sometimes when I open up spelling bee- and I see that you have completed a few words on your own, I feel a little betrayed in salary. It may have happened again. I have one friend who I will send screenshots from spelling bee of inappropriate words. Then I was get nervous. I sent it to my parents or something like that me and my dad. We like a sponge together and I wish to out I it said
a c k, p o t yeah now run. Nice. I'm same is risky. The digital puzzles editor for the New York Times. You can try, spelling bee and all our games at annoying times dot com. Flash games will is Brook Reinhardt doing today she joined US visa. From her garage in Denver so nine years later, and to say that I'm doing great would probably be an understatement, I'm doing better than fantastic, I reconnected a guy that I knew back in high school, my home town and ended up dating long distance for a little bit and he moved out here a couple of years later and we actually just come to our first son five days ago,
so now. You know why Brooke had to duck into the garage to talk with Us Brook says she never spoke to her ex husband again and is firmly focused on the future. For the record, pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges and was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. Looking back on her arrest The lessons she learned about a mother's, unconditional love, continue to resonate. I do feel like I've got a taste of what motherhood was from being able to see it from the other side cuz, I was able to see so strongly just how much a mom would do for her child and now unable to that, having my own little one and again it's it's so new that I have do anything for him and I know I would in the future- and I can even now that I see what he looks like. I can kind of fast forward and see what he looks like as a toddler and what he'll look like when he goes to college, and I start He would sleep on the couch or do anything that this little guy needs for me. Brooke Reinhardt,
she now lives in Colorado and works for a public relations agency in New York City, thanks again to Anna Chlumsky for reading this week's essay. Here's why she chose this piece this Essay really just encompassed all of the ways that love can both kind of be witches and then save us and I think that many of us, his daughters throughout our lives when we're not as downtrodden as this author was, I think, sometimes it's harder for us to accept that kind of love from our parents. It just felt so pure Anna Chlumsky. You can see her now in season seven of the H B, o comedy veep next week, Lorraine to solve it,
Dividing line as real as any in America, those who grapple with race and those who do not but like most dividing lines, it's impossible to tell him which side a person stands by looking at them, or at least that's what I thought at the time. Modern love is a production of the New York Times and W. You are Boston, NPR station, it's produced direct. An edited by Caitlin, Oki origin, scoring and sound design by Matt Reed Add there's our executive producer. Daniel Jones is the editor of modern love for the New York Times, an adviser to the show special Thanks D the heading I astronomy and immunity. At the New York Times there here for the modern LE pen task was conceived by these attempted additional me. courtesy of a pm. Chakrabarti see you next week.
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Transcript generated on 2022-04-16.