"You know, if this is your documentary, you're doing a bad job." "'Cause you're catching me when I don't want to talk about things." "Set it up, organize a time with me." "Put together some materials, e-mails, we'll get the Facebook conversation printed out, and we'll really talk about it." "But do you want to be the subject of this documentary or not?" "No, I don't." "This is about Abby." "Do you want to be the co-subject?" "No, I don't see why." "I don't think I'm that interesting." "I'm making a documentary about Abby through you." "Can you understand that?" "What do you think?" "I'm going to talk to Abby right now?" "No, I understand." "I'm just saying." "This is an e-mail from Abby that I got today." ""My snake Zoe died today. "" "I didn't even know she had a snake." ""I kind of thought she was sick since Sunday," ""and this morning she was almost dead." ""By the time I got back from school, she was really dead." ""She didn't eat her last meal, so now I have a pet mouse named Max." ""He's super cute. "" "I thought that was really funny." "Such a positive way of looking at things, you know?" "One pet for the next." "Circle of life." "Yeah." "By the light." "You ready?" "Sound levels?" "Everything?" "Yeah." "Okay." "Today is April 9th, 2008, and I'm about to open..." "I think the third or fourth box, package, that Angela, Abby's mom, has sent me." "Let's see what we got." "I'm excited." "What are you expecting?" "I mean, I know there's a couple..." "A couple of pastel drawings that I really like, that I've seen already." "But I think there's also some pictures or paintings that I haven't seen." "Let's open this T-shirt first." "This is her brother's band." ""To Rel. ' ' Oh, this is for Rel." "A little card." "Do you want to open it, Rel, or should I open it?" "No, you can open it." "From Abby." "Go ahead and read it." "I got to open it." "The card." "I guess this is her brother's band." "The Casualties." ""To Nev." "Make sure Rel wears a brain bucket when he skateboards. "" ""He scares me a little." "Peace and love, Abby. "" "So, wear your brain bucket." "All right, now let's look at these paintings." "What's the most one of Abby's paintings has sold for?" "She sounds really nice, and just normal, which is a relief, because the first time we spoke it was just about a package and it was short." "But..." "Yeah, I mean, she's got, like, a lot of kids running around." "Her son was plowing." "They had, like, a foot of snow yesterday, and he knocked over a power line that knocked into a tree." "So, they had to cut down this, like, 150-year-old maple tree." "He burnt the transmission out on the car." "They didn't have power." "Phones that were plugged in got surged and fried." "And she's, like, you know, dealing with it." "She must be awesome 'cause her kids are pretty awesome, at least from Facebook." "The Facebook family, that's what we'll call them." "Her sister Megan is an artist, and also a dancer, but she isn't making as much art..." "Or only shared this picture with me, because I think she has a big crush on me." "So when I put that..." "Made that my Facebook profile picture, she really liked it and told me how nice it was, and that she thought how nice it would be to put her head on my chest and fall asleep." "So then she drew it, and it's actually a beautiful drawing." "Yeah, it is." "It's really good." "She works as a vet, so she likes animals a lot." "I like animals." "I'm not a crazy animal lover, but I do like animals." "She's a musician." "I think she plays the cello, maybe also the guitar, and she sings." "I'm not really a musician, but I guess you could say that we have a similarity there." "'Cause I..." "Whatever." "She's a dancer." "She takes ballet, other..." "I think she does belly dancing." "Again, not that I do either of those, but dance is a big part of my life." "I mean..." "I guess I don't know that much about her yet." "Hey, Megan?" "Hey, it's Nev." "Your voice is not at all what I expected." "No, no..." "It's..." "It's..." "Really, it's a terrific voice, I just..." "I don't know, I guess you never really think of a voice when you only know somebody in a certain way." "I happen to think my voice is sort of irritating." "Thank you." "So, if you're home now, does that mean you're, like, at home with your mom and Abby and the whole family?" "She's there, and she wants to know who you're talking to?" "Well, you should tell her." "I've spoken to your mom." "New package from Michigan." "Really big, 35 pounds." "And I'm going to check it out." "I'm really excited." "I was told that they had used paper towels to pack." "Now we've got not some, but tons of paper towels." "What's the reason for this new package?" "Just new paintings." "I don't know." "Let's see what we got." "Here we go." "This is cool." "This is the painting of Angela that she did, which is actually really good." "That's the mom?" "Yeah." "Now?" "Yeah." "Wow." "I know." "She's hot." "She is very attractive." "You know what I just learned?" "That Abby puts a strand of her hair in every oil painting that she does because she wants to be able to prove that it's hers by DNA." "Like, whenever, down the line." "She also spits in her watercolors." "These are the prints." "How many of them?" "Here's the original." "This is..." "Jesus." "Well, they're making money from them." "They sold all the art, they sold out." "To local collectors." "A lot of paper towels." "All right, amazing package." "Okay, I'll be back." "What do you think?" "It's okay." "I like it." "Megan's singing backup vocals." "This is a really cinematic..." "I mean, that's a no-brainer, right?" "I'm not sure who posted it, but Alex sent me a message." ""Why?" "I have no idea." "I doubt you'll appreciate it one bit. ' '" "Jeez." "I know." "And now, this is interesting." "I don't know what this is about, but I just see that Angela, the mom, wrote on Alex's wall," ""You really need to stay out of it, please. ' '" "Now, I don't know, that could be in reference to something else, but I feel like that's probably in reference to..." "I mentioned to Megan that he had sent me a message." "Last night we had a great talk." "She told me about..." "Did you guys know this?" "Chickens." "She has six chickens now." "Her neighbor gave them to her as a house-warming present." "A chicken makes an egg every day." "Did you know that?" "Every day." "Like ovulating." "They ovulate eggs." "Yeah." "Crazy." "Every day?" "Every day a chicken makes one egg." "She has chickens?" "She now has chickens." "Tell us the gifts she got." "So, she bought a house, and one of the presents was that Abby got her a baby goat." "So she's got a goat now." "She has horses that live there." "Part of buying the house came with these horses that are held there, you know, like stables." "I can't." "Nothing." "You don't want this." "I'm pretty good." "I'm good." "I'm sure he is." "Bye." "How long have you been calling each other "babe"?" "A couple of weeks." "Two weeks maybe." "So you're full-on going out?" "This is a long distance relationship?" "No, we're not." "We're not." "But, you know, if we met each other and the attraction exists in real life, it would be, like, instantaneous relationship." "But you can't just make out and send her home." "I know." "And take her virginity." "Well, that's what it comes down to." "I'm going to have to really be very careful." "Because even if there is a lot of chemistry, she does still live in Michigan." ""Megan, this is the first letter I have sent you, ever." ""It feels a little strange since all of our communications" ""have been virtual up until now." ""I made two of these pennies, one for you and one for me." ""You have no idea how excited I am to meet you." ""Yours, Nev. "" "Message." "Hey, Megan." "Nev, 6:00, Sunday." "Yeah, I guess you just got kicked off G-Chat." "I'm leaving tomorrow for Vail." "I don't know what your schedule is like for the next two weeks, but Rel, Henry, and I are going to be out there till the 9th for the Vail Dance Festival, so..." "I don't know, maybe you and your mom and Abby and Joelle should come out for a weekend." "You're like, kind of, halfway there." "Fly to Denver." "I don't know, it's an idea." "So, you can call me at the office or on my cell." "Would love to talk to you before I leave tonight, bye." "Flight attendants prepare for landing, please." "Careful, watch the heads." "Okay, and we both roll..." "So, you have to sit between..." "All right, I'm rolling on my two cameras." "All right, rolling." "Megan's taking requests and she'll record a song right now." "Wild Horses?" "Silver Stallion?" "Any other horse songs we can think of?" "Tennessee Stud?" "She's typing." ""I think I can handle that. ' '" "I hope she sings." "That's good." "That's really good." "She's so hot." "Can we request some more songs?" "This is fun." "You can just request paintings for Abby to do and songs for Megan to sing." "That was pretty good." "That was really good." "That was good." "She just did that." "So, on Angela's website, on her Facebook, does she have all her songs up?" "She's got a bunch of them." "Like a published artist?" "Like a musician?" "This one's sick, but it's the other one." "Tell her how much we like the other song, where she plays guitar." "And the other one, I can't remember what it's called." "Huh." "That's not good." "Search." "Sort of sounds like it, a little different though." "It's really similar, though." "It's not as good." "Angela's is better." "Yes." "All right, listen, you can't hold it against her." "She didn't say, "Hey, I wrote this song. ' '" "It doesn't matter, she's still..." "Yeah." "Yeah." "And still, her voice is 10 times better than this girl." "And she's clearly an artist because that came from deep expression and feeling." "She found a song, kind of obscure..." "She covered a song." "Yeah." "People make careers out of that." "So, you're just playing this off Facebook?" "No, I'm not, I'm playing this off..." "Look." "Amy Kuney." "This is it." "I have food in my mouth." "I mean, is this not the exact same recording?" "I'm not sure." "Sounds a little different." "Definitely it." "They posted it online." "I know." "She posted somebody else's music." "Did she post it..." "Now, that doesn't mean she doesn't just put up a song that she likes." "Fine." "But it's called..." "The artists are "Mom and Megan. ' '" "And I complimented her and she said," ""Thanks for listening to me cough the dust off my vocal cords. ' '" "She responded to a number of compliments that I gave her about the song and how much I liked it, and it's not even her singing." "It's just a recording of somebody else's song." "Are we sure about that?" "Yes." "Sounds a lot like that other girl, doesn't it?" "What's her name?" "Yeah, come on." "What, "come on"?" "You think that's Megan?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "I mean, I would have never second-guessed it, but..." "But where did she find a cover of Tennessee Stud in half an hour?" "Wait." "Who is that?" "Oh, my God!" "What?" "Is this it?" "Yes!" "No, no, no." "Play yours, play yours." "This is it!" "Play yours!" "Play yours." "This is it, Rel." "I'm 100%." "Let me hear yours." "It's the same song, Rel." "Oh, my God." "Oh, my God." "They are complete psychopaths." "They are complete psychopaths." "I've probably been chatting with a guy this whole time." "Oh, my God!" "Just to ask her to explain what's going on." "Say, "Have you listened to the two?"" "I mean, that is enough for me to just never, ever talk to them again." "Why should I waste time with this?" "I mean, if she's going to try and tell me that that's not the same song..." "All I'm saying is, if you come off too angry, then they can pretend that they cut off the relationship with you because you freak out." "Yeah, I'm freaking out." "They've been lying to..." "You don't know that." "Don't you want to get to the bottom of this?" "It would kill me if it was left like this." "I can't now, it's too late." "It's all bullshit." "I don't want to be a part of this." "We don't know how much of it is bullshit." "And they don't know how much of it you know is bullshit." "You've just found, like, the tip of the iceberg." "I mean, I talked to somebody on the phone, two different people." "You never talked to Abby?" "No." "Which is also weird, 'cause every time I've called, it's been like," ""She just went to sleep," or, "Let me see if I can wake her up." ""She's too tired. ' '" "Are there, like, newspaper articles about Abby having a show?" "No." "No one's ever googled Abby, still." "I did." "Her name's Abigail." "But she had..." "They claim that she has shows and she sells her paintings." "She just had her gallery..." "A big show tonight of all the paintings she's done of Megan." "Wouldn't this get written up somewhere?" "Yeah, maybe, actually." "Is this how your spell her name, A-B-B-Y?" "Yeah." "Michigan?" "Mmm-hmm." "There's nothing on Abby, anywhere." "What's Ishpeming?" "City of Ishpeming." "Yeah, let's start with that." "Ishpeming." "Do you know where Abby was showing her paintings?" "At her gallery." "What is that gallery?" "It doesn't have a name yet." "I can give you the address." "It's a gallery that she..." "She bought the building." "Oh." "What's the address?" "I could tell you." "Tell me." "It's just a building." "It's probably a real address." "Let's Google map it." "Check it out." "I found the building in my e-mail." "I searched for "Abby gallery building,"" "and I found the link she sent me." "It was $30,000." "Wow." "On the corner..." "It's on North Main." "Wait a second. "Listings last updated August 4th. ' '" "It's still listed." "I should probably call and see if it's still for sale." "Yes." "Yes." "So, I was calling about that space you have," "I think it's 100 Main Street." "Right, the old JCPenny." "They just completely fabricated the entire renovation." "How long has it been empty?" "Four years." "Hello?" "Hey, Angela." "Nothing, just with Rel and Henry here, we're getting ready to head over to go film some dance." "Okay." "Sounded like the gallery opening was a success." "Just a liar." "How could she just lie to me like that?" "I can't believe I believed her." "I can't believe I was so gullible." "I'm so embarrassed." "There it is." "Here it is." "Hello?" "Hi." "Hi, Nev." "Abby." "Hey, how are you?" "Good." "Happy birthday." "I got a Katie doll for my birthday." "What?" "I can't hear you so good." "So what are you doing?" "You having a big sleepover?" "What did you say?" "She has people here, so..." "It's Angela." "I'm sorry, bad time to call." "But I didn't want to have her put you up too much longer." "Is there a time that we can call back later?" "I'm just saying..." "Moving forward." "I'm just keeping a record." "Fine." "Moving forward." "It takes two seconds." "I'm a little more involved with this than I'd like to be now." "And it's, like, becoming kind of a chore, so just let me do my thing." "No, it's not." "Yeah, except it's not your life." "Yeah, that's why it gets a little frustrating, when I have to go back..." "I'm just saying." "I'm sorry, I guess I was a little pissy, but..." "Try to be a little more understanding to the fact that" "You can stop, Nev." "So stop right now." "Just stop." "Yeah, so what are you giving me?" "Basic laziness?" "I'm directing you in a film." "All I'm saying is, please appreciate that." "You signed up for a film that is 24 hours a day." "I don't know." "What's the next move?" "Does anyone have any idea?" "Yeah." "What?" "I think we finish up with Vail, then we drive to Michigan." "Okay." "And we just find out." "We just go to their house, and just say, "Hi." "Who's real in this situation?" ""I want to meet Abby. ' '" "I've chatted on the Internet with a couple of people." "I know my friend, she actually just met a guy the other day off the Internet and he was a total weirdo." "They met up and, like, he was just like..." "I guess the pictures that they were sending each other were from, like, three years ago." "So he didn't even look the same, and he was just, like, piercings everywhere." "Like, the whole nine yards." "She was like, "Oh, my gosh. ' '" "Yeah, we're closing in on the state of Michigan." "Bye." "Bye." "Megan is at her house in Gladstone." "Apparently one of her horses, which I knew, is in labor." "One of the horses that lives at the farm." "So, she's got to stay there." "But every Sunday is family breakfast at Angela's house." "I forgot about that." "What time is family breakfast?" "She said around 8:00." "What?" "On Sunday?" "I know." "Isn't that the day of rest?" "I think we should just get up really early, go by the farm, and, depending on what happens, then drive up to Ishpeming and crash family breakfast." "Bring some OJ and just show up." "Wow, we're three miles..." "We're three miles from a turn that would then take us another few miles to Megan's farm." "I'd just like to do a drive-by." "Yeah, I think we should totally cruise by." "I mean, we're here." "I don't want to just get here and go to sleep." "Let's kick some dust up." "Yeah." "2.9 miles." "So that's her, right?" "Yeah." "That means we just take a really quick left and we're there." "I feel like we're about to get our SAT scores back." "Here we are." "Megan's street." "This is it, huh?" "You gonna turn off the light?" "No, we're not there yet." "What's the name of the street?" "I think it's 21st..." "It's right here." "I have no idea." "I think it's this." "There's something." "This could be it." "This is it." "I think this is it." "This is it, this is it." "What do you mean, she said there was a light?" "She said that because one of the horses was giving birth." "Just pull up." "I'm not afraid." "What?" "You want to drive into the driveway?" "Yeah." "There's a mailbox." "Pull up to the mailbox, so I can get it from my window." "Please, please, please." "Yes!" "Yes!" "The postcards are here!" "Oh, my God." ""Return to this address for proper disposition. ' '" "Pull into the driveway." "Back up, go into the driveway." "It shouldn't give you the creeps." "We're in, like, a beautiful part of the country, a horse farm." "No, no, no." "Pull in forward." "What?" "What, are you crazy, Henry?" "What do you mean?" "Drive into the driveway." "What do you mean?" "Don't back into the driveway." "Don't back into it." "Why not?" "Because then we can't see what's in front of us." "Okay." "It's definitely a horse farm." "Okay." "Keep going." "Keep going." "Do we want to..." "You can pull out on the other side." "I'm gonna drive through." "Yeah." "This all looks familiar." "Probably just from the photos." "Stop, stop, stop." "We can't get out that way." "Just turn around." "It's all right." "That's an empty..." "Let me just go in, let me just go look in the window and make sure there are no horses there." "Come on out." "Let's go." "Yeah, it's empty." "No horses." "You can't see anything." "Okay, so we know that Megan doesn't live here." "What surprises me the most is that to go to the trouble to lie as elaborately as they have, for her to not just drive here and pick up the mail seems crazy, doesn't it?" "Like, we just drove 400 miles and picked up the mail." "All she had to do was drive 50." "How could she be so lazy?" "Didn't you..." "I mean, so lazy they fooled you for eight months." "That's pretty good." "They didn't fool me, they just told me things I never cared to question." "Right." "That's not fooling." "That's not like..." "I mean..." "I just can't believe I talked to this person and told her things and had real conversations with her about life and, you know, feelings." "There were moments where I really felt genuine..." "Like I really cared about this girl." "Now I don't know even what to feel." "Should I read you the juicy stuff from our text conversation, now that we're about to meet her?" "I think it's time, right?" "Yeah." "You got the battery for it?" "Absolutely." "Is the light okay?" "Is it a good shot?" "Yeah." "You're retainer is in." "I gotta scroll way up." "Okay." "July 3rd, 4:33 p. m." "Megan," ""I will do that." "Abby's so excited today." ""I'm at the home now, baking pies." ""They'll be over here later." ""I wish you were here, I hope your day is beautiful. ' '" "Me, "Save a pie for me. ' '" "The next day." ""Hey, babe, I couldn't understand a word you said on the VM you just left me." ""I just kicked everyone out and now" ""I'm in the bathtub, thinking of you. ' '" ""Funny, I was thinking about you in the shower earlier. ' '" "Megan, "Mmm, I'd love to hear about that." ""By the way, I will always have a pie for you, babe. ' '" "Me, "Cherry?" Space, space, space, space." ""I can't believe I just wrote that, sorry." "I had to. ' '" "Megan, "Cherry." "My body is craving your touch tonight. ' '" "Me, "What exactly would you do if you had me there?"" "Megan, "I'd have you in the tub with me, between my legs." ""I'd kiss you on the neck and whisper in your ear," ""begging you to make love to me. ' '" "Me," ""Begging isn't something you would need to do." ""In fact, I'm willing to bet that, if anything," ""you might have to beg me to stop. ' '" "Megan," ""I'd take you to my room and dry you off, touching every inch of you," ""kissing your long... ' ' Wait, sorry. "Kissing you long and hard," ""to take your breath away. ' '" "Nev." "I can't believe I wrote this. "I can't wait to fill my fingers with your hair," ""and turn your back to me, pulling you up against me," ""and running my tongue all the way up your neck," ""biting your ears as I fill my hands with your breasts. ' '" "That sounds like a bad porno book, doesn't it?" ""But let's not get ahead of ourselves." ""Taking it slow, though difficult," ""will be very important for us if this is really going to happen. ' '" "Wait, is this still you?" "Me." "Megan, "I want you so badly my body aches for you. ' '" "Nev, "Fifteen days and I'm all yours. ' '" "Megan, "I don't understand the hold you have on my heart." ""There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, babe. ' '" "Nev, "I'm going to hold you to that." ""Get some sleep." "Big day tomorrow." ""Happy Fourth." "Yay freedom. ' '" "Megan, "Sweet dreams of me." "I'll be dreaming of you." "I adore you. ' '" "Nev, "Good night, sugar. ' '" "There it is." "Can't see anything, right?" "No." "You think you could feel it?" "If they hug you?" "Hi!" "No." "Nothing, right?" "No." "Where is it?" "Right in the small of my chest." "You got to hold the mic thing in, or else you won't hear it, Henry." "You got to push the headphones in." "I can hear you!" "Really?" "Okay." "So it sounds pretty good?" "One, two, three." "One, two, three." "You can hear me good?" "Totally clear." "We are close." "We are in the town of Ishpeming, and I think it's just maybe one more turn and then we're on Main Street." "Then there it is, the house." "No one's going to notice us." "Just be cool." "This looks like it's the old JCPenny, right here." "This is it." "This is the old JCPenny building." "Right here." "Definitely not a gallery." "Nice dream, though." "Keep it a little more subtle, guys." "Jesus Christ." "I think this is..." "That could be it, right there." "North Main Street." "That was it, right there on the corner." "We're in plain sight right now." "Make sure your cell phone is on." "I'm gonna leave the car running." "Yeah." "And the doors open." "Let's get the seats ready to jump into." "And have the windows open, maybe even, too." "It might be that kind of escape." "Rel, you ready?" "Let's not waste any time." "We got to go." "Hello?" "No." "Just stay strong." "Stay strong." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hi." "Hi." "Angela?" "Yes." "Yaniv." "Hi, nice to see you." "How are you?" "Good to see you." "Abby's not here." "We thought we'd surprise you." "We got you some flowers..." "Oh, my goodness." "Abby's not here." "...and some presents for..." "Hi, how are you?" "Good." "How are you?" "I'm Ariel." "What are you guys doing up here?" "We were flying through Chicago and figured, since Abby couldn't come and it was her birthday, we would just drive on up and surprise her." "You guys are so wonderful." "Here, this is for you." "That one, right there." "Well, thank you, thank you very much." "Yeah." "What's your name?" "My name is Vince." "Hey." "Ariel." "Hi." "Hi." "How are you?" "How nice to see you." "Hi, nice to see you." "You guys shouldn't have come." "Oh, my goodness." "We were close-ish." "Wow." "So, this is a really nice thing here for Abby." "Get down, Spot." "Thank you." "Would you like to come in?" "Sure." "Let me deal with this dog." "He's vicious." "I can't believe you guys came." "That's so sweet." "It's our pleasure." "You guys are such a nice family, we were excited to meet you and kept missing opportunities." "You guys shouldn't have come." "You guys need to be working." "You know, we thought it would be a fun road trip." "This is for your dog." "This is for the dog." "A little dog toy." "Oh." "That's so sweet." "I have something here for Megan, too." "Is she in town?" "Come on in." "Come on in." "Your house is beautiful." "Thank you." "And this town is really lovely." "Hey, guys." "Hey, guys." "Where did you get these?" "We just picked them on the road." "Howdy." "What's happening?" "We tried to find a flower shop, but we couldn't." "Hey, man, I'm Ariel." "Hey, guys." "Okay." "So..." "Wow." "So, where you guys staying tonight?" "Actually, we hadn't figured that out." "We figured we'd find a motel or something." "Hey." "Come on in." "They're not..." "I don't even know where to start." "Angela doesn't look like Angela." "Vince doesn't look like Vince." "And there's a painting in process." "Yeah." "I promise." "It's like a blown-out..." "It's like blown-out sun." "Why?" "You going to cut your hair?" "Oh, no." "When?" "What kind of..." "You have cancer?" "Oh, man, that sucks." "I'm really sorry to hear it." "Wait for a little gust of wind, and we'll get your hair in the air." "Yeah, yeah." "Hey!" "What?" "At first, Abby was freaking out." "And then she put her friend Lauren on the phone..." "We're just going to go meet her." "Let's just keep playing it really cool." "I'm gonna put this in here." "But don't you think it would just be better that we have our car with us?" "Yes." "So, let's take our car." "Henry, you want to follow?" "I mean, you want me to leave you in there?" "You need to chill out a little bit." "Yeah, I think right now, yes, things are a definitely weird, but I'm not..." "Yeah." "I don't feel threatened at all." "I don't think there's any feeling of hers that's like, "Oh, my God." "We have to attack. ' '" "Like, she seems she's on the defensive." "No, I don't want to attack." "Just trying to stay back." "Let's just roll, Rel." "If we don't get into this experience, there's no reason to be here." "Let's ride with them." "US National Ski Hall of Fame?" "Yeah." "Wow." "Yeah, sure." "This is Lauren's dad's house." "Beach house." "Hi!" "Hey." "What are you guys doing?" "Nothing?" "You going to say hi?" "Abby." "Hi." "We've never met." "I'm Yaniv." "Nice to meet you." "Give me a hug." "What's happening?" "I'm Ariel." "My brother." "Hey, I'm Ariel." "Hi." "Yaniv." "Are you nervous?" "No?" "Nev is." "He's nervous." "You're like..." "You're like a famous painter, you know?" "I'm so excited to meet you." "You guys want to go out?" "Okay." "Let's go." "Abby, she doesn't really paint." "Her mom paints a lot, but Abby doesn't paint that much." "Huh." "What about her sister Megan?" "Hey, Abby, do you see your older sister Megan?" "Oh, really?" "Where does she live?" "Huh?" "Huh?" "Huh?" "Huh?" "Well, there's the confession." "Heard it pretty clearly from Abby's friend." "She'd never seen Megan before, doesn't know where she lives, doesn't get to talk to her, and doesn't really paint that much." "Well, we're going to see you for dinner." "Well, she's here now, so it wouldn't do us any good anyway." "So we'll go, we'll change, we'll shower, then we'll meet up with you and we'll get a chance to hang out." "Okay." "Okay." "Maybe you guys can come back to the house and hang out." "Okay..." "Cool." "I will speak to you soon." "All right." "Thanks again." "So..." "What do you guys think?" "Hold it or it will fall." "Angela's in love with you." "Angela is in love with me." "Right." "Yeah." "You can see it." "Did you see how awkward it was when I was going to leave and she was leaning on the car?" "She doesn't think we're coming back." "Right." "Of course she doesn't think we're coming back." "She's like, "Don't go. ' '" "No, no." "Most people wouldn't go back." "So, I'm 90% sure right now that Angela is the voice of Megan." "Yeah." "And that I've been texting and having this weird affair with this strange 40-year-old woman." "Right?" "Because her voice is very similar." "Mmm-hmm." "It's just like a little bit..." "Slow, tired." "Right." "If she just slowed it down and softened it, it'd be the same voice." "And of course we can't get her on the phone because she's standing right..." "You know, it's her." "Right." "But she..." "She'd have to have two cell phones, which I think she does." "Megan called you, right, while we were with Angela?" "Yeah, but no one was there." "I think she may have just dialed it." "She was there on the beach, and she may have just..." "I was kind of looking at her." "I also texted her, and then shortly thereafter Angela, like, looked at her phone." "You want to hear my theory?" "Megan in the pictures, Angela doesn't know that person." "No, right." "She just somehow found a trove of pictures of this girl..." "Right... who's, like, an amateur model." "But she does have a 19-year-old daughter, or an older daughter." "Right?" "Right." "And she just found in these pictures, this photo of an another woman who kind of looks like her." "Who's not even a woman, who's just a girl." "That woman doesn't look like her." "Who's a girl, and just labeled her." "Let's just say, I could take..." "You know, I could take all of your photos, and all of your photos..." "And download them?" "Download them, and make new profiles with totally different names, and never make friends with people who knew you." "And just create a network of friends that are actually real-life friends, but you don't know them." "I mean, there's a lot that..." "Where do you find those?" "...that still doesn't explain, guys." "No, it doesn't explain..." "I mean, also, what I want to know is, what about the rest of these people?" "What about Ryan Iverson and Tim?" "If Picture Megan doesn't know Abby, right, and Abby doesn't know Megan." "Right, maybe these other kids don't." "Then, these other kids, they talk about Abby, too, right?" "They all talk about Abby." "Then they don't know Abby." "Their friend Megan doesn't know Abby." "Right." "Her sister." "But Alex has got to be fake, if Megan's fake." "They all relate to you through Megan." "If there's no Megan, then they don't relate to you." "'Cause she's not fooling them, too." "I mean, maybe she's..." "What about all these other people?" "She's all of them." "She could be all of them." "Right." "I'm feeling very conscious about, like, embarrassing her, and not..." "Right." "Like, I really don't want to hurt this family." "You know?" "Well, she needs a wake-up call." "I know, but I just feel like it's just not..." "It's not malicious." "It's just sad." "Right." "No, we're not here to be..." "You know?" "Listen, I think she..." "We're not here to hurt her, we're here to help." "We deserve to shake the truth out of her." "Right." "For our sake, for Nev's sake." "I think that what we should do while we're here is Nev should gently confront her about this." "I don't think it should be, "You effing liar!"" "Megan Faccio. "Are you seriously at my mom's?" ""Stay there, I'm coming home. ' ' Exclamation point." "Why wouldn't she call me?" "No, I mean as far as the paint." "Do you like oil pastels?" "Bye." "Bye." "Thank you, guys." "All right, catch up with you guys later." "Okay, so apparently while we slept, somebody decided that it was time to tell the truth." "Now, here's two texts that I woke up to from Megan Faccio." ""By now you know my mom is very ill." ""And I can't continue to do this to her, and neither can Alex. ' '" "And then, check out this message from Ryan Iverson on Facebook." ""I need to tell you that the reason I came down here" ""was not to bring Megan home, as Angela requested." ""I'm taking her, Alex, and Ben to" ""Dawn Farms for inpatient treatment. ' '" "I mean, she did it..." "That's a really smart play, that Megan's an alcoholic." "Even though I knew she drank, all of a sudden she went into rehab." "Right, it's really smart." "And Alex." "And that's why they went downstate." "You know?" "And that's why Ryan went, 'cause he went to take them." "And..." "Yeah, well, we're going to get her to just tell us the truth." "I think that at some point today, we should probably have, you know, a real talk." "Okay." "You know, a good sit-down conversation." "To sort of go over a couple of things, and clear some stuff up." "Okay." "And I guess you understand the necessity on our part to sort of just show up." "Yeah." "Because making arrangement obviously wasn't working out." "No, it wasn't." "And there didn't really seem to be any way to get everybody in the same place." "But I would like to just, sort of, meet Angela." "See what she has to say." "It's all right." "It's okay." "Nothing to be upset about." "You got a great imagination." "You know?" "Yeah." "It's pretty remarkable." "But you can imagine now, at this point, we've put most of it together." "Not everything, but pretty much everything." "We know there's no Tim, we know probably there isn't any of these people, really." "My daughter." "There is Megan." "There is a Megan?" "There is a Megan." "But she's not around." "She's not around." "All right." "What is she, 19?" "She's 19." "Where does she live?" "She lives downstate and she's in Dawn Farms." "That's true." "Wow, for how long has she been there?" "She's been there for about four months now, so..." "But I never spoke to her." "No." "Right." "No." "I feel terrible." "And who's the girl in the pictures?" "Just..." "That's a family friend." "So, I feel like I've betrayed her." "We'll see you later." "We'll see you in two weeks, Abby." "Where did my mom go?" "I think she and Nev are out, hanging out." "Well, Vince is already at the house, watching the boys for me." "And does Vince know all about this?" "Smile with a little teeth." "Smile with a little teeth." "You have nice teeth." "Beautiful teeth." "Oh, golly." "Megan." "Ryan." "Then Ryan had two sisters." "Amy and Sara-Ann, who is a girl here in town, also." "One of Joelle's friends." "That's how I get pictures of them together." "Josh is Joelle's brother, and..." "Right." "In real life, no." "You're talking about..." "Yeah, in real life, also." "And Alex, and Tim, and Sophia, and I think that's it." "Sophia." "That's it." "I think." "No." "Then Nick and..." "Oh, yeah." "Gotta have those guys." "Had to have some cousins" "Just to make life interesting, if ever I was getting a little bored." "How do you keep track of what everyone was doing?" "Luckily, it was on Facebook, and I could go back and re-read who was doing what." "Because I didn't hardly ever delete anything." "And I guess, in the back of my mind, I knew that this would happen." "I think when Megan said something about it," "I was like, "Okay, just leave everything up. ' '" "Because at one point I was going to start taking things off, and I was like, "Maybe I'll just" ""set some things where they're private,"" "but everything is still on the Facebook accounts." "Kind of had a feeling that you guys would maybe do something with this." "I don't think so." "I'm not really sure I want to be now, but I'm going with it because I feel like I owe it to you." "I really do." "You have such a beautiful smile." "I keep changing your smile, because you keep changing your smile." "But it's beautiful." "Can you show me some of your things?" "Well, my mom painted that painting." "That's done by my mom." "My mom did that." "Do you like that painting?" "Yeah." "I think I can see City Hall from right here." "Let me just get on my bed." "I think I stepped on one of my bears while they were sleeping." "I knew it was you." "I'm not a bear!" "I'm a bunny." "When was the last time you cleaned your room?" "Uh..." "Don't know." "Hey, baby." "I know what's wrong." "You want your television back on?" "You not happy today?" "You took your shirt off." "You have to strap this down to the floor, because he was tipping himself over in the chair." "We just got this new wheelchair, and it has too high of a center of gravity." "What?" "My arm doesn't bend that way, baby." "You're going to have to stay there for a little bit longer, honey." "All of his medications also go through his G-Tube." "This one's Risperdal, and this helps with his self-abusive behavior." "It helps to calm him down, keep him from hurting himself." "Why do you think that he does that?" "It's self-stimulating." "It's just really, really retarded." "I don't know how else to tell you." "Hi, Anthony." "Luckily Anthony doesn't sneak up on you." "He gives you a little warning." "So you have to shave him and everything?" "Everything." "They're in diapers." "They're just totally dependent." "He's going to bludgeon me to death with the pan here if I don't get up and do something." "Sauce." "Yeah, I mean, she's got, like, a lot of kids running around." "Her son was plowing." "He knocked over a power line that knocked into a tree." "So, they had to cut down this, like, 150-year-old maple tree." "She's, like, you know, dealing with it." "She must be awesome 'cause her kids are pretty awesome, at least from Facebook." "Hey!" "No fair!" "Hey, Megan?" "Hey, it's Nev." "Your voice is not at all what I expected." "Wait, that was a bad..." "Another bad joke." "But you don't even stop to tell me that it's a bad joke." "You just ignore it." "She's got a really nice voice, right?" "Like soft and..." "Mature, very mature voice." "It's hard to say anything until we meet, and then..." "Whatever." "I don't know." "I guess I could agree to not get involved, which is probably what I should do." "Why would Angela want you to agree to that?" "Because I don't feel like, realistically, there's any way that Megan and I can go out, or be together, without her getting hurt." "I'm not getting hurt." "This is how I typically spend from 11:00 on, every evening, seeing who would call." "So, which one is which?" "This is 1211, that's the phone number that was for Megan." "And this is 0580, and that was mine." "Your home phone." "This is..." "The home phone is there." "Add that, too." "So, we'd use that occasionally also." "What if Vince picked up?" "He never answers the phone." "I mean, hardly ever." "I have to tell him to answer the phone." "So really not much of a challenge there, with that." "What did she tell you about our relationship, with my photographs?" "Well, you are her primary customer." "Right." "Primary." "Very happy with that relationship." "In fact, in a sense, very appreciative of what you have done for her." "Because not only is she a good artist, but it takes somebody that appreciates the art, you know?" "I can drive downtown, downstate in Ann Arbor, and see starving artists all over with vanloads of their velvet-painted Elvises." "You know, it ain't going nowhere." "And I've told her this." ""You've been given an opportunity of a lifetime." ""Not many people have this. ' '" "But really it's..." "But you told him that I was commissioning." "Yeah." "Every piece." "Yeah." "How much did you tell him I was paying for them?" "It just varied." "Whatever came off the top of my head." "And it was part of my problem, too, 'cause I never wrote that down." "So he's like, "How much did you charge for that?"" "I'll be like, "I don't remember. ' '" "So, he thinks I'm just terribly forgetful all of a sudden." "I mean, it was an amazing correspondence." "Yeah." "You know?" "It was a real, you know, friendship..." "Yeah." "...that I was also looking for, myself." "And I didn't want to lose the friendship." "And there was times where I felt like I was really overstepping, and I'd try to pull it back by being like," ""I don't want to lose the friendship. "" "Right." "No matter what." "I didn't want to lose that, but then I was like," ""If I'm lying, it's not really a friendship anyway. ' '" "So, it just got harder." "And I really thought you'd just end up hating me." "You were able to show me things that I don't have access to." "We don't have access to dance like that." "So, it's really been nice." "Dancing was an important part of my life when I was younger, and I always wanted to be a professional dancer." "I just threw it away, really." "Threw it away to have a good time." "So, a lot of the personalities that came out were just fragments of myself." "Fragments of things I used to be." "Wanted to be, never could be." "That's all I ever want to say about that." "You know, when I met the boys, I knew I was making a sacrifice with my life, but I didn't count the cost of things that I was going to be giving up." "I'm sort of resigning for the rest of my life." "And this year, when I resigned my career," "I don't know, it's like I gave up a lot of myself." "And I don't know most days who I am." "She did express some maybe suppressed disappointment, in a small way, at not being able to pursue some of the dreams that she may have had growing up." "Did you ever talk about that with her?" "Did she ever express that to you?" "Yeah, she says things like that to me." "Yes, and then I remind her, again," ""What is it you want in life?" "Because you can't have it all. ' '" "And then she comes back, "I want to be with this family." ""I want my house, I want security, and that's what I want. ' '" "Then, that's what you shoot for." "Because if there's something else you want, then you need to go looking for that." "I mean, I wanted to ask Angela to speak to me as Megan for a little while." "Oh, gosh." "I don't know if I can." "I think you can." "Here, you can use this." "That's cool." "I don't know." "It's been a long trip." "Painful?" "This has been the hardest drawing I've ever done in my life, for so many reasons." "Well, it better be good." "Better be." "That's that." "Start over." "It's..." "What do you want me..." "I know what's inside." "What's inside?" "What's inside?" "Why don't we just open it and see?" "They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China." "They'd keep them in vats in the ship." "By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless." "So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them, and the catfish will keep the cod agile." "And there are those people who are catfish in life, and they keep you on your toes." "They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh." "It's really good." "And I thank God for the catfish, because we'd be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have somebody nipping at our fin." "Don't really feel like it."