September 8, 2026 • 35 mins
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Nicole Davis had already found her biological mother’s side of the family years earlier, but she had pretty much given up on finding her father. In fact, she had been led to believe he was dead.
Then an Ancestry notification showed up while she was getting ready for Jazz Fest. Nicole was busy, didn’t think much of it and ignored it. She ignored the message that followed, too. It took a Facebook friend request to finally get her attention.
The match was 27 percent. That’s how Nicole found a sister she didn’t know she had, and how she learned that the biological father she had believed was dead for 12 years was actually alive.
In Part 2, Nicole tells us what it has been like getting to know her father and discovering that she has several sisters, including one close in age to her own child. We also talk about the family relationships that haven’t been nearly as easy, including why Nicole has stepped away from her adoptive parents and why she hasn’t told her adoptive father everything she has learned.
Since Nicole is also a serious horror fan, there was no keeping horror out of the conversation. We talk about growing up with evangelical Hell Houses and Rapture movies, the “evil adoptee” trope that horror has leaned on for decades, and why Myth of the Ghost Kingdom got the adoptee experience right in ways she rarely sees onscreen.
Nicole also tells us about The Music of Us, the book she’s writing about roots, music and the stories that connect them.
Family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kendall (00:00):
Hey everybody, I'm Kendall, and I'm Corey.
(00:02):
We're back with part two of ourconversation with writer and
adoptee Nicole Davis.
In part one, Nicole told usabout growing up adopted in
Alabama and the difficultrelationship she had with her
adopted parents, and the verystrange possibility that a
letter to infamous GovernorGeorge Wallace helped make her
adoption happen, which is stillone of the wildest sentences
(00:24):
we've ever said on this show.
And we've said some pretty wildthings.
But Nicole's story changed againlast year because of
Ancestry.com.
A woman had been trying tocontact her.
Corey (00:36):
Nicole was busy getting ready for Jazz Fest and kept
putting it off, and eventuallytook a closer look.
Kendall (00:41):
27% DNA shared.
Nicole had a sister, and thatsister had something else to
tell her.
I was talking to Dad.
There's just one small problem.
Nicole thought Dad was dead for12 years.
Suddenly she had a biologicalfather who is very much alive
and wants to talk to her, andshe learns she has several
(01:04):
sisters, one of whom is only afew years older than Nicole's
school child.
Nicole talks about what thoserelationships have become, why
she feels particularly close toher youngest sister, and what
it's been like getting to knowher father while having very
little contact with the parentswho raised her.
Corey (01:22):
And because this conversation also became a
horror field crossover, we'regonna find out why Nicole
identifies with horror survivorswho fight their way out and
don't look back.
Kendall (01:30):
I think by now you can probably understand why.
Here's part two with NicoleDavis.
Corey (01:39):
I had a thought a few minutes ago that it was like
even things that were scary toyou as a kid, that was also your
escape.
Yeah.
Horror was terrifying to you,but it was also an escape from
your reality, which was also ahorror show.
SPEAKER_02 (01:54):
It was predictable horror.
Whereas my dad or my mom notpredictable at all, predictably
unpredictable, and never knewwhat kind of mood my dad was
going to be in when he came homefrom work.
He worked a Goodyear in Gadston,Alabama for 40 years.
And he could be in a good moodwhen he came home, or he could
(02:14):
be in a pissy mood when he camehome.
And it had absolutely nothing todo with whether I was a good kid
that day or if I had been, youknow, just an absolute shit.
Horror, whether it was escape ina Stephen King book, or just in
my own head sometimes.
Yeah.
If I was watching Nightmare onElm Street or I didn't do Jason,
(02:39):
I didn't do Friday the 13th.
I had friends at church in myyouth group who were constantly
going to the movies, like theday they came out, and they
would come back from on Sundayand they would talk about it in
Sunday school.
And I'm like, this doesn't seemlike a movie that like my church
friends should be going to see.
But at the same time, I'mthinking, I don't want to see
somebody get stabbed at a lake.
(03:01):
We grew up on a lake.
I think that was another thing.
It's like Cherokee County itselfin center Alabama is around a
lake.
I'm sure you've heard of LakeLanier in here in Atlanta.
Everybody knows about thehaunted lake.
Well, Weiss Lake in centerAlabama is very similar, it's
just smaller and less wellknown.
But you know, Oscarville isunderneath Lake Lanier.
(03:23):
We had a very similar communityin Cherokee County that was
underneath Weiss Lake.
You know, when the water's low,you can see the rectangles where
the cemetery used to be, all ofthat.
And it was a black community.
Same deal.
If you know you move thecommunities that are quote
unquote easier to move, right?
But it's all for the good of thecommunity.
(03:46):
But anyway, so I am not a fan ofanything that's around a lake,
isolated.
I didn't go to camp for a longtime because people would tell
the stories about uh CrystalLake.
Corey (04:01):
Uh and I And that could be even worse because if you've
got a good imagination, it's youknow, you're it just goes wild.
You know, worse than seeing iton the street.
I remember, and this isn't uh ahorror movie per se, but my best
friend when I was five acrossthe street, she and her brother
got to see E.T.
before we did.
And she just kept referring tohim as this spaceman.
(04:23):
Spaceman.
And I'm picturing like anastronaut because that's where
my you know young brain wouldlike, you know, I didn't I had
no idea how to visualize whatE.T.
was, and she just said spaceman,and I just thought this was it
sounds so weird.
But yeah, sometimes just hearinga story is gonna create
something worse in your mind forsure.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
And I did have a very vivid imagination.
I'm a writer, so that's just myimagination has always been
wild, but at the same time, I'malso very particular about
details.
And the truth is one of thosethings where I'm I don't
remember how old I was, but itmay have been seventh or eighth
grade, going back to that wholehome invasion thing.
(05:05):
There was a a guy in our areathat escaped from prison, and
then they caught him, and thenthey put him in our local jail,
then he escaped again.
He was a murderer.
His name was something holidaygene.
Something I don't remember hisla his first name, but I just
remember it was always on thenews.
(05:26):
And at some point he broke intosomeone's trailer, Alabama.
He broke into someone's trailer,and uh they caught him in the
trailer, but he escaped throughthe window.
And I just and they described itand they saw the curtain hanging
(05:47):
out of the window.
They put it on the news.
My parents watched the news allthe time.
The news was always on fiveo'clock, six, five thirty, six
o'clock, world news, local news,everything.
10:30 and then 10:30 was bad 10o'clock and then 1030 was
bedtime.
And so I remember seeing thecurtain outside the window
(06:07):
because he used it to, I don'tknow, grab outside anyway.
And that visual fucked with mebecause the idea of someone you
getting going out the window,again, it's that home invasion
thing, right?
Like going out of the window andleaving your house with the
(06:28):
barrier broken, I guess.
So like the windows open andsomething from the inside is
also outside.
It really messed with me.
And I couldn't, there were timeswhere I could not go in that
bathroom after dark with thelight on if the shade was up,
because I was afraid if I hadthe light on, there would be
(06:48):
somebody out in the field.
It was that whole Michael thingout in the field could see me,
but I couldn't see them becausethe lights on.
And so I would always walk inthere with the light off, pull
the shade down, then come backon and turn the light on so I
could do what I needed to do inthe bathroom.
Terrified of outside, like rightoutside the light.
(07:11):
My dad used to, we used toscrape all the food that we had
leftovers, whatever, and keepthem in like the two-liter coke
bottles.
He would kind of cut the lid orwhatever, and we'd keep all of
that, and then we would eitherfeed it to the dog if we had
one, or we would take it to theedge of the yard and just put it
there.
And that was the most fertilepiece of land.
Of course.
One little piece.
(07:32):
But I may I insisted that heturn the light on so I could go
out and do it because we had 220acres.
Oh.
Went all the way to the river,and there were always wild dogs
that had escaped from, say,various people's houses in this
rural area that would kind ofpack up back in the back 40 or
the bottoms, as they were calledin the area.
(07:54):
And you could hear them scare meto death, absolutely terrified
me as a kid.
And so I would go walking out.
I mean, then the edge of theyard was no further than say
your front yard to the road ifyou had a decent sized yard.
But it was still so scary.
If and I one time went out thereand I had the lights on, and dad
(08:14):
was just so obsessive aboutmaking sure everything's ready
for bed or whatever, and heflipped the lights off while I
was outside.
I was just convinced that thedarkness or whatever was going
to envelop, I ran back to thedoor to get inside.
And I don't know, that moviethat I there was a lighthouse
(08:35):
too.
I remember like at the end ofthe movie, there was a
lighthouse and the thing keptcircling or whatever.
And if they got outside of theray of the light, that whatever
was just outside could get them.
That movie just my brain wasfried after that movie was over.
Afterwards, too.
I really relaxed.
(08:55):
I'm like, oh, okay.
So everything I believed wasbullshit because now they've
made a movie about it.
There's absolutely no way it'strue.
Corey (09:02):
There you go.
SPEAKER_02 (09:03):
I believe in all of that extra the paranormal and
voodoo type stuff.
I really I am a vast believer inroot work and spiritual stuff
like that.
Of course, at the same time,there's the the the trope of the
killer adoptee.
Flip a switch at some point andgo ham on everybody in the
(09:25):
family.
One never knows when the childwill up and decide or the demon
that's within them.
Because who knows what familythey came from and they could
have been possessed by whatever.
Gotta love that particular tropethat plagued us for years and
years, and probably still does.
(09:46):
I'm sure there will be anotherfile 54.
The one with yeah, with ReneeZellwigger.
Corey (09:54):
Yeah, that one.
SPEAKER_02 (09:54):
We're always the butt of something.
There's always something wrongwith it.
I was grateful for the the mythof the kingdoms, yeah.
Right.
Grateful for that one because itwas pretty much dead on.
There was, well, I don't saypretty much, it was dead on.
There's nothing about that thatwas like the typical trope of
oh, we're evil.
(10:15):
Adoptees are the bad seed, andwe don't we have bad blood and
we don't know where they comefrom, and you have to keep an
eye on them and oh, they'regonna go crazy on everybody.
That's grateful for thataltogether.
Corey (10:28):
How did you go about t telling your adoptive parents
about your discovery of yourbirth father and half siblings?
SPEAKER_02 (10:37):
I did grow up with that whole I'm not gonna look.
I'm gonna look, but I'm notgonna tell them because it will
hurt their feelings thing untilI got older and realized that I
didn't care anymore.
But my adoptive mother is prettymuch full-on Alzheimer's at this
point.
So telling her now, I mean, Icould tell her when she's in
fact, I think I have shared withher, I know I told her that I
(11:00):
had found my birth mother'sfamily and where they were from.
And I took pleasure in tellingher that all the information
that she had been told aboutwhere I came from was wrong.
I know that's terrible, butbased off of what I had gone
through as a child and how shehad hidden some things from me,
(11:22):
I enjoyed doing that.
It was probably the meanestthing I've ever done.
But at that particular point inmy life, I was in a place.
Corey (11:31):
But no judgment here.
SPEAKER_02 (11:33):
But that was 2009.
I've come a long way since then.
I have not ever told my dad anyof it.
My dad, as awful as he is, asmean as a striped snake as he
is, it would break his heart.
He just doesn't know how totreat people.
Like, no matter who that personis, whether it's me, my mom, a
(11:56):
doctor, a nurse, a preacher, afriend, he just does not know
how to treat people in general.
Corey (12:04):
How is he as a grandfather?
SPEAKER_02 (12:06):
Once my child got to a certain age, he just started
repeating the same bullshit.
When my child was younger, they,you know, dad was good to them.
They came out when they were 18as non-binary, and I still have
to live across two worldsbecause they have opted not to
(12:27):
tell their grandparents.
And so in my parents' world,they are still a she and go by
their dead name.
And I sometimes trip up becauseeven though it's been three and
a half years, there was one timewhen my mother said, How's your
daughter?
And I went, My what?
My mother also called them bytheir dead name.
(12:50):
And I went, Who?
I've gotten so used to callingthem Connor that I there when
the other name comes up, Isometimes just absolutely
forget.
As a grandfather, when they weresmaller and you know, easily
pliable, dad was wonderful whenthey started to talk back.
Very similar to the theliterally the phrase that my
(13:12):
mother has always used.
Nicole was perfect until shestarted talking.
I think she probably still tellspeople that I've heard that my
whole life.
For the longest time, I was I'venever been quiet, I'm sure you
can tell from all the talking.
But for the longest time, Ididn't talk about me.
(13:37):
I tried to I stayed small or Itried to stay small.
I'm sure that's hard to believe,just based off of kind of my
biggest.
Corey (13:46):
Oh no, I totally totally get it.
It's protecting yourself, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:50):
Yeah, but uh my kid, I mean, there's stuff that you
know I could talk about uhrelated to my parents and my kid
right now, but that's that'sthat's more their story to tell
than and they're paying my myparents are paying for their
college right now, too, which isanother reason.
My dad's 91, my mom's 87, we'llbe 88 in November.
(14:13):
My dad is insisting on caringfor my mother at home with no
help at all.
And from what I understand,leaves her alone in the house
for extended periods of timewithout access to the phone.
He leaves his cell phone in thehouse by by himself.
I can't even, it's a hot mess.
(14:33):
And I'm the only child, and I'vehad to I've had to walk away
from it because I he didn't evenwant to believe that she had
dementia or Alzheimer's oranything.
Your mom's fine, she'll walkagain.
Corey (14:48):
What's up?
SPEAKER_02 (14:49):
Yeah, oh family, oh yeah, yeah, family.
And then the story of how theygot me to begin with is like I
said, that that whole Alabamathing.
So it's 1974.
I was when I was born, and theyhad been attempting to adopt or
have their own child.
Yeah, first it's to have theirown child, and moms got
(15:10):
endometriosis and whatever, andit's the 70s, so of course it
becomes, well, you're just notgoing to be able to have a kid.
And so they become they beginthe whole adoption process and
they try everything.
And at one point they had ahome.
The story is they had a homeinspection, and they were not
going to be allowed to adoptbecause allegedly, well, not
(15:31):
allegedly, I mean, yes, thispart is true.
The step from the kitchen intothe sunken living room didn't
meet code.
It wasn't up to code, it was toohigh.
And that was allegedly thereason why they failed home
inspection.
I don't believe that per minute.
I believe that was what theDepartment of Human Resources in
(15:52):
Alabama and Cherokee County toldthem, because of the standing of
my parents in the county, tokeep them like my mother's kind
of one of the original Karen's,I think, to keep them from
causing this big hullabaloo andgetting loud.
As the story goes, and I've seenthe letter, so I know it's real.
(16:12):
As the story goes, my motherwrites a letter to George
Wallace.
Within three months, they'vegotten a phone call, and then
they're going to Montgomery andpicking me up.
The year was 1974 slash 1975.
He's running for president.
(16:34):
As I'm looking through all ofthis, the possibility, that
letter, and I remember itbasically saying something along
the lines of who they are, howmuch money they have,
contributions, Alabama alumni,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
We want a child.
And then three months later, andand George Wallace was known,
(16:58):
even though he was a horribleman, he was known to, in order
for political favors, or inorder for people to vote for
him, or in order for people tobelieve, you know, start talking
about, they always called himUncle George, or, you know,
people believed they they hadthis parasocial thing going on
with him back then, that he waspart of their family.
(17:19):
And even though he was who hewas, they would claim him as
though they knew him.
And it was wild.
You would hear people talk, evennow, you could talk about George
Wallace when I go, Oh, yeah,Uncle George.
unknown (17:34):
What?
SPEAKER_02 (17:36):
No.
Um, and so that's the story.
My mother believes to this daythat the reason why I ended up
coming home with them, and thatthey were able to drive to
Montgomery and pick me up onFebruary 21st, 1975, was because
she wrote a letter, a personalletter to George Wallace.
Corey (17:54):
That's wild.
SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
It's that not the wildest thing.
When I was growing up, I thoughtthat's a cool story.
No, it's not.
It absolutely is not.
And like what's good for thebook.
When I was thinking about itlast night, I thought,
especially, you know, listeningto the episode about the black
market lawyer stuff and allthat.
(18:15):
I'm like, I'm not surprised.
I wouldn't be the least bitsurprised if there was a receipt
for me somewhere that I've justnever seen.
Corey (18:22):
Because campaign contribution?
SPEAKER_02 (18:24):
No shit, for real.
I mean, because I know there's apicture of me with the with
Coach Bear Bryant.
I'm in his arms, literally inBear Bryant's arms.
I was asleep because my motherused to drug me when I would get
upset.
But there's literally a pictureof me in the arms of Bear
Bryant.
But what's also in that pictureis his book.
So it was a book signing and acheckbook.
(18:47):
You can see it is right there ontop of the book.
And I'm going, This is how myand that's how my parents
operate.
They believe that the way youshow love, affection, garner
attention, whatever, is with acheckbook.
I'm literally looking at a checkfrom my dad right here, and then
(19:09):
a note right here written on theback of an Engels receipt.
It's a sarcastic note about boy,I sure do appreciate how you all
call your mother andgrandmother.
I'd be ashamed you all don'tknow how much better she'd feel
if you all would call once aweek.
I get those once a month.
He can't pick up the phone.
(19:30):
He said, Don't worry about me.
Don't call me.
I'll just go outside.
I don't want to talk to you.
Literally, it's what it saysacross the bottom, like right
here.
Corey (19:38):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (19:39):
That's my dad.
And my mom, I try to talk toher.
She'll tell me, I will.
I'll call her and show I'll talkto her, but my dad doesn't think
I call her and talk to herbecause she doesn't tell him
because she's got dementia.
Corey (19:51):
We went to the same thing with Kemble's father, where it
was like, you can say, like,well, when's the last time you
heard from such and such?
And oh, yesterday, but it's beenthree months.
It's like they just they don'thave that sense of time and
place anymore, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
And mom calls me sometimes at like 3 a.m.
and I'm thinking the world's onfire.
And then she's like, Oh, I justwent for a walk.
And I'm like, No, you didn't.
You haven't walked in threeyears.
You didn't go for a walk.
And I'm like, Are you okay?
Is everything fine?
Yeah, I'm fine.
I just was going for a walk.
I thought I'd give you a call.
Like, okay, where's that?
And he always complains how hecan't sleep because she moves
(20:24):
around too much.
You're probably dead to theworld asleep right now if she's
laying in bed calling me, or youleft her in the chair and you
went to bed because there'ssomething going on.
It's three in the morning andnobody's yeah.
Corey (20:38):
Oh.
SPEAKER_02 (20:39):
But that's the way my life has always been.
It's always been guilt riddenand money, and apparently George
Wallace is the reason why I wasraised by this family.
Corey (20:48):
We talk about nature and nurture on Family Twist quite a
bit, and I imagine that comingfrom an evangelical family, that
you did probably did not get thehorror stuff to probably did not
come from your adoptive parents.
Did are is there any sense onthe birth parent side that you
might have gotten your interestin horror?
SPEAKER_02 (22:09):
I did find out that my dad was an intelligence
officer in the army.
And he was also like an actor,stage actor, when he was in
school, and he spent a lot oftime like up in New York.
Apparently, he mil met RaquelWelch and Bob Hope at some point
he has a letter.
(22:30):
It's all very exciting.
I had wondered where my kid gotthe whole theater thing because
didn't get it from me.
I know that my next oldestsister loves New Orleans like I
do, and is totally into that.
I can feel the atmosphere thing.
Like when, so I know there'ssomething there.
My adoptive mother was reallyinto Poe.
(22:50):
So she was really into all ofthat.
That's kind of where I firstdipped my toe in as far as
reading went, was you know, thetelltale hard and all of those.
Stories.
Those scared me more sometimesthan the Stephen King stuff.
I don't know why that whole themonkey paw and all of those were
more scary to me than theothers, but I think it was the
(23:12):
paranormal type thing.
You're talking about evangelicalstuff, you say that I didn't get
that.
No, I don't know if you haveever heard of Hellhouse.
Corey (23:20):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:21):
That shit is scary.
When you're raised to believethat if you don't repent and
give your soul to the Lord,right this very minute, you
might get hit by a bus and gostraight to hell.
And then on Halloween, they takeyou to this.
That's another reason why Ididn't like haunted houses.
(23:42):
On Halloween, they had these,you know, the Christian version,
which was Hellhouse, and youknow, you'd go through and like,
oh, look, they were in a caraccident.
Oh, this one's going to heaven.
How sweet.
This one's going to hell.
And it's fucking terrifying.
These people are your friends.
You're watching your friends actthis shit out.
(24:02):
And then your friend is going tohell.
And you're like, oh.
And I think it was Penn Tellerwho said, because he's an
atheist and he's like, as anatheist, I believe that you're
not doing your job right as aChristian.
If you honestly don't tell methat I'm going to go to hell,
like, and you're not trying toconvert me from the very minute
(24:23):
that you meet me, then you'renot doing what you're supposed
to be doing.
That was how I was raised.
I didn't have a whole lot offriends as a child unless they
were also Christians, because Iwas constantly telling people if
they didn't go to church, ifthey didn't convert, if they
didn't become a Christian, theywere going to hell.
It was scarier than any horrormovie that I've ever seen.
(24:44):
Because the idea that this canhappen, this will happen if you
do something that you aren't100% sure you're getting right.
Because no, you there's noguarantee that you're right
about what you're doing.
Did you give your soul to theLord?
I don't know.
Did I do did I pray the prayerright?
Did I ask for forgivenesscorrectly?
You won't know till you die.
(25:05):
And then you're fucked.
If you die and you didn't do itright, you're going either here
or here.
And so it is absolutelyanxiety-ridden for a child who
is unmedicated and adopted andliving in an unpredictable
family situation.
(25:25):
And thank God I am deconstructednow, or I would still be a hot
mess.
I lived that life until I was, Imean, I cried the night before I
got married to my first husband,to my kid's dad, because he was
a Christian scientist and raisedthat way.
And I was convinced that I'mgonna go to heaven, he's gonna
(25:48):
go to hell.
I wasn't able to change his mindabout how I was 26.
I mean, I sobbed.
So I'm like, I'm still marryingthis man, I love him, but we
won't be together after we die.
There was nothing I could doabout it, and I was absolutely
terrified of being alone after Idied because my husband wouldn't
(26:08):
be there.
Even in heaven, I was scaredthat I would be alone, which is
another fear because of beingadopted.
Being Christian evangelicaldoesn't do the horror thing any
justice, right?
You don't get, you're notsupposed to whatever, be into
that.
But they do their own versionand it's awful.
(26:29):
We do lock-ins at the church andthey would show us these movies
about what could happen if youare left behind before the whole
left behind series came.
And I remember this demon in oneof them that was so realistic
that I couldn't watch the omenor any of those kind of movies
for till I, you know, started tobelieve that maybe some of that
(26:51):
was human conceived.
Corey (26:55):
Wow.
Yeah, wild stuff.
Oh my goodness.
My head is spinning.
Yeah.
Not literally not literally likethe exorcist.
SPEAKER_02 (27:02):
Oh yeah.
If you start spitting pea soup,we're gonna have I do know some
prayers, but I don't know thatit would help.
Corey (27:11):
Hopefully, not me anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
I don't think it would help coming from me.
Corey (27:16):
There's so Nicole, because this is a crossover
episode, you get two finalquestions because we ask one on
each podcast.
Okay.
And I'll start with the FamilyTwist one.
And this can either be aboutlike as you're working on your
book or as you were goingthrough stuff as in childhood.
And I know that you're a bigjazz fan, but yeah, is there a
(27:37):
song or a musical artist thatkind of helps get you through
some of this stuff?
SPEAKER_02 (27:42):
So it's Breathe 2 a.m.
by Anna Nailick, and the lyricsare wild.
They practically are my life,honestly, but like from her
perspective, so like someoneelse looking at when I was 17, I
ended up pregnant, and I choseto abort instead of putting my
(28:03):
child up for adoption.
And my mother, I was only 17,and so my mother had to take me
to Birmingham to do this.
And there's the first lines ofthis is is about fixing my
latest mistake and then going tobasically going to the clinic
and you know, walking in andeveryone staring.
(28:26):
And she said, But thehypocrites, they're all here for
the same thing.
And I remember walking in withmy mother, and she was like, I
hope we don't see anybody herethat we know.
And I'm like, but we're here allfor the same reason.
(28:47):
Nobody comes to an to a cliniclike this at 8 a.m.
on a Saturday just to get acheckup.
Corey (28:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:56):
As we're walking out, I'm like, I could just kill
that son of a bitch, because hedidn't return my phone calls
that week, which is why I endedup in that situation.
And she was like, watch yourmouth.
I'm like, literally just cameout of a clinic and you're
telling me not to say son of abitch.
Good job, mom.
The next verse is about, Iguess, a soldier who's going
(29:18):
through like PTSD, which I do, Ihave PTSD.
It's complex PTSD due to all ofthe shit.
And he drinks too much,basically, self-medicate.
And while I went through a smallphase in my life where I did do
that and I could black out andpeople wouldn't even recognize I
couldn't even tell that I hadbeen drinking that much.
(29:38):
I guess I was really good athiding it.
My second husband was a full-onalcoholic and he almost killed
me once.
That song basically to answeryour question, breathe 2 a.m.
by Anna Nailek.
Corey (29:52):
Hey.
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (29:53):
That would heavy stories.
Corey (29:56):
That would happy.
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02 (29:58):
I don't know if you can see here.
I have a quarter rest tattoo onmy left hand, and I got that to
remind me to breathe, becausethat is it's the handwritten
version of a quarter rest, notthe one that comes down off of
the and it's meant for eithersingers or instrumental like
players, and so to remind themto breathe in between their
(30:22):
notes.
And so that was the silence inbetween the sound.
Breathe.
Corey (30:28):
All right.
On Horror Heels, we always askwho is your favorite final
person in a horror movie, thesurvivor.
SPEAKER_02 (30:36):
I actually had the answer to this a while back, and
now I I think I've changed mymind on it.
But uh it goes back to so fromthe descent, and I again I don't
remember her name from the firstone.
Of course, then we have to faulther for going back.
From the first one, if they andit just ended it there, would
have been just perfect.
Exactly.
(30:56):
But the the way that she wasable to fight her way out of
that entire mess.
And again, you know, being fromthe mountains myself, even
though it's the tail end, themountains call to me all the
time.
The way that she just managed tokick and fight and claw her way
out, and then just said, fuckit, and just driving.
(31:17):
And it was like there was justno, she was just so focused and
so out, and there was no lookingback.
Well, until the next movie,there was no looking back, and
this isn't my car, I don't care.
This is just I'm gone.
And so that was at least that'sthe way I remember it, at the
end of wrong turn.
(31:38):
Those movies, because of where Icome from, again scare the hell
out of me.
I know a lot of people watchthem and laugh at them.
There are some of them, thereare moments that are ridiculous,
but I mean, absolutelyterrifying.
But yeah, those are the finalgirls that that can just walk
(31:59):
away from it, or that can takethe shit and then walk away from
it and burn it all down.
Because that's what I feel.
I felt I felt like Carrie when Iwas growing up.
I had shit like that happen tome.
I mean, it wasn't pig's blood,but you know, that there were
(32:20):
moments where I felt supernaive, and I had people pick on
me, and there were the bras inthe freezer and stuff on the
fans, and people would likespread stupid rumors about me.
And I had a football player likecome up once and like wrap his
arm around me and walk me aroundsomething because there was a
rumor allegedly that I had saidthat he was asking me out when
(32:43):
actually I was tutoring him ingeometry, and it was this big
thing.
So all of it just reminded mevery much of I just want to fuck
it and burn it all day on.
So, like Carrie, Firestarter,all of this stuff with where the
the one can just walk away andblinders on, and everything
(33:05):
behind her is on fire.
Any of those.
Corey (33:08):
You've given me a lot to ponder.
So appreciate this conversation,and I'm so looking forward to
however the the book turns out.
So you have to keep in touch andlet us know.
And please send our regards toConnor.
You know, we always like to putpositivity out to other people
in the community, or you know,we're we're super inclusive
here.
SPEAKER_02 (33:26):
Well, and they're a senior in college right now,
they're doing the theater techproduction type stuff.
That's what they're doing.
And that they're gonna begraduating this upcoming May.
So their school starts in liketwo weeks for their final year.
Yeah, my book should be donethis year.
It's gonna be called The Musicof Us, and it's all about roots
(33:48):
and music and how it all tiestogether, and it's all about
stories and we'll definitelyhave you back on when it's
around around time forpublishing.
Corey (33:57):
This has been great.
And there are so manysimilarities between your story
and Kendall's story that we cantouch upon when he's with us.
SPEAKER_02 (34:05):
I didn't really even talk about how I've been
involved with the adoptioncommunity community since 2005,
six, and then I just kind of hadto, it was so taking over my
life there for a while that Ijust kind of had to step out for
a bit.
My emotional energy was justgetting sapped.
Corey (34:26):
No, I get it.
I totally could relate.
Thank you for finding us andthank you for listening.
No, put it back together forsure.
Kendall (34:32):
Nicole and I have a lot in common.
Finding siblings through DNA,suddenly seeing your face in
somebody else, finding abiological father later in life,
building relationships with somebiological relatives while
others are more complicated.
There's a lot there.
I love that she now has sisters.
(34:53):
I also appreciate that shedoesn't pretend that DNA
automatically creates someperfect family.
Some relationships aredeveloping and some are easier
than others.
That's just real.
Corey (35:05):
Nicole is writing about all of this in The Music of Us,
which brings together familyroots, music, and the stories
she spent years trying tounderstand.
Kendall (35:13):
Nicole, when that book is ready, we want you back on
this podcast.
Absolutely.
Corey (35:19):
And also, thank you for trusting us with a story that
included some very painfulthings, but also somehow gave us
Governor George Wallace, FairBryant, Stephen King,
Evangelical Hellhouses, JazzBest, and the movie The Descent.
Thanks everybody for listeningto both parts.
And remember, Family Secrets arethe ultimate plot twist.
Family Twist Podcast is producedand presented by Mosaic
(35:40):
Multimedia LLC.
Hey everybody, I'm Kendall, and I'm Corey.
(00:02):
We're back with part two of ourconversation with writer and
adoptee Nicole Davis.
In part one, Nicole told usabout growing up adopted in
Alabama and the difficultrelationship she had with her
adopted parents, and the verystrange possibility that a
letter to infamous GovernorGeorge Wallace helped make her
adoption happen, which is stillone of the wildest sentences
(00:24):
we've ever said on this show.
And we've said some pretty wildthings.
But Nicole's story changed againlast year because of
Ancestry.com.
A woman had been trying tocontact her.
Corey (00:36):
Nicole was busy getting ready for Jazz Fest and kept
putting it off, and eventuallytook a closer look.
Kendall (00:41):
27% DNA shared.
Nicole had a sister, and thatsister had something else to
tell her.
I was talking to Dad.
There's just one small problem.
Nicole thought Dad was dead for12 years.
Suddenly she had a biologicalfather who is very much alive
and wants to talk to her, andshe learns she has several
(01:04):
sisters, one of whom is only afew years older than Nicole's
school child.
Nicole talks about what thoserelationships have become, why
she feels particularly close toher youngest sister, and what
it's been like getting to knowher father while having very
little contact with the parentswho raised her.
Corey (01:22):
And because this conversation also became a
horror field crossover, we'regonna find out why Nicole
identifies with horror survivorswho fight their way out and
don't look back.
Kendall (01:30):
I think by now you can probably understand why.
Here's part two with NicoleDavis.
Corey (01:39):
I had a thought a few minutes ago that it was like
even things that were scary toyou as a kid, that was also your
escape.
Yeah.
Horror was terrifying to you,but it was also an escape from
your reality, which was also ahorror show.
SPEAKER_02 (01:54):
It was predictable horror.
Whereas my dad or my mom notpredictable at all, predictably
unpredictable, and never knewwhat kind of mood my dad was
going to be in when he came homefrom work.
He worked a Goodyear in Gadston,Alabama for 40 years.
And he could be in a good moodwhen he came home, or he could
(02:14):
be in a pissy mood when he camehome.
And it had absolutely nothing todo with whether I was a good kid
that day or if I had been, youknow, just an absolute shit.
Horror, whether it was escape ina Stephen King book, or just in
my own head sometimes.
Yeah.
If I was watching Nightmare onElm Street or I didn't do Jason,
(02:39):
I didn't do Friday the 13th.
I had friends at church in myyouth group who were constantly
going to the movies, like theday they came out, and they
would come back from on Sundayand they would talk about it in
Sunday school.
And I'm like, this doesn't seemlike a movie that like my church
friends should be going to see.
But at the same time, I'mthinking, I don't want to see
somebody get stabbed at a lake.
(03:01):
We grew up on a lake.
I think that was another thing.
It's like Cherokee County itselfin center Alabama is around a
lake.
I'm sure you've heard of LakeLanier in here in Atlanta.
Everybody knows about thehaunted lake.
Well, Weiss Lake in centerAlabama is very similar, it's
just smaller and less wellknown.
But you know, Oscarville isunderneath Lake Lanier.
(03:23):
We had a very similar communityin Cherokee County that was
underneath Weiss Lake.
You know, when the water's low,you can see the rectangles where
the cemetery used to be, all ofthat.
And it was a black community.
Same deal.
If you know you move thecommunities that are quote
unquote easier to move, right?
But it's all for the good of thecommunity.
(03:46):
But anyway, so I am not a fan ofanything that's around a lake,
isolated.
I didn't go to camp for a longtime because people would tell
the stories about uh CrystalLake.
Corey (04:01):
Uh and I And that could be even worse because if you've
got a good imagination, it's youknow, you're it just goes wild.
You know, worse than seeing iton the street.
I remember, and this isn't uh ahorror movie per se, but my best
friend when I was five acrossthe street, she and her brother
got to see E.T.
before we did.
And she just kept referring tohim as this spaceman.
(04:23):
Spaceman.
And I'm picturing like anastronaut because that's where
my you know young brain wouldlike, you know, I didn't I had
no idea how to visualize whatE.T.
was, and she just said spaceman,and I just thought this was it
sounds so weird.
But yeah, sometimes just hearinga story is gonna create
something worse in your mind forsure.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
And I did have a very vivid imagination.
I'm a writer, so that's just myimagination has always been
wild, but at the same time, I'malso very particular about
details.
And the truth is one of thosethings where I'm I don't
remember how old I was, but itmay have been seventh or eighth
grade, going back to that wholehome invasion thing.
(05:05):
There was a a guy in our areathat escaped from prison, and
then they caught him, and thenthey put him in our local jail,
then he escaped again.
He was a murderer.
His name was something holidaygene.
Something I don't remember hisla his first name, but I just
remember it was always on thenews.
(05:26):
And at some point he broke intosomeone's trailer, Alabama.
He broke into someone's trailer,and uh they caught him in the
trailer, but he escaped throughthe window.
And I just and they described itand they saw the curtain hanging
(05:47):
out of the window.
They put it on the news.
My parents watched the news allthe time.
The news was always on fiveo'clock, six, five thirty, six
o'clock, world news, local news,everything.
10:30 and then 10:30 was bad 10o'clock and then 1030 was
bedtime.
And so I remember seeing thecurtain outside the window
(06:07):
because he used it to, I don'tknow, grab outside anyway.
And that visual fucked with mebecause the idea of someone you
getting going out the window,again, it's that home invasion
thing, right?
Like going out of the window andleaving your house with the
(06:28):
barrier broken, I guess.
So like the windows open andsomething from the inside is
also outside.
It really messed with me.
And I couldn't, there were timeswhere I could not go in that
bathroom after dark with thelight on if the shade was up,
because I was afraid if I hadthe light on, there would be
(06:48):
somebody out in the field.
It was that whole Michael thingout in the field could see me,
but I couldn't see them becausethe lights on.
And so I would always walk inthere with the light off, pull
the shade down, then come backon and turn the light on so I
could do what I needed to do inthe bathroom.
Terrified of outside, like rightoutside the light.
(07:11):
My dad used to, we used toscrape all the food that we had
leftovers, whatever, and keepthem in like the two-liter coke
bottles.
He would kind of cut the lid orwhatever, and we'd keep all of
that, and then we would eitherfeed it to the dog if we had
one, or we would take it to theedge of the yard and just put it
there.
And that was the most fertilepiece of land.
Of course.
One little piece.
(07:32):
But I may I insisted that heturn the light on so I could go
out and do it because we had 220acres.
Oh.
Went all the way to the river,and there were always wild dogs
that had escaped from, say,various people's houses in this
rural area that would kind ofpack up back in the back 40 or
the bottoms, as they were calledin the area.
(07:54):
And you could hear them scare meto death, absolutely terrified
me as a kid.
And so I would go walking out.
I mean, then the edge of theyard was no further than say
your front yard to the road ifyou had a decent sized yard.
But it was still so scary.
If and I one time went out thereand I had the lights on, and dad
(08:14):
was just so obsessive aboutmaking sure everything's ready
for bed or whatever, and heflipped the lights off while I
was outside.
I was just convinced that thedarkness or whatever was going
to envelop, I ran back to thedoor to get inside.
And I don't know, that moviethat I there was a lighthouse
(08:35):
too.
I remember like at the end ofthe movie, there was a
lighthouse and the thing keptcircling or whatever.
And if they got outside of theray of the light, that whatever
was just outside could get them.
That movie just my brain wasfried after that movie was over.
Afterwards, too.
I really relaxed.
(08:55):
I'm like, oh, okay.
So everything I believed wasbullshit because now they've
made a movie about it.
There's absolutely no way it'strue.
Corey (09:02):
There you go.
SPEAKER_02 (09:03):
I believe in all of that extra the paranormal and
voodoo type stuff.
I really I am a vast believer inroot work and spiritual stuff
like that.
Of course, at the same time,there's the the the trope of the
killer adoptee.
Flip a switch at some point andgo ham on everybody in the
(09:25):
family.
One never knows when the childwill up and decide or the demon
that's within them.
Because who knows what familythey came from and they could
have been possessed by whatever.
Gotta love that particular tropethat plagued us for years and
years, and probably still does.
(09:46):
I'm sure there will be anotherfile 54.
The one with yeah, with ReneeZellwigger.
Corey (09:54):
Yeah, that one.
SPEAKER_02 (09:54):
We're always the butt of something.
There's always something wrongwith it.
I was grateful for the the mythof the kingdoms, yeah.
Right.
Grateful for that one because itwas pretty much dead on.
There was, well, I don't saypretty much, it was dead on.
There's nothing about that thatwas like the typical trope of
oh, we're evil.
(10:15):
Adoptees are the bad seed, andwe don't we have bad blood and
we don't know where they comefrom, and you have to keep an
eye on them and oh, they'regonna go crazy on everybody.
That's grateful for thataltogether.
Corey (10:28):
How did you go about t telling your adoptive parents
about your discovery of yourbirth father and half siblings?
SPEAKER_02 (10:37):
I did grow up with that whole I'm not gonna look.
I'm gonna look, but I'm notgonna tell them because it will
hurt their feelings thing untilI got older and realized that I
didn't care anymore.
But my adoptive mother is prettymuch full-on Alzheimer's at this
point.
So telling her now, I mean, Icould tell her when she's in
fact, I think I have shared withher, I know I told her that I
(11:00):
had found my birth mother'sfamily and where they were from.
And I took pleasure in tellingher that all the information
that she had been told aboutwhere I came from was wrong.
I know that's terrible, butbased off of what I had gone
through as a child and how shehad hidden some things from me,
(11:22):
I enjoyed doing that.
It was probably the meanestthing I've ever done.
But at that particular point inmy life, I was in a place.
Corey (11:31):
But no judgment here.
SPEAKER_02 (11:33):
But that was 2009.
I've come a long way since then.
I have not ever told my dad anyof it.
My dad, as awful as he is, asmean as a striped snake as he
is, it would break his heart.
He just doesn't know how totreat people.
Like, no matter who that personis, whether it's me, my mom, a
(11:56):
doctor, a nurse, a preacher, afriend, he just does not know
how to treat people in general.
Corey (12:04):
How is he as a grandfather?
SPEAKER_02 (12:06):
Once my child got to a certain age, he just started
repeating the same bullshit.
When my child was younger, they,you know, dad was good to them.
They came out when they were 18as non-binary, and I still have
to live across two worldsbecause they have opted not to
(12:27):
tell their grandparents.
And so in my parents' world,they are still a she and go by
their dead name.
And I sometimes trip up becauseeven though it's been three and
a half years, there was one timewhen my mother said, How's your
daughter?
And I went, My what?
My mother also called them bytheir dead name.
(12:50):
And I went, Who?
I've gotten so used to callingthem Connor that I there when
the other name comes up, Isometimes just absolutely
forget.
As a grandfather, when they weresmaller and you know, easily
pliable, dad was wonderful whenthey started to talk back.
Very similar to the theliterally the phrase that my
(13:12):
mother has always used.
Nicole was perfect until shestarted talking.
I think she probably still tellspeople that I've heard that my
whole life.
For the longest time, I was I'venever been quiet, I'm sure you
can tell from all the talking.
But for the longest time, Ididn't talk about me.
(13:37):
I tried to I stayed small or Itried to stay small.
I'm sure that's hard to believe,just based off of kind of my
biggest.
Corey (13:46):
Oh no, I totally totally get it.
It's protecting yourself, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:50):
Yeah, but uh my kid, I mean, there's stuff that you
know I could talk about uhrelated to my parents and my kid
right now, but that's that'sthat's more their story to tell
than and they're paying my myparents are paying for their
college right now, too, which isanother reason.
My dad's 91, my mom's 87, we'llbe 88 in November.
(14:13):
My dad is insisting on caringfor my mother at home with no
help at all.
And from what I understand,leaves her alone in the house
for extended periods of timewithout access to the phone.
He leaves his cell phone in thehouse by by himself.
I can't even, it's a hot mess.
(14:33):
And I'm the only child, and I'vehad to I've had to walk away
from it because I he didn't evenwant to believe that she had
dementia or Alzheimer's oranything.
Your mom's fine, she'll walkagain.
Corey (14:48):
What's up?
SPEAKER_02 (14:49):
Yeah, oh family, oh yeah, yeah, family.
And then the story of how theygot me to begin with is like I
said, that that whole Alabamathing.
So it's 1974.
I was when I was born, and theyhad been attempting to adopt or
have their own child.
Yeah, first it's to have theirown child, and moms got
(15:10):
endometriosis and whatever, andit's the 70s, so of course it
becomes, well, you're just notgoing to be able to have a kid.
And so they become they beginthe whole adoption process and
they try everything.
And at one point they had ahome.
The story is they had a homeinspection, and they were not
going to be allowed to adoptbecause allegedly, well, not
(15:31):
allegedly, I mean, yes, thispart is true.
The step from the kitchen intothe sunken living room didn't
meet code.
It wasn't up to code, it was toohigh.
And that was allegedly thereason why they failed home
inspection.
I don't believe that per minute.
I believe that was what theDepartment of Human Resources in
(15:52):
Alabama and Cherokee County toldthem, because of the standing of
my parents in the county, tokeep them like my mother's kind
of one of the original Karen's,I think, to keep them from
causing this big hullabaloo andgetting loud.
As the story goes, and I've seenthe letter, so I know it's real.
(16:12):
As the story goes, my motherwrites a letter to George
Wallace.
Within three months, they'vegotten a phone call, and then
they're going to Montgomery andpicking me up.
The year was 1974 slash 1975.
He's running for president.
(16:34):
As I'm looking through all ofthis, the possibility, that
letter, and I remember itbasically saying something along
the lines of who they are, howmuch money they have,
contributions, Alabama alumni,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
We want a child.
And then three months later, andand George Wallace was known,
(16:58):
even though he was a horribleman, he was known to, in order
for political favors, or inorder for people to vote for
him, or in order for people tobelieve, you know, start talking
about, they always called himUncle George, or, you know,
people believed they they hadthis parasocial thing going on
with him back then, that he waspart of their family.
(17:19):
And even though he was who hewas, they would claim him as
though they knew him.
And it was wild.
You would hear people talk, evennow, you could talk about George
Wallace when I go, Oh, yeah,Uncle George.
unknown (17:34):
What?
SPEAKER_02 (17:36):
No.
Um, and so that's the story.
My mother believes to this daythat the reason why I ended up
coming home with them, and thatthey were able to drive to
Montgomery and pick me up onFebruary 21st, 1975, was because
she wrote a letter, a personalletter to George Wallace.
Corey (17:54):
That's wild.
SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
It's that not the wildest thing.
When I was growing up, I thoughtthat's a cool story.
No, it's not.
It absolutely is not.
And like what's good for thebook.
When I was thinking about itlast night, I thought,
especially, you know, listeningto the episode about the black
market lawyer stuff and allthat.
(18:15):
I'm like, I'm not surprised.
I wouldn't be the least bitsurprised if there was a receipt
for me somewhere that I've justnever seen.
Corey (18:22):
Because campaign contribution?
SPEAKER_02 (18:24):
No shit, for real.
I mean, because I know there's apicture of me with the with
Coach Bear Bryant.
I'm in his arms, literally inBear Bryant's arms.
I was asleep because my motherused to drug me when I would get
upset.
But there's literally a pictureof me in the arms of Bear
Bryant.
But what's also in that pictureis his book.
So it was a book signing and acheckbook.
(18:47):
You can see it is right there ontop of the book.
And I'm going, This is how myand that's how my parents
operate.
They believe that the way youshow love, affection, garner
attention, whatever, is with acheckbook.
I'm literally looking at a checkfrom my dad right here, and then
(19:09):
a note right here written on theback of an Engels receipt.
It's a sarcastic note about boy,I sure do appreciate how you all
call your mother andgrandmother.
I'd be ashamed you all don'tknow how much better she'd feel
if you all would call once aweek.
I get those once a month.
He can't pick up the phone.
(19:30):
He said, Don't worry about me.
Don't call me.
I'll just go outside.
I don't want to talk to you.
Literally, it's what it saysacross the bottom, like right
here.
Corey (19:38):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (19:39):
That's my dad.
And my mom, I try to talk toher.
She'll tell me, I will.
I'll call her and show I'll talkto her, but my dad doesn't think
I call her and talk to herbecause she doesn't tell him
because she's got dementia.
Corey (19:51):
We went to the same thing with Kemble's father, where it
was like, you can say, like,well, when's the last time you
heard from such and such?
And oh, yesterday, but it's beenthree months.
It's like they just they don'thave that sense of time and
place anymore, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
And mom calls me sometimes at like 3 a.m.
and I'm thinking the world's onfire.
And then she's like, Oh, I justwent for a walk.
And I'm like, No, you didn't.
You haven't walked in threeyears.
You didn't go for a walk.
And I'm like, Are you okay?
Is everything fine?
Yeah, I'm fine.
I just was going for a walk.
I thought I'd give you a call.
Like, okay, where's that?
And he always complains how hecan't sleep because she moves
(20:24):
around too much.
You're probably dead to theworld asleep right now if she's
laying in bed calling me, or youleft her in the chair and you
went to bed because there'ssomething going on.
It's three in the morning andnobody's yeah.
Corey (20:38):
Oh.
SPEAKER_02 (20:39):
But that's the way my life has always been.
It's always been guilt riddenand money, and apparently George
Wallace is the reason why I wasraised by this family.
Corey (20:48):
We talk about nature and nurture on Family Twist quite a
bit, and I imagine that comingfrom an evangelical family, that
you did probably did not get thehorror stuff to probably did not
come from your adoptive parents.
Did are is there any sense onthe birth parent side that you
might have gotten your interestin horror?
SPEAKER_02 (22:09):
I did find out that my dad was an intelligence
officer in the army.
And he was also like an actor,stage actor, when he was in
school, and he spent a lot oftime like up in New York.
Apparently, he mil met RaquelWelch and Bob Hope at some point
he has a letter.
(22:30):
It's all very exciting.
I had wondered where my kid gotthe whole theater thing because
didn't get it from me.
I know that my next oldestsister loves New Orleans like I
do, and is totally into that.
I can feel the atmosphere thing.
Like when, so I know there'ssomething there.
My adoptive mother was reallyinto Poe.
(22:50):
So she was really into all ofthat.
That's kind of where I firstdipped my toe in as far as
reading went, was you know, thetelltale hard and all of those.
Stories.
Those scared me more sometimesthan the Stephen King stuff.
I don't know why that whole themonkey paw and all of those were
more scary to me than theothers, but I think it was the
(23:12):
paranormal type thing.
You're talking about evangelicalstuff, you say that I didn't get
that.
No, I don't know if you haveever heard of Hellhouse.
Corey (23:20):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:21):
That shit is scary.
When you're raised to believethat if you don't repent and
give your soul to the Lord,right this very minute, you
might get hit by a bus and gostraight to hell.
And then on Halloween, they takeyou to this.
That's another reason why Ididn't like haunted houses.
(23:42):
On Halloween, they had these,you know, the Christian version,
which was Hellhouse, and youknow, you'd go through and like,
oh, look, they were in a caraccident.
Oh, this one's going to heaven.
How sweet.
This one's going to hell.
And it's fucking terrifying.
These people are your friends.
You're watching your friends actthis shit out.
(24:02):
And then your friend is going tohell.
And you're like, oh.
And I think it was Penn Tellerwho said, because he's an
atheist and he's like, as anatheist, I believe that you're
not doing your job right as aChristian.
If you honestly don't tell methat I'm going to go to hell,
like, and you're not trying toconvert me from the very minute
(24:23):
that you meet me, then you'renot doing what you're supposed
to be doing.
That was how I was raised.
I didn't have a whole lot offriends as a child unless they
were also Christians, because Iwas constantly telling people if
they didn't go to church, ifthey didn't convert, if they
didn't become a Christian, theywere going to hell.
It was scarier than any horrormovie that I've ever seen.
(24:44):
Because the idea that this canhappen, this will happen if you
do something that you aren't100% sure you're getting right.
Because no, you there's noguarantee that you're right
about what you're doing.
Did you give your soul to theLord?
I don't know.
Did I do did I pray the prayerright?
Did I ask for forgivenesscorrectly?
You won't know till you die.
(25:05):
And then you're fucked.
If you die and you didn't do itright, you're going either here
or here.
And so it is absolutelyanxiety-ridden for a child who
is unmedicated and adopted andliving in an unpredictable
family situation.
(25:25):
And thank God I am deconstructednow, or I would still be a hot
mess.
I lived that life until I was, Imean, I cried the night before I
got married to my first husband,to my kid's dad, because he was
a Christian scientist and raisedthat way.
And I was convinced that I'mgonna go to heaven, he's gonna
(25:48):
go to hell.
I wasn't able to change his mindabout how I was 26.
I mean, I sobbed.
So I'm like, I'm still marryingthis man, I love him, but we
won't be together after we die.
There was nothing I could doabout it, and I was absolutely
terrified of being alone after Idied because my husband wouldn't
(26:08):
be there.
Even in heaven, I was scaredthat I would be alone, which is
another fear because of beingadopted.
Being Christian evangelicaldoesn't do the horror thing any
justice, right?
You don't get, you're notsupposed to whatever, be into
that.
But they do their own versionand it's awful.
(26:29):
We do lock-ins at the church andthey would show us these movies
about what could happen if youare left behind before the whole
left behind series came.
And I remember this demon in oneof them that was so realistic
that I couldn't watch the omenor any of those kind of movies
for till I, you know, started tobelieve that maybe some of that
(26:51):
was human conceived.
Corey (26:55):
Wow.
Yeah, wild stuff.
Oh my goodness.
My head is spinning.
Yeah.
Not literally not literally likethe exorcist.
SPEAKER_02 (27:02):
Oh yeah.
If you start spitting pea soup,we're gonna have I do know some
prayers, but I don't know thatit would help.
Corey (27:11):
Hopefully, not me anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
I don't think it would help coming from me.
Corey (27:16):
There's so Nicole, because this is a crossover
episode, you get two finalquestions because we ask one on
each podcast.
Okay.
And I'll start with the FamilyTwist one.
And this can either be aboutlike as you're working on your
book or as you were goingthrough stuff as in childhood.
And I know that you're a bigjazz fan, but yeah, is there a
(27:37):
song or a musical artist thatkind of helps get you through
some of this stuff?
SPEAKER_02 (27:42):
So it's Breathe 2 a.m.
by Anna Nailick, and the lyricsare wild.
They practically are my life,honestly, but like from her
perspective, so like someoneelse looking at when I was 17, I
ended up pregnant, and I choseto abort instead of putting my
(28:03):
child up for adoption.
And my mother, I was only 17,and so my mother had to take me
to Birmingham to do this.
And there's the first lines ofthis is is about fixing my
latest mistake and then going tobasically going to the clinic
and you know, walking in andeveryone staring.
(28:26):
And she said, But thehypocrites, they're all here for
the same thing.
And I remember walking in withmy mother, and she was like, I
hope we don't see anybody herethat we know.
And I'm like, but we're here allfor the same reason.
(28:47):
Nobody comes to an to a cliniclike this at 8 a.m.
on a Saturday just to get acheckup.
Corey (28:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:56):
As we're walking out, I'm like, I could just kill
that son of a bitch, because hedidn't return my phone calls
that week, which is why I endedup in that situation.
And she was like, watch yourmouth.
I'm like, literally just cameout of a clinic and you're
telling me not to say son of abitch.
Good job, mom.
The next verse is about, Iguess, a soldier who's going
(29:18):
through like PTSD, which I do, Ihave PTSD.
It's complex PTSD due to all ofthe shit.
And he drinks too much,basically, self-medicate.
And while I went through a smallphase in my life where I did do
that and I could black out andpeople wouldn't even recognize I
couldn't even tell that I hadbeen drinking that much.
(29:38):
I guess I was really good athiding it.
My second husband was a full-onalcoholic and he almost killed
me once.
That song basically to answeryour question, breathe 2 a.m.
by Anna Nailek.
Corey (29:52):
Hey.
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (29:53):
That would heavy stories.
Corey (29:56):
That would happy.
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02 (29:58):
I don't know if you can see here.
I have a quarter rest tattoo onmy left hand, and I got that to
remind me to breathe, becausethat is it's the handwritten
version of a quarter rest, notthe one that comes down off of
the and it's meant for eithersingers or instrumental like
players, and so to remind themto breathe in between their
(30:22):
notes.
And so that was the silence inbetween the sound.
Breathe.
Corey (30:28):
All right.
On Horror Heels, we always askwho is your favorite final
person in a horror movie, thesurvivor.
SPEAKER_02 (30:36):
I actually had the answer to this a while back, and
now I I think I've changed mymind on it.
But uh it goes back to so fromthe descent, and I again I don't
remember her name from the firstone.
Of course, then we have to faulther for going back.
From the first one, if they andit just ended it there, would
have been just perfect.
Exactly.
(30:56):
But the the way that she wasable to fight her way out of
that entire mess.
And again, you know, being fromthe mountains myself, even
though it's the tail end, themountains call to me all the
time.
The way that she just managed tokick and fight and claw her way
out, and then just said, fuckit, and just driving.
(31:17):
And it was like there was justno, she was just so focused and
so out, and there was no lookingback.
Well, until the next movie,there was no looking back, and
this isn't my car, I don't care.
This is just I'm gone.
And so that was at least that'sthe way I remember it, at the
end of wrong turn.
(31:38):
Those movies, because of where Icome from, again scare the hell
out of me.
I know a lot of people watchthem and laugh at them.
There are some of them, thereare moments that are ridiculous,
but I mean, absolutelyterrifying.
But yeah, those are the finalgirls that that can just walk
(31:59):
away from it, or that can takethe shit and then walk away from
it and burn it all down.
Because that's what I feel.
I felt I felt like Carrie when Iwas growing up.
I had shit like that happen tome.
I mean, it wasn't pig's blood,but you know, that there were
(32:20):
moments where I felt supernaive, and I had people pick on
me, and there were the bras inthe freezer and stuff on the
fans, and people would likespread stupid rumors about me.
And I had a football player likecome up once and like wrap his
arm around me and walk me aroundsomething because there was a
rumor allegedly that I had saidthat he was asking me out when
(32:43):
actually I was tutoring him ingeometry, and it was this big
thing.
So all of it just reminded mevery much of I just want to fuck
it and burn it all day on.
So, like Carrie, Firestarter,all of this stuff with where the
the one can just walk away andblinders on, and everything
(33:05):
behind her is on fire.
Any of those.
Corey (33:08):
You've given me a lot to ponder.
So appreciate this conversation,and I'm so looking forward to
however the the book turns out.
So you have to keep in touch andlet us know.
And please send our regards toConnor.
You know, we always like to putpositivity out to other people
in the community, or you know,we're we're super inclusive
here.
SPEAKER_02 (33:26):
Well, and they're a senior in college right now,
they're doing the theater techproduction type stuff.
That's what they're doing.
And that they're gonna begraduating this upcoming May.
So their school starts in liketwo weeks for their final year.
Yeah, my book should be donethis year.
It's gonna be called The Musicof Us, and it's all about roots
(33:48):
and music and how it all tiestogether, and it's all about
stories and we'll definitelyhave you back on when it's
around around time forpublishing.
Corey (33:57):
This has been great.
And there are so manysimilarities between your story
and Kendall's story that we cantouch upon when he's with us.
SPEAKER_02 (34:05):
I didn't really even talk about how I've been
involved with the adoptioncommunity community since 2005,
six, and then I just kind of hadto, it was so taking over my
life there for a while that Ijust kind of had to step out for
a bit.
My emotional energy was justgetting sapped.
Corey (34:26):
No, I get it.
I totally could relate.
Thank you for finding us andthank you for listening.
No, put it back together forsure.
Kendall (34:32):
Nicole and I have a lot in common.
Finding siblings through DNA,suddenly seeing your face in
somebody else, finding abiological father later in life,
building relationships with somebiological relatives while
others are more complicated.
There's a lot there.
I love that she now has sisters.
(34:53):
I also appreciate that shedoesn't pretend that DNA
automatically creates someperfect family.
Some relationships aredeveloping and some are easier
than others.
That's just real.
Corey (35:05):
Nicole is writing about all of this in The Music of Us,
which brings together familyroots, music, and the stories
she spent years trying tounderstand.
Kendall (35:13):
Nicole, when that book is ready, we want you back on
this podcast.
Absolutely.
Corey (35:19):
And also, thank you for trusting us with a story that
included some very painfulthings, but also somehow gave us
Governor George Wallace, FairBryant, Stephen King,
Evangelical Hellhouses, JazzBest, and the movie The Descent.
Thanks everybody for listeningto both parts.
And remember, Family Secrets arethe ultimate plot twist.
Family Twist Podcast is producedand presented by Mosaic
(35:40):
Multimedia LLC.
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