#43 Maura

Speaker 2 Hello, Jackie Cohen.

Speaker 1 In the last 15 hours, you have texted me more than you've texted me in the last six months. What's going on?

Speaker 2 Okay, so I got a whole bunch of headshots taken, and I need to choose one.

Speaker 1 We're lucky for you, I'm doing nothing right now.

Speaker 2 You're in front of your smartphone right now.

Speaker 1 My smartphone, old man. Yes, I'm in front of my smartphone.

Speaker 2 Okay, here's the first one. Kind of a bearded bohemian look.
Here we go. Just sent it to your cell.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. It makes it look like a bum.

Speaker 2 All right. Okay.
How about this one beside a plant?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 Denim shirt and denim vest. Oh, God, no.
In a Kangal cap?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 In a law library.

Speaker 2 Sitting in a beanbag chair.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 2 Eating a powdered donut. Of course not.

Speaker 2 Okay. All I've got left is this one of me in a turtleneck and a pair of overalls.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, I like overalls.

Speaker 2 From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Mara.

Speaker 2 Right after the break.

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Speaker 2 Here are some things to know about Mara. She has a clock in her bathroom, so even when she's in the shower, she can make sure she's running on time.

Speaker 2 When she meets up with friends, she brings along sparkling water so everyone stays hydrated.

Speaker 2 And on her high school rowing team, she was the coxswain, the one who steers the boat boat and keeps everyone on course.

Speaker 2 In other words, Mara gets the job done, which is why the one job she can't get done bothers her so much that it pops up in her dreams.

Speaker 10 You know how people have an anxiety dream and it's like you're naked, or you're in a test room and you've not studied. I don't know what yours is, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 I've had that stuff happen in real life. Wait, you're talking about dreaming?

Speaker 8 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 10 So I have a recurring dream about driving that I'm behind the wheel of a car and then all of a sudden there's just like this creeping anxiety where I realize that I can't drive.

Speaker 2 Mara does not have a driver's license. Her fear of driving began 11 years ago because of what happened to one of her cousins.
One of her many, many cousins.

Speaker 10 I have about 40 first cousins.

Speaker 2 Do you know all the names of your 40 cousins?

Speaker 11 Of course I do.

Speaker 2 Could you recite all 40 names?

Speaker 10 Dominica, Michael, and Catherine.

Speaker 10 Shana, Ben, and Mary.

Speaker 2 As Mara lists, I try to remember the names of my cousins, of which there are two.

Speaker 2 There's Marty and a man named

Speaker 2 I want to say Benjamin.

Speaker 10 The twins, Chris and Kevin, and Tina.

Speaker 2 In my family, cousins are a coincidence. A murder of Rando's with the same grandparents.
But in Mara's family, a cousin is a friend.

Speaker 2 And of all Mara's 40 cousins,

Speaker 2 there was one who was her best friend.

Speaker 10 Shannon.

Speaker 2 Shannon.

Speaker 2 Mara was two years younger than Shannon and grew up in Shannon's hand-me-downs. They celebrated Christmas and birthdays together, spent whole summer days at the pool.
Shannon was her cool big sister.

Speaker 10 Someone that you always kind of wanted to have in your corner. You know, she was the person that I got most excited to have play dates with or sleepovers with.

Speaker 2 As they grew older, Mara and Shannon would go on long walks together, talking about their families and gossiping about boys. In the fall of 2008, Shannon went away to college.

Speaker 2 And that summer, Mara was looking forward to seeing her again at an upcoming family party.

Speaker 10 It was July 3rd. It was a Friday afternoon, and it was my brother's graduation party.

Speaker 2 Mara's family was hosting, so the day of the party, Mara helped her mom prepare for for guests, tidying the laundry room to make it into a bar area.

Speaker 10 So I was sweeping the laundry room, and I remember the phone ringing and my mom picking up, and it was my grandfather.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I remember

Speaker 10 my mom saying Shannon's name and this, her,

Speaker 10 you know, the sound that people get when they're stressed and their voice just gets tight.

Speaker 10 It was like, Shannon.

Speaker 10 And then she came into the room and she said, Shannon's been in an accident.

Speaker 2 She's dead.

Speaker 10 With the place still kind of decorated like a graduation party with streamers and confetti, you know, my family just started rolling in.

Speaker 2 The party turned into an informal vigil, with the family consoling each other in small, hushed groups. It was here that Mara overheard an aunt sharing the graphic details of Shannon's death.

Speaker 2 These were images that would stick with her for years to come.

Speaker 2 Mara's aunt explained that while driving back from the Jersey Shore for the graduation party, Shannon, her license barely a few weeks old, accidentally swerved off the highway and drove through a guardrail and into a tree.

Speaker 2 The car spun around and hit another tree. It was the second tree that crushed her.

Speaker 10 You know, when news like that hits you, it doesn't really hit you. You know, I cried a little bit, but it was like this kind of sprint and then like normalcy.

Speaker 2 It only began to sink in a few weeks later while Mara was traveling for a race. She was staying in a hotel room with her rowing team.
It was her birthday.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I remember

Speaker 10 like at midnight going to the bathroom and running the shower and just like sobbing.

Speaker 10 I think for the first time, like realizing that this older cousin who I admired so much,

Speaker 10 like I was going to get older than her,

Speaker 10 she was always going to be the same age.

Speaker 2 Crying in the hotel bathroom, Mara turned 17 years old.

Speaker 2 Turning 17 in New Jersey meant it was time to get her driver's license. And Mara had already begun the process.
She'd gotten her permit. She'd been practicing her driving.

Speaker 2 But with Shannon's death, Mara couldn't bring herself to actually take the final test.

Speaker 10 My parents were pushing me to schedule the test, and I was kind of like, oh, I don't know, you know, excuse, excuse, I'm busy, I'm traveling for a crew.

Speaker 10 This

Speaker 10 image of the accident would come to mind at even just the thought of getting behind the wheel.

Speaker 2 But her parents kept insisting. The way Mara explains it, their approach was, throw the kid into the deep end and they'll learn how to swim.
They wanted Mara to stop dwelling and push through.

Speaker 2 So one day after church, Mara's father demanded she take the wheel.

Speaker 10 My dad was basically like, you're driving home. And I was like, I don't want to.

Speaker 10 But he made me. And we were, I don't know, a mile and a half from my parents.
And I can remember just being utterly terrified and feeling like my stomach was just dropping through my body.

Speaker 10 And my dad being being in the front seat and like raising his voice and making gasps and like pulling in and thinking to myself, I never want to do that again.

Speaker 10 And that was literally the last time

Speaker 10 I ever was behind the wheel of a car.

Speaker 2 11 years later and still, Mara's parents see her inability to get her license in practical terms. Adults just need to drive.
They've never been able to see it the way Mara does.

Speaker 2 So at no point were you able to say, the reason why I don't want to drive is just it connects too much to Shannon?

Speaker 10 Oh, I have in various ways over the years. It's just never been heard.

Speaker 2 Mara says any conversation with her parents about driving devolves into a fight. Her parents push her to move past her fear.
Mara says she can't.

Speaker 2 But they never really talk about what's behind the fear. Instead, they talk in circles, and everyone leaves resentful.
This happened most recently, last Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 Because of the pandemic, Mara didn't want to take the train from DC to Jersey. Her mother didn't want to make the long drive to pick her up.
Things grew heated.

Speaker 2 Mara remembers her mom eventually saying, well, you're the one who decided not to get your license. It felt like the same argument they've been having since she was 17.

Speaker 2 And so now you're 28 years old and you don't have your license.

Speaker 10 I'm 28 years old and I don't have my license.

Speaker 11 Saying it out loud makes me want to cry.

Speaker 2 Mara is desperate to change the conversation with her parents, and the solution, she thinks, is to get her license.

Speaker 2 That way, they can stop fighting about the license and finally talk about why it's been so hard for her. about what's behind her fear.
The only problem, Mara is still terrified of driving.

Speaker 2 So, she's come to me for help getting on the road and eventually passing the driver's test. I believe I failed the written part a couple times.

Speaker 2 And I wasn't a good driver, and I'm still not a great driver, and I don't really like driving.

Speaker 2 When I play Grand Theft Auto, I can barely steal a single auto. But I remind Mara that even so, they still gave me a license.
I don't have any special skill, any great hand-eye coordination, and yet

Speaker 11 I'm street legal.

Speaker 2 Right? I'm just basically like, yeah, any asshole can do it.

Speaker 2 And I'm that asshole. And I'm confident that Mara can be that asshole too.
So this is what I want to hear you say.

Speaker 11 You ready?

Speaker 12 I'm ready.

Speaker 2 I'm 28 years old.

Speaker 10 I'm 28 years old.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to get my driver's license.

Speaker 10 And I'm going to get my driver's license.

Speaker 2 How does that feel?

Speaker 10 It feels good. I feel like I'm going to cry again.

Speaker 2 After the break, I coxson Mara to the finish line. Check this out.

Speaker 2 Porchside, raise your arms. Stroke, stroke.
I mean, drive, drive, tune that radio. Pump that AC.
Linque voice. Get your head out of the flares.

Speaker 11 Why couldn't you be like your twin brother?

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Speaker 2 With her road test a few months away, Mara will need someone to practice her driving with. It's still the height of the pandemic, so I can't fly to DC.
I'll need to offer my tutelage over video.

Speaker 2 This means recruiting a local proxy, some DC-based Patsy to fill the passenger seat while holding me aloft on their phone. Mara suggests I speak with her friend Joe.

Speaker 2 Joe describes Mara as the kind of person who's always there to help, stepping up before you even ask, so she's happy to help Mara learn to drive. But there's just one problem.
I hate podcasts.

Speaker 1 I don't think I could connect with them.

Speaker 2 Well, she's inside of one now.

Speaker 2 Although she's known Mara for years, Joe says Mara only recently told her she doesn't know how to drive.

Speaker 2 Mara's shame about not having a license is something she's kept hidden, even from her closest friends.

Speaker 15 I was very surprised by it. Thur and I and our friends have gone on, you know, tons of trips together, and it had never crossed my mind that she couldn't drive the car at any point.

Speaker 2 Is it sort of like when you find out that a friend is Canadian? Like

Speaker 2 you just thought she was people.

Speaker 2 What about this lot?

Speaker 2 Lesson one: The Basics.

Speaker 17 Is it open?

Speaker 2 For her first driving lesson, Joe brings Mara to an empty stadium parking lot.

Speaker 2 My virtual self, or best self, rides along in a phone holder fastened above the glove compartment, not unlike one of those dashboard hula dancers.

Speaker 2 Get yourself comfortable so that you can reach the gas as well as the brake.

Speaker 2 I've always feared I lack dignity.

Speaker 2 But taking on the aspect of a talking car air freshener is a new low.

Speaker 18 Okay, here you go.

Speaker 4 Oh, girl. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 Mara's hands are visibly shaking. This is her very first time behind the wheel of a car since her father had her drive home from church 11 years ago.

Speaker 2 Foot reaches the various pedals down there.

Speaker 10 Release the parking lot. This is the brake?

Speaker 13 And that other one's the gas.

Speaker 2 Could you have them confused?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 2 With the pedals all sorted, Mara takes hold of Joe's hand.

Speaker 10 And let's take a deep breath.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 4 Let's jet.

Speaker 10 Oh shit, I'm in reverse.

Speaker 2 Mara starts slow, taking a lap around the empty parking lot. At first, she coasts, too scared to even even accelerate.

Speaker 5 But then, she's using the gas.

Speaker 11 I am just using the gas.

Speaker 12 She accelerated.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 12 We're at a cool 10 miles per hour.

Speaker 2 But in spite of her anxiety, Mara takes the driving quickly.

Speaker 12 Look at that blanker.

Speaker 12 You are.

Speaker 2 Once she has a feel for the car, she even decides to tackle parallel parking with some abandoned cones.

Speaker 5 And between that cone is going to be where you have to terall all park.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 18 You can call it Jackie Cohen.

Speaker 12 Jackie Cohen.

Speaker 2 But unlike Jackie Cohen, this cone doesn't laugh at you or bang down the phone when you call. It stands tall in tribute to safety.
And also unlike Jackie Cohen, it's orange with a white stripe.

Speaker 2 Though Jackie does have that orange sweater vest she wears with a white turtleneck, makes her look like a creamsicle. But although Jackie Cohen is icy, she's no treat when she does.

Speaker 10 I'm gonna turn off the car and put my emergency brake on.

Speaker 2 With the lesson over, we sit in the parking lot. Joe, how do you feel?

Speaker 18 How do you feel, Mara's done?

Speaker 10 Mastered level one.

Speaker 17 That's amazing.

Speaker 18 You've done it all at this point.

Speaker 10 Except actually, like, driven on a road.

Speaker 2 Lesson two.

Speaker 8 The road.

Speaker 2 These quiet neighborhoods are a welcome respite from the normal DC bustle.

Speaker 2 This is Mara's cousin Mike, who's taking her driving on an actual street. Mike and Mara grew up together.
When Mike was overseas and homesick, Mara was the only family member who came to visit him.

Speaker 2 But in spite of their closeness, it turns out that like Joe, Mike never knew about Mara's lack of a license. Now that he does, though, he's offering his full support.

Speaker 8 Is that good?

Speaker 2 Mike is a staff sergeant in the Army and has the kind of can-do attitude that must come in handy when motivating a cadet off a plane with the gentle poke of a bayonet. Driving is possible.

Speaker 2 Driving is for everyone. So to me.
Mara is at ease driving through the streets of DC as Mike offers helpful tips. Turn signals are a crutch.
You don't need them.

Speaker 20 Blinkers are not for you, though.

Speaker 10 They're for other people.

Speaker 2 First of all, it's nobody's business where I'm going.

Speaker 17 This might be the most American thing I've ever heard said.

Speaker 2 You had to operate in a parking garage yet? I haven't.

Speaker 2 Mara and Mike make a bathroom stop at a grocery store, which affords Mara a chance to practice parking in a parking garage, and Mike a chance to practice sharing his heart.

Speaker 2 I think parking was one of the hardest things for me, probably.

Speaker 2 It's hard for me to admit.

Speaker 2 But after all, masculinity is just a cage, so why not break out of it?

Speaker 13 Wow, how knowledgeable.

Speaker 19 Thank you for sharing, Michael.

Speaker 2 What is that noise? Mike's keen military ear senses danger in the underground parking garage.

Speaker 3 That was terrifying.

Speaker 2 It's terrifying. Are you getting that?

Speaker 4 It is terrifying.

Speaker 2 You know, maybe we should just get out of here.

Speaker 13 Be in the corner, run.

Speaker 2 Creeping around parking garages, laughing with a partner in crime. After years of fear and avoidance, Mara is finally catching up on what she missed as a teenager first learning to drive.

Speaker 2 From where I sit, in a cup holder, it's nice to hear her having fun.

Speaker 2 Mara's handling everything so well that I'm tempted to suggest we skip the rest of our lessons and just go to the movies.

Speaker 2 Theaters have cup holders too after all, and I hear Boss Baby 2 is getting good reviews. But there's still one lesson Mara needs, which brings us to lesson 3, The Highway.

Speaker 2 Mara's road test is only a few weeks away, and she still hasn't driven on the highway. So while visiting Austin, Texas, Mara calls upon her friend Nora to take her driving on a real Texas interstate.

Speaker 2 Mara's always been there for Nora. When Nora's grandmother died, Mara stayed up all night with her so she wouldn't be alone.
Nora's glad to help.

Speaker 10 My hands are sweating.

Speaker 4 Mine are too.

Speaker 17 My hands are also sweating, I have to say, just like watching.

Speaker 2 Nora is holding the phone up so I can see the highway from Mara's perspective. Semis whiz by, making Nora's mini Cooper seem even tinier.
We're on I-35, Austin's only major freeway. It's chaotic.

Speaker 16 All right, and you've got the green arrows.

Speaker 16 Ship, man.

Speaker 21 Y'all,

Speaker 21 there's people coming up behind you, but you'll get in the far left to get on.

Speaker 22 So you have to get over fairly quickly here to get onto the highway. So

Speaker 2 all right we're we're getting on mara emerges onto the highway tentatively a little too slow for the flow of traffic

Speaker 22 man i don't know if i'm ready for this you stay in the then stay in the farthest right lane and we can get right off there's an exit immediately after do i have to look what do i do no just stay in the right lane um

Speaker 22 do you want to stay in this lane yep let's let's exit okay now just stay where you are and we're just gonna get off at this exit i'm feeling weirdly overwhelmed right now okay look all right all right all right let's pause and pull over.

Speaker 17 Mara turns to

Speaker 17 across the right.

Speaker 22 Can you get to the right lane?

Speaker 17 I don't know. No?

Speaker 12 Okay, we get into the right.

Speaker 17 Can you go one more?

Speaker 21 There's no one behind you.

Speaker 3 You're good.

Speaker 17 We can go all the way over.

Speaker 2 Once off the highway, Mara finds a parking lot and comes to a stop. All told, her first ever highway drive was less than two minutes long.

Speaker 13 Can you hold my hands?

Speaker 23 Yeah, I'm gonna put you down, Jonathan.

Speaker 13 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 18 Just, yeah, yes.

Speaker 17 Take a break.

Speaker 4 I don't know why I'm crying.

Speaker 13 I mean, I know why I'm crying.

Speaker 23 No, even regardless of the other stuff.

Speaker 13 That was my first time getting in the highway

Speaker 19 since she died.

Speaker 10 You know, and like, just like knowing and like feeling the like the speed in which like in a moment something could happen.

Speaker 13 It felt out of control, even though I know I was in control.

Speaker 19 I'm glad it was with you.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 10 I want to try it again. Okay.

Speaker 13 Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 2 That's a stop. In spite of her anxiety, Mara gets back on the highway.

Speaker 22 Okay, go straight and go kind of left and we'll stay in this lane the whole time until we get out, okay? Okay. Pause, pause.
Okay, now go, go, go, go.

Speaker 2 This time, Mara stays on the highway for a few exits before getting off.

Speaker 2 When I ask her why she felt so strongly about getting back on, she says she didn't want to let the fear build into something bigger, the way it has for years.

Speaker 2 Mara wants to get the job done.

Speaker 4 Um, Mara. Yes.

Speaker 2 How you feeling?

Speaker 10 I'm feeling pretty anxious right now.

Speaker 2 It's finally the day of Mara's road test. She's brought along a support group to help distract from her stress.
Her friend Jenna, her cousin Dominica, and of course, cousin Mike.

Speaker 2 I'm extremely hungover to that.

Speaker 18 How are you?

Speaker 2 Hearing this, Mara springs into action. Not unlike a thoughtful, nurturing version of the Kool-Aid man.

Speaker 18 I brought sparkling water.

Speaker 17 Oh, yes, I love you so much. Yes, we do.

Speaker 10 um, different flavors, like four different.

Speaker 10 I'm gonna go, uh, it's 15 20 of, so I'm gonna go check in.

Speaker 21 Okay, great.

Speaker 4 We'll be here.

Speaker 22 Yeah,

Speaker 2 while her friends wait in the car, Mara heads off to the test, where she will adjust mirrors and check blind spots.

Speaker 2 She will signal right and she will signal left, making it everybody's business where she's going. When she approaches stop signs, she will slow down 150 feet before the corner.

Speaker 2 She'll even deal with a lane-hopping drunkard on an e-bike that feels like an obstacle out of a video game. And 53 minutes later, she will emerge.

Speaker 13 Oh my god, look,

Speaker 13 you're only one.

Speaker 10 Thank you. My adrenaline's still going.

Speaker 19 I still have cotton up.

Speaker 2 Mara is 28 years old. And finally, she has her driver's license.

Speaker 2 For years, Mara felt so much shame about not driving that she hid it from the people she loved. But now, they're all here celebrating with her.

Speaker 2 She says she'd never have been able to do any of this without having asked for their help.

Speaker 5 Let me see. Wow, you're so beautiful.

Speaker 13 What? Like, no one ever gets

Speaker 4 you.

Speaker 2 In the weeks after getting her license, Mara tells everyone. She calls her sister.
She texts her friends. But there are still two people she can't bring herself to tell.
Her parents.

Speaker 2 The driver's license was meant to clear the way for a conversation about Shannon's death. But as hard as getting her license was, the idea of talking with her parents seems even harder.

Speaker 2 She's worried that she'll try to bring up her big feelings, and her parents will make their here we go again faces and their let's put all of this behind us sounds.

Speaker 2 Then her dad will grow quiet and her mom will start to cry. Everyone will get upset and once again, Mara will feel unheard.
And so she procrastinates for three months.

Speaker 2 But then one evening, around midnight, she sends her parents, Andy and Sue, an email. In it, she says she finally got her license and wants to tell them all about it.

Speaker 20 So we need to hear more detail. How did this all come about?

Speaker 10 I don't know. Where do you want me to start?

Speaker 2 Well, firstly, initially, I mean, how did you feel when you received Mara's email?

Speaker 20 I was crying.

Speaker 20 Really? Very excited for her. Yeah, I'm crying now, even admitting it.
Just so happy for her.

Speaker 20 It was a huge obstacle for her, just emotionally.

Speaker 24 It's a,

Speaker 24 you know, not to be too dramatic, but a demon, if you will.

Speaker 2 Sue nods.

Speaker 20 Yeah, I'm sure she probably told you the story of the week of her test, driving test with her cousin's funeral.

Speaker 24 Who died in a car crash?

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 2 Mara had told me that raising the topic of Shannon would be a struggle. I wasn't expecting Sue and Andy to be the ones to bring it up first.
And neither was Mara.

Speaker 2 At the mention of Shannon, she freezes up.

Speaker 10 I'm like very surprised that

Speaker 10 you have always made that association.

Speaker 10 Because of the way that me not driving has been frequently brought up in our family, it's been...

Speaker 10 talked about as this very intentional choice

Speaker 10 and feeling like in some ways like not entitled to grieve.

Speaker 10 We haven't talked about Shannon in years, like truly.

Speaker 20 I'm sorry that you felt like we were avoiding the conversation.

Speaker 24 Yeah, I think during the experience, the following years,

Speaker 24 my recollection is

Speaker 24 that

Speaker 24 it's something that we try to acknowledge verbally, but without

Speaker 24 creating a

Speaker 24 crutch, if you will.

Speaker 2 Andy and Sue feared too much sympathy might provide Mara with an excuse to give up on driving altogether.

Speaker 2 But Mara didn't want a license to drive, so much as she wanted license to feel whatever she was feeling.

Speaker 10 This wasn't just a mental block. This wasn't something I was overthinking, but this was trauma.

Speaker 11 Yeah, we knew it.

Speaker 24 That's what I was saying.

Speaker 3 We didn't do that.

Speaker 24 We didn't do a great job of communicating it, but we knew it. We knew it all along we knew it right from that day

Speaker 17 you know we we heard you

Speaker 24 and this is the roughest thing about being a parent there is no playbook i mean we're at a complete loss

Speaker 2 no parent wants to watch their kid suffer in the aftermath of shannon's death they'd wanted to say something important and wise something that might put an end to mara's grief But what can one really say?

Speaker 2 So, in the face of an unsolvable problem, they focused on a solvable one, the driver's license. And talking about the license might have also been a distraction for Andy and Sue from their own grief.

Speaker 2 They'd love Shannon too.

Speaker 2 How do you guys remember that

Speaker 2 time, if I could ask?

Speaker 20 I remember it in great detail.

Speaker 20 We were having about 80 people coming to our house for my son's high school graduation party. And Mara was busy sweeping through the laundry room and so forth, getting ready to go.

Speaker 2 Even though Mara and her parents have never discussed that day, Sue raises all the same things Mara did.

Speaker 2 She remembers Mara sweeping, the phone call, walking into the laundry room to tell Mara what had happened. For Mara, hearing Sue describe that day the same way she always has makes Mara feel seen.

Speaker 2 Sue also brings up things Mara wasn't there for. Like the day after the funeral, when she drove Shannon's mom and brother to the tow yard to collect Shannon's personal effects from the crushed car.

Speaker 2 Sue remembers Shannon's purse on the floor of the back seat, her phone and flip-flops lying amid the shards of broken windshield. Like Mara's night crying in the hotel room.

Speaker 2 That was when, for Sue, it all sank in.

Speaker 20 Understanding what grief I was battling and we were all battling.

Speaker 24 Yeah, I mean, by the time he, you know, by the time we even digested it, that year went by. you know, it was still stuck in our throats.

Speaker 24 And everybody dealt with it in their own way, just to try to protect themselves, try to protect their own heart.

Speaker 10 And then I left for college, and like I haven't lived at home really since.

Speaker 20 You know, it's funny, Mara, I never really put it together until you're just talking now that

Speaker 20 you're the only one of the siblings that was here full-time in the aftermath of her death.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Mara was the youngest of three siblings. It was just her and her parents alone in the house, the air thick with the weight of all that was unspoken.

Speaker 20 And meanwhile, you were trying to figure out where you're going to go to college. I mean, all your senior events.

Speaker 24 That was a rough year.

Speaker 10 That was a rough year.

Speaker 2 It's a small conversation, as far as conversations go. But after not talking about it for over a decade, it's something.

Speaker 20 Maura, think about this. Ten years ago, we would not be having the conversation like we're even having right now.

Speaker 10 Yeah, and I just really appreciate you both having this conversation.

Speaker 24 There's so much room for improvement, and I think that's the.

Speaker 13 And we're open to that.

Speaker 24 Yeah, and we're open to that. The book isn't written.
It's just a series of chapters.

Speaker 10 It's the beginning.

Speaker 20 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 We're proud of you, Maura.

Speaker 2 Do you want to show them your driver's license?

Speaker 2 Mara holds up her license for her parents to see.

Speaker 20 Ooh, pretty picture.

Speaker 13 Thank you.

Speaker 10 Very nice. And that's me in hologram form.
Ooh, a silk ghost-like.

Speaker 17 It's official.

Speaker 2 The license no longer needs to be weighted down with implication and meaning. It can finally be a piece of plastic with a nice picture on it that gets gets you from point A to point B.

Speaker 2 One fall Saturday, Mara borrows a friend's car.

Speaker 2 She needs it to run some errands.

Speaker 18 No, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 It's the kind of afternoon people have all the time.

Speaker 2 But for Mara, it's an afternoon of firsts. First time driving around DC alone.

Speaker 2 First time hitting a pothole.

Speaker 17 Shit.

Speaker 2 First time driving through a drive-thru.

Speaker 10 Mara, M-A-U-R-A.

Speaker 2 Where she orders a chicken sandwich and a strawberry milkshake.

Speaker 10 Thank you.

Speaker 2 She fits her milkshake into the cup holder. and heads to her next stop.

Speaker 19 Man, the sun's cold.

Speaker 2 Mara started this trek because of her family, and she finished it because of her friends. But today, she's enjoying the drive all by herself.

Speaker 2 Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home

Speaker 2 Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damaged deposit

Speaker 2 Take this moment to decide

Speaker 2 if we meant it if we tried

Speaker 2 or felt around for far too much

Speaker 2 from things that accidentally tied

Speaker 2 This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Khalila Holt, Mohini Midgowker, Stevie Lane, and me, Jonathan Goldstein.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to Emily Condon, Aggie Goldstein, Alex Bloomberg, Bethel Hopte, Anna Foley, Lynn Levy, Paul Bowman, Zach Schmidt, and Jackie Cohen.

Speaker 2 Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Sean Jacoby, and Bobby Lord.

Speaker 2 Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com/slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by the weaker thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight.

Speaker 2 This is our last episode of the season, but we're already looking for stories for next year.

Speaker 2 So if you have a moment from your own past that you need some help with, email us at heavyweight at gimletmedia.com. Happy holidays to all, and we'll see you next fall.

Speaker 2 See, I made a little rhyme there.

Speaker 25 Why are TSA rules so confusing?

Speaker 11 You got a hoodie, you want to take it off!

Speaker 9 I'm Manny. I'm Noah.
This is Devin.

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Speaker 25 Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it.

Speaker 2 You know, lock him up.

Speaker 25 Listen to no such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 12 No such thing.

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Speaker 5 This is an iHeart podcast.