2019-12-05
24 分钟Modern.
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Produced by the Ilab at WBUR Boston from the New York Times and WBUR Boston.
This is modern love stories of love, loss, and redemption.
I'm your host, Meghna Chakrabarti.
Never tell our business to strangers.
That's what Jennifer Masio was told growing up, but it wasn't until she was an adult that she learned the reason why.
Jennifer's essay is read by Ruth Wilson.
Ruth has starred in the affair and Luther.
You can see her now in his dark materials on HBO.
Nine years ago, when my mother suffered a minor heart attack, my father and I learned that for more than two decades she had been lying about her age.
She was actually three years older than my father, not two years younger as she had always said.
Apparently sensing that her real age might be relevant to her treatment, she had given the nurse her actual birth date.
And then my father and I saw it scrawled on her plastic hospital bracelet.
That my mother had maintained this deception for so long shouldn't have surprised me.
My parents were all about deception on a grand scale, false identities, hidden pasts, dark deeds.
As an only child, I was mostly isolated with my parents throughout my childhood as we crisscrossed the country, went bankrupt three times, and had run ins with the law.
It was not a normal childhood, but then, what did I know of normal?
My parents were my whole world, and I loved them.
I was especially devoted to my father, who showered me with attention, sneaking candy under my pillow that my mother had forbidden me to eat.