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Nicole Davis always knew she was adopted. What she didn’t know was how strange the story behind her adoption would look once she started examining it as an adult.

Nicole was born in Alabama in 1974. Her adoptive parents had spent years trying to have a child and then trying to adopt. According to the family story, they eventually failed a home inspection because a step between their kitchen and sunken living room wasn’t up to code.

Then Nicole’s mother wrote a letter to Alabama Governor George Wallace. Within a few months, her parents got a call. They drove to Montgomery and brought Nicole home.

Her mother has always believed Wallace made it happen. Nicole grew up thinking that was a great story. Today, she has a lot more questions about it.

In Part 1 of our conversation, Nicole talks about growing up adopted in rural Alabama, the family she was raised in and the fears that followed her from childhood. As a little girl, she worried someone would come and take her away. Eventually, she found herself staring down the road and hoping someone from her biological family would show up and do exactly that.

Years later, Nicole began finding biological relatives and learning how much of what she thought she knew about her origins was incomplete or simply wrong. Then an Ancestry match appeared.

Nicole initially ignored it. When she finally looked more closely, she discovered she shared 27 percent DNA with the woman trying to contact her. She had found a sister.

That sister had another surprise: the biological father Nicole had believed was dead for 12 years was alive.

Nicole also happens to be a serious horror fan, and the connection between her adoption experience and the things that scare her is fascinating. Horror gave her something real life often didn’t: predictable fear. Freddy Krueger had rules. A Stephen King novel had an ending. Her childhood could be much harder to predict.

That makes Nicole a natural crossover guest for Family Twist and our other podcast, Horror Heals.

In Part 1, we talk about adoption trauma, abandonment, biological family, DNA discoveries, rural Alabama, evangelical Christianity, the questions surrounding Nicole’s adoption and the possibility that George Wallace played a role in how she became part of her adoptive family.

And just when you think Nicole’s family story couldn’t sound more like a horror movie, she says it herself:

Her family dynamic is “a nightmare.”

Part 2 is coming next week.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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What does it mean to reclaim an Indigenous identity you didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with?

In Part 2 of our conversation with Monica Hall and Kristal Parke, we explore one of the connections that first brought these two women together: they are both adoptees, and they are both Cree.

Kristal talks about growing up without a connection to her Indigenous culture and the complicated feeling of not being “Indigenous enough.” Finding other Indigenous adoptees who are also trying to reconnect has given her something she didn’t have growing up: people who understand that conflict without needing it explained.

Monica understands it well. She didn’t know she was Indigenous until she connected with members of her biological family. She later learned that her father spoke fluent Cree and that her great-grandmother was a medicine woman.

In the 1990s, Monica began exploring the culture she hadn’t grown up with. Her aunt taught her to bead and make medicine bags. As an herbalist, Monica wanted to learn about the healing plants of her people. She attended powwows, and her daughter became a fancy dancer.

And yet, Monica admits there’s still a part of her that wonders whether she deserves to call herself Cree. She didn’t experience the prejudice members of her biological family faced. She wasn’t raised speaking the language, and much of the cultural knowledge in her family wasn’t passed down. Adoption separated her from those experiences before she had any choice in the matter.

That shared uncertainty is part of what connected Monica and Kristal. They can recognize each other as strong Indigenous women even when claiming that identity for themselves can be more complicated.

We also talk about Kristal’s documentary about Monica’s life, Life’s a Mother, the response to its trailer, their shared sobriety and the friendship that has grown far beyond the film itself.

Kristal also explains why staying with Monica comes with some serious “mom energy,” although Monica’s particular brand of mothering apparently includes the occasional, “Look at me when I talk to you.”

If you missed Part 1, The Genetic Sexual Attraction Nobody Talks About, start there, then join us for Part 2 and a conversation about Cree heritage, adoption, cultural identity and finding your own relationship with a history that was always yours.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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Genetic sexual attraction is one of the most difficult and misunderstood possibilities that can emerge after biological family reunion. For decades, Monica Hall rarely spoke about her own experience with it.

In part one of this special two-part Family Twist conversation, Monica returns alongside filmmaker and fellow adoptee Kristal Parke. Their friendship began after Monica learned about another Cree adoptee in Canada and decided she needed to find her. One Facebook message and an hour-long phone conversation later, a friendship had begun.

Eventually, that friendship became something neither of them expected: Kristal started making a documentary about Monica’s life.

The film gives Monica an opportunity to talk about parts of her story she previously wasn’t ready to share publicly, including a relationship with a man she learned was her half-brother. Monica speaks openly about genetic sexual attraction, the intensity of that relationship, the shame she carried afterward and why she kept it largely secret for decades.

She also discusses addiction and sobriety, the grief that came when the relationship ended, and the very different perspective she has on that period of her life today.

Kristal has her own difficult role in telling the story. She isn’t interviewing a stranger. Monica has become one of her closest friends. Kristal talks about moving between filmmaker and friend, knowing when to ask another question and making sure Monica remains comfortable with what ultimately appears on screen.

There are plenty of laughs, too. Monica has accumulated decades of archival footage, old interviews, home movies and other surprises that she turned over to Kristal for the documentary. Some of those surprises were considerably more personal than Kristal anticipated.

In this episode:

• Monica speaks openly about genetic sexual attraction after biological reunion
• Why she kept the relationship secret from most people for decades
• The shame and grief she carried after it ended
• How addiction and sobriety intersect with this period of her life
• Why she can talk about the experience now when she couldn’t before
• How Monica and Kristal became friends
• Why Kristal decided Monica’s life should become a documentary
• The responsibility of filming someone you also love as a friend
• What decades of Monica’s archival footage bring to the film

We’re also relaunching Monica and Kristal’s original Family Twist episodes so listeners can hear their individual stories.

Then join us next week for Part Two, when the conversation turns to another bond between Monica and Kristal: their shared Cree heritage and what it means to reconnect with Indigenous identity after adoption.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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