Heather

Heather grew up in Kansas, but she hasn’t been back there for years … not since the moment she was old enough to leave. When her mother dies, Heather heads home for the services, and an already difficult situation becomes even harder — because Heather and her sisters must, for the first time in 13 years, come face to face with the man who sexually abused them throughout their childhood: their father.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

[MUSIC]
I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Terrible, Thanks for Asking.
It was winter in Kansas. Heather had flown in from her home in Portland, Oregon. Kansas was where Heather had grown up, but not where she was born. She had been adopted by her family from Korea. It’s such an incredible origin story. She was found in Korea in a call box — a safe place where mothers can leave their babies anonymously. She was a tiny, sick little baby. She went from having pink eye and infections and failure to thrive, to being the middle of five white children in the middle of nowhere in the middle of America.
Heather had not been back to Kansas for years. Not since the moment she was old enough to leave. But her mother had died. And the family had gathered. All of them. For the first time in a long time.
Heather: And so I saw him drive up to the parking lot. And he parked just a couple of spaces down from us and it was the same car that he had always driven. And I kinda could recognize his face. And my body just tensed up. Like this is– this is it– knowing this is it. And just trying to fight every fiber in myself that did not want to look at him did not want to talk to him be near him.
Now, being back home for a funeral is hard. Being back home in the Midwest in January? That is hard. And being back home in the midwest in January for your mom’s funeral? HARD.
Heather: And so we get out of the car. And he gets out of his car and he looks at us.
But what makes this entire situation even harder, is that Heather and her sisters are, for the first time in 13 years, about to come face to face with the man who had sexually abused them throughout their childhood. Heather: It was just kind of like he didn’t know what else to do but give us this awkward smile.
The man Heather and her sister were dreading seeing — the man who had abused them — was also their father.
[MUSIC OUT]
Heather: I just said hi. And then I turned to go into the funeral home.
[MUSIC]
But we have to start with Heather’s childhood. Which, from the outside, looked fine. Heather’s family — a stay-at-home mom, a dad who worked for the city, five healthy kids — they looked like a regular, happy, hetero nuclear 1980’s family. There was nothing remarkable about her Dad. Or really, their family. Nora: What was your dad like?
Heather: He… in the family dynamic he was always just kind of more quiet and in the background and I knew that he had a best friend. I don’t know that I’ve actually ever met him and I can’t remember his name anymore but I always liked knowing that he had least a friend that was not a part of our family. He worked. And so that’s that’s mostly what I remember. You know he was gone at work during the day but otherwise he was kind of quiet. Especially when other people were around. My mom was definitely the more… dynamic one of the duo she was the one that was in charge of the family and in charge of everyone I would say.
When you’re little, you only know what you know. Normal is whatever your family is. And then, you go to school, and you see how other kids are, and you start to notice things. Like, maybe I shouldn’t pick my nose in public. Or maybe it’s weird that I cut my sandwiches diagonally. Heather notices something else.
Heather: But I do remember… being in a bathroom stall with a couple other little girls… little girls… Ijust like the simple act of just watching them pull their pants up after they were done going to the bathroom and… like wow they did not pull their pants up… in the same manner that I did. Just naturally as a child I would pull up my underwear and I would… move them to the side in the way that my father did so he could molest me and I didn’t keep it together in that thought like [snap] in five seconds… in that moment but it was definitely the beginning of realizing that it was different and that… the world outside of my home is a little bit different. [MUSIC]
Every family has a night-time routine. Our family eats dinner, cleans up, gets our jammies on, and then we brush teeth and read stories. Heather: Our family definitely would eat dinner together… and then finish up homework if there was homework… and then we would definitely read books. and then we’d brush our teeth and then we would go to bed.
It’s boring, I know, but that’s kind of the point. You just do the same thing every night, and there are no surprises. Everyone knows what’s going to happen, and things move more smoothly. Things that happen every night.
Heather’s is like any other family’s routine, except not. Because other family routines might look like dinner, stories, jammies, bed.
And her family’s looks like dinner, stories, jammies, bed…
[MUSIC OUT]
and then hell.
Heather: So then my father would come into our room… and he would get in bed with… I believe each one of us. I don’t know if he did the same order every night. I could not speak to that but… definitely he would come into my bed most every night and… that was our routine. I think that it was definitely really common for him to just lay there beside me and just fondle me. Eventually he worked his way toward him wanting me to touch him. And so that was our most common routine of him touching me or me touching him. It didn’t feel right, but it happened almost every night.
Heather: It was just so normalized because of his role in my life as my father. And because it was just essentially like the bedtime routine if you will.
yes he worked his way up to where he raped me and… it is one of the memories I remember because it was more traumatizing than being just fondled and molested and it was more traumatizing than watching him masturbate.
[MUSIC]
In fourth grade, long after that underpants moment when she was in kindergarten, Heather has another one of those lightbulb moments. They happen more as you get older, when you start to spend time at other kid’s houses, and you see how their families are. Sometimes that freaks you out and you’re like, oh my god never make me go there again, their house smells like pickles ALL THE TIME or, THEIR MOM IS REALLY MEAN. It makes you super grateful for what you have, or, it starts to light up those parts of your brain that were trying to tell you something was seriously wrong with your own home, your own upbringing. So… one day… in fourth grade… Heather gets her first invitation to a sleepover at a friends house. And things are different there. The food is different at dinner. They have a dog. And…they just interacted with each other differently from what Heather was used to. Heather: I was a little nervous at first because I was like “Does this mean that we have to go to bed with someone else’s dad” I think is literally what I had in the back of my mind thinking “I don’t know but I’ll try” because if I get put up with it here I’m fine. But then once I realized like– she said good night to him to her father she said good night to her mother and her brother and we were just hanging out in her room together and the door was closed and it never opened and I remember thinking like wow… that is really weird. But then also this kind of yeah that sense of relief that’s when the relief came and then I would come spend the night another time of like oh well maybe you know this is really how it happens it wasn’t just because I was there like the first time and… and then just watching… my dad would want me to sit on his lap and like my friend wasn’t sitting on her dad’s lap and… but then it was a really big clue for me of like wait this is really–. [MUSIC OUT WITH A SUDDEN INHALATION]
Yes. It is really.
Heather was going to school, and at school, she, like many of us, heard messages about what to do if someone touched her inappropriately. Didn’t all of us?? But all of those messages centered around someone touching us who was a stranger. Or a distant adult. And the messaging was laser focused at that audience.
Heather: you have every right to say no. And if they don’t listen… you know that that’s really wrong or if… they’re doing doing something to you that you don’t want… like you have the power to say no or you have the right to say no… Heather would hear this and think “sure. Yes. That makes sense. If I get grabbed by a wild-eyed stranger in a trench coat and a white panel van offering me candy… this is useful.” But…
Heather: this doesn’t apply to the situation with my dad or I would think as I got older this definitely applies to the situation with my dad. But there is nothing I can do about it because he’s my dad.
What are you supposed to do if it’s your dad? How do you tell someone that your dad is the person who is hurting you? Especially when you’re at an age where you haven’t even gotten the sex talk yet? Especially when your mom is in the house. Every night, when Heather’s dad would come to her room? Her mom would be downstairs, watching TV. Heather: And she would come upstairs to go to the bathroom because there was no bathroom down there and she would turn the hall light on and look at us. And so if he was with me and that were to happen and she turned the light on he would pull the sheet up if the sheet was down or just say he would just act like he was sleeping. She was so close — she could have saved her daughters! — and that’s what Heather hoped for, every night. She hoped her mom would come and save her.
Heather: I would be begging her in my mind or if like Save Me like just save me. Or there would be times like thank God she turned on the light because it stopped him or changed the path or whatever I don’t know. because that’s what I remember that just that hall light it was… I don’t know it was very– Very… what? What IS it? Is it a sign her mother cares? That she knows? Or just a coincidence? That beacon of a hall light would shine. And things would stop. And Heather would wonder…
Heather: In what universe is it OK that he was in there with us as often he was in there?
She’d wait for her mom to intervene… to be heroic…
Heather: But she would then turn the light off go to the bathroom and then go back downstairs to her show and I would always feel really sad when she would leave.
[MUSIC]
Growing up, Heather and her sisters never talked about this amongst themselves. And they never told their mother, either. They just hoped, every time their mom came upstairs during her TV time, every time they saw that that hall light switch on, that she’d realize what’s going on…barge in, and save them. She never did.
Heather: Protecting us in her mind and act– protecting us in my mind I think were two different things.
But one day after Church…when Heather is 9 years old, some time after her first sleepover…Heather’s father calls her down to the basement. Alone. To the spare bedroom. To have a talk.
Heather: And it was really scary because I was like I don’t know he never says things like that he’s never like I need we need to have a talk… and then he takes me downstairs into our spare bedroom and we’re having this conversation… that… where he is sitting me on his lap and he is telling me that he is not going– what he had been doing wrong was not Christian and that he was not going to do it anymore. He never… named it. He never… described it. And so at first I was not even positive like are we talking about what I think you’re talking about or I’m not 100 percent sure… And he’s telling me that he’s going to stop which my first instinct and reaction in my mind is like why is he telling me this because I don’t believe it. Like I’ve lived this most nights of my life so how can I believe that he’s just all of a sudden going to stop and why is he saying this like I’m really confused. We’re going to take a quick break.
{{MIDROLL}}
We’re back. Heather’s dad had just told her that he wouldn’t sexually abuse her anymore. Because it isn’t the Christian thing to do. But Heather didn’t trust him, she didn’t put her guard down. Heather: So that night I went to bed. And I actually had my younger sister sleep in bed with me because that was always one of my defense moves is just sharing a bed with my sister if I can occupy as much space there’s no room. And so I did that and I was surprised he didn’t come.
The next night… he didn’t come to her room. Or the next night. Or the one after that. For a little while, the abuse did stop. Until it didn’t. Within a couple of months… Heather’s dad came back to her room again. And again. And again. Heather: And then in high school I remember waking up in the morning and he would be sitting beside me with his hands down my pants and I just remember waking up the first time that happened and just kind of like still I close my eyes again and just acted like I was moving his hand in my sleep but I just remember thinking there is just he’s sick. He’s just literally sick he can’t stop himself. And part of me felt bad for him at that at that moment in that moment. But part of me just felt angry like he is just never going to stop.
The same man who taught Heather how to use a lawnmower, who taught her the value of working hard, and how to tie her shoes? He’s the guy who was abusing her most every night. And even in high school… as a young adult… Heather didn’t know what to do.
She wanted to tell SOMEONE, so she picked a friend, and wrote her a note. It’s high school. That’s how you deliver big info. Her friend was so good to her. She came to Heather with hugs and love, they talked for hours. And her friend was like, look, we have to go to the police. And Heather thought…
Heather: Yeah we should go to the police but there’s no way I have the guts to do that. Like I know we should go to the police and there is nothing more than I would want for than for him to be in jail. I think I was also really terrified that if he did go to jail that it would be my fault and that I would be tearing myself away myself away from my siblings which is something that I really didn’t want to do.
Heather’s mom did not know what was going in, or she chose not to know. She’s dead now, so we can’t ask her. But at the time… Heather didn’t go to her mom for help. And she still didn’t go to the police. It’s too scary, the idea of going to a police station and telling an officer what has happened at home. Instead, she turned to the youth pastor at her church. Surely, this person of God will help Heather out. Will blow the whistle for her, rescue her. Heather summoned all her courage, and she wrote him a note, too.
Heather: like I want you to know that he sexually abused me and I don’t know what to do. And so his responses always came back in the written form also saying you know I’m really sorry this happened to you. I’m really sorry that you’re dealing with this. You know I’ll be praying for you. And that was it. She got thoughts and prayers, and absolutely no help. It was like her mother — walking down the hallway, but not turning into her daughters’ bedroom. [MUSIC]
What gets Heather through these high school years is knowing that these years will end. And when they do, she’ll be off to college. She had set her sights on the University of Oregon — go ducks! — it was far, far, from home. She’d have a dorm room, with a lock. She’d never have to worry about her dad showing up in the middle of the night.
But the University of Oregon didn’t work out, and Heather ended up at Kansas University. Which is in the same city she lives in with her parents…Ugh. Nora: How did it feel to move in??
Heather: So I remember we had packed all my stuff up and my mom had dropped me off and she had started crying and I was just like come on mom. I literally live in the same town. Like it’s not a big deal. But she was just like oh you’re moving out you’re going to college. Just like the mom thing that I probably will do as a mom myself. And I get in to my room and I unpack my things and my roommate comes in and we’re so excited to meet each other and we– I think we went and had dinner and then we came back and we were still in our room hanging out and then we went and there was stuff going on in our dorm and I felt like this is my place.
It was not Oregon, but it turns out, the dorms did give her the distance she needed from her father. That first night in her dorm room, Heather slept through the night. [MUSICCCC]
Back at home, still living with her parents, Heather had a little brother and sister. And Heather STILL struggled with wanting to report her dad, and also, not wanting to destroy her family. Bringing this into the light doesn’t just illuminate what happened to her, but to her sisters, who weren’t ready to have it all out there.
One night, Heather and a friend took Heather’s little brother and sister out to a movie. When they got to Heather’s house, the police were there. Heather’s first thought was that someone had turned in her father. Something had happened to expose everything.
It turns out, they weren’t there for her dad. Her mother was showing signs of mental health issues, and the police had been called, and the scene was chaotic. Heather’s friend knows what Heather’s dad has done do his children, and at one point, kinda taps one of the officers on the shoulder, and says…
Heather: Just you know this man has sexually abused the girls that lived in this house. Or his daughters or however she worded it. And so then he– the officer wants to talk to me and says you know is this true and I said yes definitely.
[MUSicCCCCCcccCCCCccc]
OH MY GOD. There it was. It was out there! She talked to the police! She told them the truth! Or, her friend did. It’s not how Heather imagined this happening, but like, the police know! And now, justice will be served!
Heather: He looks at me and said you know you are too old to press any charges or file any reports she said. {{CAN WE PUT IN A PAUSE}}
Wait. No.
Heather: But my sister could if she wanted to.
Heather had aged out? Heather’s sister wasn’t ready to file a report, and Heather didn’t blame her. She hadn’t wanted to in high school, either. But this new information — that she’d aged out? — that’s not okay. She was mad. At herself.
Heather: Why didn’t I have the guts to do something when it could have mattered? [MUSIC OUT]
Here’s the thing… it did matter. At this moment, when the officer told her that… Heather was 19 years old. The statute of limitations at that time on sexual abuse was 3 years after turning 18. Which means… she had until age 21 to report. She WAS STILL UNDER THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
But when that cop told her otherwise, she didn’t follow up. She just deflated. Disappointed. She took his word for it. Because he’s a cop. And she’s a scared 19 year old telling an authority figure that her father did something horrible to her.
AND THAT IS MESSED UP. She did what she was supposed to. She told the legal representative, and he minimized it. JUST LIKE THE PRIEST HAD DONE.
[MUSIC]
Heather stopped going home. She graduated from college, and moved to Oregon. Her sisters moved to the East Coast. And Heather did have direct conversations with her mother. Conversations where she told her mother what had happened. At first her mom was defensive and would deny she knew anything.
Heather: “You didn’t tell me that it happened to you. So how was I supposed to know?”
Heather didn’t believe her mother. With everything going on, how could she not know. So Heather pressed her mom. And the denial turned to excuses.
Heather: “Well if I would have turned him in or if I would have reported him… then your older brother and sister would have been depressed.” Which turned into defensiveness. About her own role. About how much she felt able to do. Like turning on that hall light.
Heather: “well you know I did protect you. That’s why I would come upstairs or that’s why I didn’t get a job so I could be home… so I could be watching him.” Heather’s mom believed in her heart that she had done all that she could for her kids. And Heather disagreed. And she explained to her mom the boundary that was being drawn: None of the siblings would have anything to do with her father. For Heather, she would not come home to a house where her father lived. Which meant she would not see her mother if her father was present.
Over the next decade, Heather only saw her mother across the room at family gatherings.
And in 2013, their mother died. Heather: When… they called to tell me that my mom had died I had fell to the floor in the shock and honestly that shock was because I knew… oh my God like I really really really don’t want to do this. And I have been able to move away from him and go on with my life and not see him and stand my ground. But this is the one scenario where I don’t know how to get around seeing him.
As adults, Heather and her sisters had started to talk to one another about the fact that they had all been abused. And they all agreed to go to the funeral together — for their mom, not their dad. It would be hard, but they made a plan to meet at the hotel in Lawrence, Kansas before the funeral.
Heather: We had to go to the funeral home the next day and that we were all three there we were going to be there for each other and that no matter what– that was that our agreement was that even if we have to go to the bathroom– like two of us have to go to the bathroom then all three of us are going to the bathroom. We were like we agree that we’re not going to leave just one person alone with him because we all three I think felt so uncomfortable with him.
And that brings Heather to that funeral parlour in kansas, where saying good-bye to her mom means also facing down her abuser. Heather: You know we’re walking into this room and it’s just like my body can kind of just feel like it’s on alert like where he– where he is in the room and we just try to sit as far as away from him as we can. We’re basically kind of sitting on one side of the table the three of us and then we put our bags around us so there’s no way he could sit beside any of us. Funeral directors see all kinds of family dynamics, and no family is at their BEST when planning a funeral, so this lady is just going about her business, popping in and out of her office, pulling stuff together. At one point, she pops out for more than just a few minutes. And their dad takes the opportunity to speak to his daughters. Heather: He just said “I want to talk to you guys about the abuse.” And just automatically I start crying. And I just feel my body just like tensing up and I’m like… I really just want to plug my ears but I know that that would be really immature… but I really don’t want to hear a word from him like I just do not want a word from him so… I just make him stop talking. I just wanted him to will him to stop talking as I’m crying and bracing trying to brace myself for what he… Had to say and… he knew that it was wrong and that again that it was unchristian and that it’s something that he really really wish he hadn’t have done. And at one point he was just so mad at himself that he was pounding on the table. And so my body was just like jumping when he was pounding on the table and and my sisters are crying and. [MUSIC OUT LIKE HARD]
[MUZAK REMAINS]
The funeral director comes back, and the conversation is over. Heather and her sisters get through the funeral, doing their best to ignore their dad, and to close ranks around one another. [MUZAK OUT]
When it’s over, they fly home to their families.
Heather starts to write about the abuse, and she comes to the point where she is ready to submit something for publication. And she sends the piece to her sisters, just so they have a heads up…
Heather: And so it opened in a conversation between the three of us of “Well I still agree that he needs to be in jail” and “well actually so do I.” And I’m like “wow. Really.” And so we had gotten to this point through texting that we all three were saying the same thing. Heather had an attorney friend downtown who she said she could ask to look into it. The sisters agreed… Heather asked… and her attorney friend said yep… the statute of limitations is passed.
But she also, as a mandatory reporter, HAS to report it. And she does. Which confuses Heather, like, uh, now I’m 37 and this happened when I’m a kid…it was exciting and overwhelming. Heather: But I was also just baffled because I had been told I was too old and I felt like it didn’t matter for so many years of my life that it felt like well wait a minute why does it matter now? And what does that mean– what does it mean now that we’ve reported him— or if she’s reported him?
Well… it meant that for the first time… Heather had control. She could just file the initial report and let it be. Or she could keep going.
Heather: I had opened myself to this process and I told myself I kind of want to push this as far as I can because I do firmly believe that I wanted him to be in jail. I wanted to gain the courage to report him so I need to do this. So she had said “You know well I think that maybe you should come into my office next week and I can call the police and we can do it then” and I’m like yeah yeah yeah ok ok. But next week. Like wow that’s kind of crazy. Like I am just going to go report my dad to the police. No big deal.
Heather tells her sisters, and they’re really supportive. They actually think they should do the same thing. And Heather’s husband has a brilliant idea — invite your sisters here, and you can all report together! The Monday before Thanksgiving, they all meet a police officer at Heather’s lawyer-friend’s office. And one by one, they give their reports. Heather: There was a part of me that wanted– that worried about being believed. I’m like what does– what if he doesn’t believe me because I’m talking about memories of my childhood and… so there are those things that I was not used to verbalizing that I was like I knew I have to do… with this cop this police officer because this is my chance to do what I wanted to do when I was 14 but now it’s happening now.
Heather and her sisters each speak to the officer for about an hour, and the process is galvanizing for them. Heather: And in the moments when I was talking to the officer and saying you know my dad did this my dad this my dad did this like I’m feeling like empowered. And I feel like I’m rising like I almost feel like I’m floating. It was– this kind of out of body experience that I wasn’t expecting. And the one I’m talking to my sister and she’s telling me about her kids or the weather or her car or just something completely unrelated. About a half an hour into talking to her just shooting the shit. Like all of a sudden I just start feeling like. I am sinking and like I’m being pushed like being literally pushed in my shoulders like being pushed underground like into dirt or sand or something and then I just start bawling and then my sister is like whoa oh she’s like it’s OK and comes over and hugs me and as I think about the moment it hit me that that I had reported you know I had made my report I had done what I could.
Heather’s sisters all flew back to their families for Thanksgiving, and they’ve all done what they could. The Oregon police took the report, and sent it to Kansas. They told Heather and her sisters, you won’t hear from them for probably 6 months. But a month later, Heather got a phone call from a police officer in Kansas. He’s gotten the report. And he was going to start surveillance on Heather’s dad.
Heather: Because I had expressed to him the detective that I had no doubt in my mind that if my father had access to someone that he would be harming someone. They were going to follow him. They were going to try to see if they could catch him and just see what he– where he goes who he’s in contact with his life. He also asked Heather to think hard and remember more detail.
Heather: what color your pajamas were. What color the walls in your room were. Any memories that you have involving the abuse. You know tell me about your mom tell me you know about your dad and his temper. Tell me about your mom and her temper. You know anything that you can remember.
Everything is in place, and four months later… an officer went to visit Heather’s dad. Just one random day in July they showed up at his front door… and knocked. [MUSIC]
Heather: Like I didn’t understand how it happened if they just sat down at his kitchen table and were like “so did… you sexually assault your daughters or… not.” Or like how does that. Like what does that look like. she explained it to me that they sat down and she said he definitely didn’t confess to everything we said at first and she said it was kind of a normal reaction that he had a little bit of denial going on and but she said he eventually confessed to everything that that we said he did. She said he agreed that he did everything that we said he did.
HE CONFESSES!!! All of the fear and all of the anxiety and all of the bravery? It all lead up to this — this vindication! Now, NOW Heather and her sisters will get that hearty heaping helping of justice! Heather: And I said well then you know well then what happens next like… I don’t understand. Like then just what does that mean like you guys are just like well things for confessing to being a child molester. Like have a great day like… you know what– what do you even do about that? And she did say you know “Heather this is a conversation that I will have a hard time forgetting” because it was– she said it was hard for her to walk away having his confession. Because I said you know… I know that they can’t follow him around for the rest of his life. I know that they can’t arrest him. We talked about that about how the statutes of limitations had run out… and that they could not… arrest him even if he– he begged them like please put me behind bars I’m a criminal. They literally just could not put him in jail. I’m like what about the sex offender registry. Like can’t he be on that?
Well… no. The officer said Heather’s father would be willing to be on the registry. But… no. Not without a conviction, and the statute of limitations had passed. so there was not going to be a conviction.
Heather’s dad didn’t actually confess to EVERYTHING that Heather claimed in the report. He denies raping Heather. And because Kansas eliminated the statute of limitations on rape… that was the one thing that could have had him face ANY consequences.
Kansas is not a unique place. A lot of states have statutes of limitations that put the responsibility for getting justice on the survivor. A survivor who might be a child, being assaulted by her parent. Or by his (their?) priest. A survivor who is so busy just trying to survive that they aren’t ready to just show up to the police station and hope they get an officer who is ready for their kind of report. [MUSIC]
SO… there’s nothing that can be done. As far as Heather knows, father is still living at home. Just as he always has been.
But after ALL THIS — all these years — after surviving that call box in Korea, and the years of childhood abuse — Heather is not ready to let it go. She’s not ready to forget. Heather: I’ve written to the governor of Kansas I’ve written to the mayor of Lawrence I’ve written to the state representatives. I just feel like I’m not done pushing it forward.
Heather’s not ready to forget, or to stop fighting, and she’s not ready to forgive, either. And… he had asked. Back in that funeral home… while pounding on the table. Heather: And then he gets to the point where he says you know but I really really hope that you can forgive me. And then… then he’s looking at us and my older sister starting to say yes OK fine. And I remember stopped her and I was like don’t– I was like don’t do it.