At 17, Shelley Anne Crawford boarded a plane for a scholarship year in America, under a rule that she could not call home for three months. Chapter 6 of her memoir My 3 Husbands: A True Story follows what that silence did to the relationship she left behind.
In this episode of the My 3 Husbands Book Cast, Shelley reads Chapter 6, "America Unplugged," and then sits down with her editor, Dr. Kent Gustavson, to talk about what she just read.
At the departure gate her mother's eyes were red, and Jason held on as if he could keep her there by will alone. She kissed him goodbye with more guilt than grief. When she was finally allowed to phone him, she heard his mother in the background before she heard him, asking "Is that Carol?" It was not her name. Shelley did not call again.
Kent calls it a small bridge of a chapter, one that maps distance. Shelley talks about the shy girl at the gate, detached among crying families, and a world before cell phones where a call home cost a fortune and came once every few months. Her point is simple: if you are ever going to be vulnerable, distance is what makes you so. Looking back, she believes Jason's mother knew exactly who was on the line.
Tune in to hear why, when Shelley writes that she had let him go, Kent suspects the reader is not quite convinced.
Chapters:
🧳
00:04 Shelley Anne Crawford leaves for America with more guilt than grief
🔕
01:23 Three months without contact, then another woman's name on the line
🎭
03:18 Doing everything right and still not being fully known
✈️
04:17 The shy girl at the departure gate is still in her today
🌍
07:00 Before cell phones, distance is what made a 17-year-old vulnerable
🕰️
10:12 Looking back, she believes Jason's mother knew who was calling
Episode 6
