Front Burner - Come by Chance: What if you were living someone else’s life?

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

If you’ve ever been to Newfoundland, you know it’s a place where fog can envelop you so deeply, you don’t know where you’re going or where you came from. When two men, born in the same rural Newfoundland hospital on the same day, discover an unbelievable 52-year-old secret, it changes the way they see themselves forever. But this isn’t the end of the story. Because it turns out these men are not alone. A series of other close calls and near misses have begun to emerge, and not only at Come by Chance hospital. Come By Chance is a story about what it means to belong in a family — and how a twist of fate can upend the life you thought you knew. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/hdwP5zJ3

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Ali Janes here. I'm a producer on FrontBurner, and we have a special bonus episode for you today from another podcast. It's called Come By Chance. When two men born in the same rural Newfoundland hospital on the same day

discover an unbelievable 52-year-old secret, it changes the way they see themselves forever. But this isn't the end of the story. Because it turns out, these men are not alone. A series of other close calls and near misses have begun to emerge, and not only at Come By Chance Hospital. Come By Chance is a story about what it means to belong in a family, and how a twist of fate can upend the life you thought you knew. Now, here's the first episode of Come By Chance. Have a listen.

We're at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, at the edge of the North American continent, in a little town on the neck of a peninsula that connects two parts of the island of Newfoundland. And at this moment, in this place, a little baby is about to be born into the world. On this December evening in 1962, Rita Hines has two choices. She can go to the hospital in Marystown, further down the Bjorn Peninsula, or she can go to another hospital to the hospital in Marystown, further down the Birm Peninsula. Or she can go to another hospital to the east. But tonight, there's a snowstorm.

So she gets in the taxi and heads east on a narrow gravel road to the town of Come By Chance. With the car's yellow headlights shining on snowflakes and asphalt, Rita makes it to the hospital this night in the snow. It's a white, clapboard building that looks like an oversized house. Details are scarce, but a short while after she's admitted to the hospital, Rita Hines gives birth to a little baby boy. Exactly what happens next, we can only imagine. The baby's taken away by a nurse, swaddled up in a warm blanket,

checked and weighed, and has a tiny plastic band put on his ankle. On the little bracelet, there's a name, and it says, Baby Boy Hines. Nothing after this point can be easily explained. I got a feeling there's something going on here. There's something happened. My whole body was shaking.

I said, it could change your life forever. So are you prepared for it? He said, I got to know. I just didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to deal with it. Oh my Jesus, that's what she said. And she almost fell to her knees. You wonder if it was done intentionally. I didn't ask for this life. Somebody made me have it. Someone sent me somewhere where I wasn't supposed to be. It's changed my life forever. It started in this building. I'm Luke Quinton, and from CBC,

this is Come By Chance. Episode 1, The Birthday Party. Okay, let's haul out the map. Zoom out and picture where we are. Find New York or Boston. Keep following the eastern seaboard north. Past Nova Scotia. Until you hit a large triangular island. That's Newfoundland.

A chunk of rock about the size of Iceland, it's where I grew up and now live in the capital of St. John's. Newfoundland may be just off the coast of Canada, but culturally, it's a world removed. And it's not a place that gives up its secrets easily. Zoom in a little bit, past the white-crested waves of the North Atlantic, the green of the spruce trees, and the rough rocks on shore. The island suddenly comes into focus with thousands of little hollows,

coves, bays, and arms. Find Trinity Bay and Random Island. Then Southport, Gooseberry Cove, Butter Cove, Little Heart's Ease. Groups of triangular wooden houses nestled on the water's edge. Places that existed long before roads were built.

Little villages we call outports. Keep west, past Capeland Cove, St. Jones Within, and Long Beach, to the little community of Hillview. That's where we are right now, two hours outside of St. John's, on the east coast of the island. Overlooking the harbour, outside the little post office,

it must be one of the most scenic post offices in Canada. There's a sheen of light as the sun hits the white ice and snow. Dotted along the bay are little micro icebergs which have rolled onto the rocky beach i've driven down here to meet with a couple who have lived here for decades craig and tracy avery hello oh hi uh is this tracy yes. Craig said to call when we got into town. I think he said go to the gas station, but we're at the post office. Predictably, because sometimes there are just no road signs in Newfoundland. We're lost. Are you lost in the big city? I'm telling you, we're over here looking at a bunch of ice in the harbor, and I had no idea how we got here. Okay, well, you keep coming, and you'll pass a big orange two-story end sign you're right.

Hillview is beautiful, but increasingly, it's empty. These days, there's not even a grocery store. It's also windy. Oh, God, the wind would take you away. Newfoundland is one of the windiest places in the world. And sometimes we wonder why we live here. Gusty. Vicious.

Craig is a big guy with strong, broad shoulders, thin mustache. Tracy Avery has short hair, big eyes, and is quick to smile. It's not that often that you actually find them both here at home. Craig and Tracy work a tough schedule that many Newfoundlanders have become accustomed to in the recent decades. They work grueling 11-hour days as laborers, away for weeks at a time, building and maintaining Newfoundland's huge oil platforms.

Constructing these enormous metal and concrete structures, which will eventually be towed out to sea to drill for oil, is how many Newfoundlanders now make a living. It is not, to put it mildly, an easy job. Sometimes our job is inside of what we're building out there. So, you know, it's a bit out of the wind and then other days you're out in the elements, the rain and the wind and the snow or whatever. Do you like it? I love it. Yeah, I love it. We stand around their kitchen with tea and coffee, feeling our way into the story that I'm here to ask them about. Back in the winter of 2014, one of the huge oil platforms called Hebron was being built in Trinity Bay, and Craig and Tracy were both working there. Craig in construction, and Tracy had just started a new job as a cleaner.

We worked in a big mod hall, we called it, right? Building the living quarters for the Ebron. So picture a large metal warehouse. Some of the doors are over 100 feet high. People are busy welding, painting. It's loud. There are hundreds of people in there. On the first day of Tracy's cleaning round,

she catches sight of a guy among the crowd who makes her stop in her tracks. I just made that connection when I saw him, that, wow, this guy looks so much like Clifford. Clifford Avery, her husband Craig's older brother. She doesn't think much of it, but casually mentions it to Craig. I made a point of saying, there's someone who looks so much like Clifford. But that's all we thought of it.

Because, you know, they say that there's somebody in the world that looks like you and whatever. So, you know, this could have been the person that looks so much like Clifford. A little while later, Tracy goes in to clean the office of the welding supervisor, a guy named Clarence Hines. And she realizes that Clarence is the same man she had seen earlier on the workshop floor, who, with his dark hair and mustache, looks so much like Clifford Avery, her husband Craig's older brother. A few weeks later, the workers in the department are celebrating Craig Avery's 52nd birthday.

If it was somebody's birthday on our crew, we would get cake and have cake at break time. Any excuse for cake. So Craig's birthday was no different. After they eat the cake and sing happy birthday, Tracy gets back to her cleaning shift. When she gets around to Clarence's office, Clarence and Tracy get to talking about how it's her husband's birthday. And to Tracy's surprise, Clarence tells her it's also his birthday. I said, no way.

He said, yeah. So right away, I asked him how old he was. And he tried to pass himself off as, I don't know, 30-something, which I knew was far from true. And I'm like, seriously? I said, how old are you? Clarence says 52. It's the same age as her husband Craig

and I'm like no I said yeah and right away I'm like where were you born and when he said come by chance I think I was probably calm on the outside to him but inside I was like holy crap going out of my mind and I'm just thinking I go tell Craig. And Craig was working there as well in the tool crib. So I just left what I was doing and I just went right to the tool crib. The workshop where all the welding equipment is signed in and out. And I went in and I'm like, you're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you. You're not going to believe it, you're not going to believe it. Tracy runs over to Craig.

She comes in with her hands going, oh my God God, oh, my God, oh, my God, I'm going to tell you something that's going to blow your mind. I think I said, holy Jesus. I said, I got something to tell you that's going to blow your mind. I think he thought that, you know, something was, like, majorly wrong. I thought somebody was after doing something to her, saying something to her, right? And she kept going like this.

I said, what's wrong, man, what's wrong? She says, it's Clarence's birthday today as well. And he was born at the same hospital. She said, guess where he was born? She said, come by chance. Come by chance. It was just too many quincents. And for him to be born the same day, same hospital.

Oh, my God. She said, I know there's something to this now. I just knew. I just knew. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. through Angel Investment and Industry Connections. income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. In the days after Tracy and Craig Avery discovered that welding supervisor Clarence Hines was born at the same hospital on the same day as Craig, the couple fell down a vortex of theories and questions. We sat up in bed for nights just drinking tea and talking about it and wondering. When you had those conversations, what did you think it meant? I don't know. It was just like, it was surreal,

right? Like, it's not possible that this happened. Like, oh my God, if it did, what now? You know, is this real? Is this really real? If something happened, if... The what-ifs began to spiral. The biggest what-if in Tracy's mind was, what if Clarence was somehow connected to her husband's family? What if something happened the day they were born at Come-By-Chance Cottage Hospital? Something almost unthinkable. And what if this could help explain things from long ago in Craig's childhood that had left a few people wondering? The spring winds continued to howl off the water in the bay,

up to Craig and Tracy's house. Since this story begins with how much Clarence Hines resembled Craig's family, they pulled out some photo albums. There's Mother's Mother there. Craig starts pointing to pictures of his brothers and his parents, so I can see the Avery clan firsthand. This father's mother and father. This father there and his brother-in-law.

In Hillview? Yeah, it's in Hillview, yeah. That's me and father. That's father there, having a cold beer. Craig shows me pictures of him and his father through the years. Two of them in the winter in black and white, standing in the snow. Donald Avery has dark hair and a broad nose.

He's wearing a plaid shirt, hands in his pockets. At 10 years old, Craig is just past his hip. In later pictures, Craig towers over his father. Donald was the jack of all-all-trades, the fisherman, the construction worker, the carpenter. And in the winter, he worked in the woods, which surround the town. Rural Newfoundland has changed a lot in recent decades. The teeming shoals of codfish which once filled these waters

are now all but gone, and a way of life went with them. The wooden wharf in Hillview now looks like it's about to fall apart, but Craig has fond memories of his childhood down by the water. We spent a lot of time up on the wharf, catching flatfish and conners and sculpins and eels. Whenever Father was out in the boat, I was with him. And we played hockey when the harbor froze over.

There was kids everywhere. There was families, 9, 10, 12 people. This clan is Charles and Danny and father and mother. As we flip through the glossy pages of the photo album, we take a close look at Craig's brothers. Wayne, Clifford, Clyde, me, and Darren. And that's the his brother Charles, the big old catfish. And there are certain characteristics that begin to stick out.

The nose is really distinctive. The Avery nose is really distinctive, yeah. Eyebrows, big bushy eyes. They got big bushy eyebrows, oh yeah. The nose, the bushy mustache. These are the first things that Tracy Avery noticed about Clarence Hines. But there was something that he seemed to share with her husband's family, a certain glint in his eyes.

Craig took Tracy's what-if seriously. The Clarence might actually be part of his family, the Averys. What if this could explain those things about Craig's past, mysteries that had never quite added up? Craig's parents, Donald and Mildred Avery, married in the 1950s. They lived their whole lives in Hillview. Life wasn't always easy in rural Newfoundland back then for big families. Food could be scarce, and jobs weren't always easy to come by, to say the least.

But we never went without. We had lots to eat, we had clothes, we had everything we needed. And we might never have always had the best of everything, but we had everything we needed. The fact that the Avery children felt they had everything they needed had a lot to do with Mildred. Here's Craig's older brother, Wayne. Mother was really family. Everything was family. She had this all around her all the time. Like a mother hen going around with the chickens,

the hens behind her, the baby chicks. She was like that. At suppertime, she always put the children first. She'd sit down with whatever was left over, she'd eat. Wouldn't make sure we was all eating first. She'd just make sure we was fed. She would eat, but after everyone. After everybody finished, she'd sit down, whatever leftover she'd eat. Wouldn't make sure we was all eating first. She'd just make sure we was feeding. She would eat, but after everyone. After everybody finished, she'd sit down and eat.

In the summer, Mildred Avery would take her kids on trips to go berry picking. Pick us all up and take us away up over the big hills. Picking blueberries, raspberries, and maybe partridge berries in the fall. This mother hen with her chicks. While Mildred was quiet and gentle, one of her chicks, her son Craig, was very different from the rest of his siblings. Mildred even used to joke about it.

Mother used to always say to me, my son, I don't know where you come from. You're so different than the rest of them. It was almost as if fate had stepped in to make Craig stick out from the rest of his family, and so much that even neighbors were compelled to comment when Mildred Avery first brought home Craig as a baby. This is Pam, Wayne's wife, who's known the Averys since Craig was a teenager. The lady across the road said, my God, he doesn't look like any of your crowd. Can't tell you what he looks like. He don't look like none of yours. He's so different looking. He had straight hair, freckles. All of us pretty well looked alike. We had darker complexion, too. I mean, Craig is a tall, big guy.

And the Abries are all, I'm not going to say small, but they're... Five-eight, five-nine. Craig is over six feet. He's just, he's different. We was all quiet and... Quiet and shy. Shy, right? Craig was bold and...

Brazen. Tracy remembers Craig from back then, too, because the couple have known each other since they were just kids. When you grow up in smart communities, everybody knows everybody. So I've known Craig since I was like 10 years old, maybe. Like he was friends with my older brother. It seems as though even back then, Tracy could tell that Craig had a bit of an edge compared to the other boys.

What was he like? A bit of a hard ticket. Because I was always outgoing and Newfoundland used to be called a ticket, so I guess I was the ticket. In the dictionary of Newfoundland English, a hard ticket is described as anyone who's constantly getting into trouble, fighting frequently, or playing practical jokes. All this to say that basically Craig was... Up to no good. You can see a hint of that Craig, the hard ticket, in the family photos.

Maybe a bit of an outlaw. There's one of him in a cowboy suit. He's a tall, blonde kid with a sort of mischievous look about him. I see a bit of a rascal look about you there. Oh, yeah. Craig didn't share his father Donald's temperament either. And although they were close, there was a restlessness in Craig about their relationship. When his father went into town for a beer, Craig insisted on going along, even when he was just a small kid.

If he'd go in to have a beer or something, I'd go in, he'd sit me on the barstool by the side and give me a bag of chips and a glass of drink, and he'd have a cup of beer, and I'd be in the barstool waiting for him. I don't know, it's strange. Wherever Father went, I had to be there. Was there some reason for that? No matter where he went, I had to be there. I think the only place he went, I didn't go, was the bathroom. I wanted to be able to do what he could do.

Yeah. Right? I don't know, it was just... Couldn't get close enough. No. It seemed like any time that Craig's father tried to go somewhere without him, Craig would get angry and destructive. Craig's older brother, Wayne, remembers this too. Craig just didn't listen to nobody about anything.

Craig was spiteful and getting mad about different things that we didn't, but Craig would. Like if his father said, no, Wayne, you're not going, that would be the end of it. But no, Craig, you're not going? Oh, yeah, I'm going. Oh, yes, there'd be hell to pay if he didn't get his own way. If he went somewhere and didn't take me with him, I'd kick up a fuss and throw rocks at his truck. And he'd get mad and he'd come back and he'd take me and he'd put me in his truck and I'd go on with him. Somehow, Craig's father took it all in stride with an almost infinite patience.

My father was doing what he could, trying to keep everybody at peace and stuff, because Craig would give a tantrum. Like he said, he felt different. He said, something wasn't right, he said. He said, I knew growing up there was something wrong. Yeah. He didn't feel it at all with us.

right, he said. He said, I knew growing up was something wrong. Yeah. He didn't fit in at all with us. For the family, they just figure that Craig has made a different stuff. There's something in his temperament that made him this way. But was there more to it than that? Something outside of our

understanding? Newfoundland is still a place where people carry food in their pockets to give to fairies in case they get approached in the woods. My grandmother would only leave a house through the door she came in, lest she brought bad luck upon herself. So maybe it's not surprising that in a place where superstitions are still a vein, which run through everyday life, when he was a kid, some people saw in Craig Avery's differences something else altogether. Many communities in rural Newfoundland had local charmers,

healers said to have special powers. The most powerful of these was the Seventh Son. I was the Seventh Son. In many different cultures around the world, including Newfoundland, it is said that the Seventh Son has a very particular power. You suppose we all stop blood and stuff like that, right? Stop blood, like bleeding? Stop bleeding, yeah.

There are stories about these charmed people being woken up in the middle of the night to stop a deadly bleeding. It may seem like an idea from another time, but for some people in the community back then, Craig, being the seventh Avery son, really meant something. Like the time a neighbor came over to ask for help. meant something. Like the time a neighbor came over to ask for help. His mother had a really bad nosebleed. He came to get me, to want me to go over to see if I could stop it. But me being young, I didn't know.

You didn't try? No. Maybe the memory of himself as the hard ticket among a family of quiet siblings, as the seventh son who sat somehow apart, were some of the thoughts and memories running through Craig's mind when Tracy came running to the tool crib that day with a wild theory. Maybe this is the reason he didn't laugh or brush it off.

Although they had known each other since they were kids, Tracy and Craig weren't a couple until years later. They'd both been married before. When she and Craig first got together, Tracy's parents weren't exactly thrilled about it. Because he did have a little bit of a reputation, but I think they like him now. Craig and Tracy, whatever her parents thought at the time, did get married. On a pond in his buddy's backyard. Craig showed me a picture.

He got this way and dug up two ponds and he put a wharf there in one of the ponds and that's where we got married. And that night in particular, Craig cut loose. Tracy had to drive us to the hotel. So, have a good time. Oh yeah hotel. So, have a good time. Oh, yeah. Definitely have a good time. Craig's brother, Wayne, remembers one more detail about the wedding day.

At the time, he didn't think much about it. But somehow it stuck. Tracy's mother was sitting behind Clifford. Tracy's mother said something a few people had hinted at over the years, something which had become even a kind of family joke. She looked at Tracy, Mildred Avery never even borned a child. She said, I don't give a good goddamn,

but I can tell you now Mildred Avery brought the wrong baby home from the hospital. hospital. Everybody said it, but never thought it was true. In December 2014, when Craig and Tracy found out that Clarence Hines had been born in Come By Chance Cottage Hospital on the exact same day as Craig, and he looked so much like the Averys, Craig decided not to tell his mother Mildred anything about their suspicions. She was suffering from dementia at the time, and Craig's father Donald had already passed away. Craig Avery had seen Clarence Hines many times before. They worked together almost every day. But now, Craig had begun to notice something that he had never noticed before. They worked together almost every day. But now, Craig had begun to notice something

that he had never noticed before. You look into Claire's eyes and everything, it's just like looking into Mother's eyes. It's unbelievable, right? He's facing the eyes of her. In January 2015, Mildred Avery died. She was 81 years old. And Mrs. Avery never had a clue what her family was about to discover.

You go to bed believing that you're a certain person one night, and then all of a sudden the next day everything that you've known is not true Thank you. Produced and edited by Joe Wheeler. Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr. Our field producer is Rebecca Nolan. Sound design and scoring by Daniel Kempson. Roshni Nair is our digital coordinating producer. Original music by Adam Foran. Music supervision by Joe Wheeler and Nicholas Alexander. Our senior producers are Veronica Simmons, Willow Smith, and Damon Fairless.

Our production managers are Charlotte Wolfe, Cherie Houston, and Sarah Tobin. The series was developed by Madeline Parr. Creative Director of Development and Novel is Willard Foxton. The fact checker is Valeria Rocca. Our executive producers are Max O'Brien, Cecil Fernandez, and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is our senior manager, and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

That was the first episode of Come By Chance. All episodes from the series are available right now. Just search for Come By Chance wherever you get your podcasts. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.