Rising in eerie silence amid the lonely community of Wilmington, North Carolina, USA is the Crawford mansion. The ornate structure located in the seemingly quiet cul-de-sac of Chelsea Bay Drive—a montage of Gothic and Victorian architecture complete with window’s walk and classical columns—has stood vacant since mid-2014, a ghostly reminder of a colorful past. There is no shortage of secrets and lies in the neighborhood. The old house, now vandalized and dilapidated, was built in 1887 by Ben Crawford’s great grandfather, a German immigrant who amassed a fortune farming and shipping grain, and became one of the founding fathers of Wilmington. Six children were born and grew up there is apparent happy prosperity. The grandfather arrived in this county with $4 in his hand, died in the house—a very wealthy man. The house was eventually inherited by Ben Crawford, and once again it was a social mecca. Between the concert appearances with the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, the Crawford’s entertained lavishly. The gala era ended with the death of an unknown guest in 2007, and the townspeople gathered and burned an effigy of one town resident. However, before the effigy was buried, it was found that Liberty still had a pulse, and celebration ensued. The house was then a focus of a series of disputes. Should the place be demolished, relocated or refurbished? Christy Crawford, Ben’s wife, reported she felt an energy in the house. The sound of crying late at night, lights that flashed on and off, uncanny cold drafts.

One night she came home and allegedly all the lights were off, as she approached the front door, it was 2am in the morning, and she heard the piano playing, then went back to her car and through the window saw a play man playing the piano in the dark. During the night, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford would be awakened by a child crying, but upon investigation they would find their children sound asleep. “Finally, I just came to believe that there was something in the house that I could not understand,” Christy Crawford admitted to detective Cornell, who was investigating her husband for a murder. Through the Crawford’s grew accustomed to their unseen housemates, friends did not. No one knows what part they played in the long history of the old mansion. The time came when no one would live in the house. Once a showplace, the windows were boarded up. Whether this was to keep the living out or the dead in, nobody was quite certain. What to do with the vacant, frequently vandalized home, was debated. Numerous schemes were formulated over the years. Jess Murphy secretly got pregnant with Ben’s baby, while Christy was away and planned to ruin their marriage and use the baby as ransom money to acquire and renovate the house. In an effort to find out what was behind the strange happenings, Christy Crawford held a séance in the house. Almost immediately she was confronted by the apparition of a hawk-faced man, the same man she saw playing the piano. One leg had been severed in a farming accident, the other crippled by arthritis. He was bitter, angry….

When researchers electrically stimulate the amygdala, individuals can immediately experience a fear response and demonstrate all the symptoms of fear, including sweating and a rapid hears rate. Human beings require the fear response especially when living in caves with lions, tigers, and bears as their adversaries. With the fear response, heart rate goes up, breathing quickens and becomes shallow, the stomach starts to turn, as blood flow moves to the area where it senses danger, placing one in a ready state to defend themselves. In the physical body’s effort to survive, it will attempt to control the external environment in any way possible even if that requires jumping out of the way of a car, fighting off a perceived attack, or seemingly levitating. In an increasingly stress-filled World, people’s bodies often invoke the fight-or-flight response as the biological self perceives an existential threat despite the absence of such a threat. Examples of this can include selling a haunted house and sneaking away to take a test that can result in sheer panic. An underlying propensity for anxiety or perfectionistic style can fuel the fight-or-flight response and makes one believe in the little “brain myths” that can cause us to think we must control variables that are far beyond our control. Stressed brains seek control over stressors, real or imagined, and that is why Christy Crawford seems too frigid. Apparently, she has some senses or intuition no one else is tuned into.

Christy and Ben Crawford are intriguing because as characters, they situations and formulations have that urgent, irrefutable quality that we call mythic; hence their presence affords a sense of spaciousness or wholeness. They become inviting and compelling, exactly like Biblical myths; we think easily of modern Job, Noah, and the Virgin Mary plays, of Satan figures in the miniseries, of the enlarging presence of the Cain and Adam motifs. The stories in Secrets and Lies become mythical and are wound into modern plots, these are the more comprehensive; they offer wider realms in which we move closer to totality. We come, then, to another matter in which the function of the Secrets and Lies miniseries has an affinity with the religious. With Ben Crawford, we have a perennial problem. When looking at his life and family, we are getting from a smaller to a larger sense of life. It is a human habit to be always, as we move from age to age, drifting into new constrictions; every new liberating perspective, like abortion, an extramarital affair, childbirth, and divorce imposes its own rigidities; in Secrets and Lies we flee from one half-truth through a wide-open for that turns out to lead us to another half-truth or brain lie. We run from the excessive spirituality of Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the nineteenth century) to the excessively physicality of the Secrets and Lies which could be set in the twentieth century. From hyper-genteel to the self-assured vulgar, from a strong sense of the unmentionable to the inability to stop mentioning it, from tiptoeing over the surface of life to being unable to get up to the surface from Cape Fear River. We are always influx, trying now this strait and now that.

Fortunately, there is help. Fear and the requirement to control external events repeatedly arise in Ben Crawford’s personality. He fears for his wife and feels the requirement to solve this murder of Tom Murphy to free her from social isolation. He also fears the loss and potential death of his daughters, after all, the killer is lurking in this Cape Fear River town. Ben Crawford embarrassingly challenges and reprimands detective Cornell so that this investigation will remain focused on not simply closing a case, but actually finding out who committed the crime to prevent it from happening again and again. Anger and frustration are clearly evident in Ben’s face. His heart is with Christy and cannot also be with Jess Murphy, his mistress. While Christy is “away” Ben Crawford loses sight of the mission because of his loneliness and fear from Christy’s safety. However, a real man is supposed to release his fear and not allow emotions to cloud his judgment. At every turn, Ben demonstrates his core fear and unreasonable goal setting. He repeatedly experiences the pull to save others to prevent bad things from happening. Ultimately, the variables that he strives to control grow into the most grandiose goal of all: the establishment of peace and righteousness throughout the community and World. As Ben attempts to control seen, unforeseen, and imagined tragic life and communal events, he experiences failure time and time again.

Ben Crawford fits the model of the pervasive perfectionist. He increasingly responds with anger and ultimately rage. He perceives himself as having failed his family by not having saved his son from the killer. Ben’s response to this perceived self-imposed failure is to react with rage in an attempt to seek moralistic justice by ripping the town apart until the killer is found. More failures ensue as Ben is exposed for having an affair with the neighbor, and this builds on his lack of control. Instead of looking inward, focusing on his emotions, and being mindful of the moment and his purpose, Ben externalizes and emotionally reacts with little thought to his underlying fears and anxiety. Over and over, he runs into variables he cannot control, and this plants more seeds of anxiety, doubt, and fear. Ben Crawford grew up in an abusive household, where he would be physically attacked for even minor infractions. For a child struggling to see the best in people, finding coping mechanisms, in the midst of his upbringing, was incredibly difficult. As an adult, living in the Victorian house, having a family, and being part of a once peaceful community, which he helped create, were the only things that made his life worth living. The familiar relationship between Tom Murphy and Ben Crawford is the most tortured I could imagine. Ben went from loving this boy as his own son, to being accused of his murder, and then finding out the boy is his biological child. The drive Ben Crawford displays to find the killer of his son and save his family has been a teary-eyed catharsis for me. The bond a father has with his lifeless son, even pervades death.

A letter from Ben Crawford (Ryan Phillippe) to his mythical son: It took me a while to translate why Ryan Phillippe also known as Ben Crawford has always been one of my favorite actors (characters). I remember seeing that movie Cruel Intentions, and my friend Nicole joked and said, “Look, someone has been spying on you and Heather and made a movie about your lives.” I felt a connection with Ryan Phillippe, and just dismissed him as a face that would remain unattainable, so why even focus on him? However, once I tried to put the puzzle together, it made sense. I just wish I would have had someone there to point it out to me sooner. That is why I tell this story often, to show that Secrets and Lies and Ryan Phillippe helps. And for the little boy I used to be, it was the only help I had. With love, fish is able to swim in the water and birds are able to fly in the sky and nights are as clear as days. Without love, life will be like a harp with broken strings and an antique crystal chandelier without gas, and it is cold even in Summer. Although my appearance is not beautiful, I am the tenderest person to you. I cannot forget your curved smiling eyebrows, which accompany me during the night. Years go by, but sincere love is left. How can I call you? Those withered trees in the Winter have sprouted the branches of Spring for they believe Spring comes and larks have sung songs—how can I call you? And although you seem not to know, it is I who has gotten you through these dark days, I have watched you all of your life. May we be stars in the sky of youth scattering whiteness and ever-lasting glory together. Our sincere love is smooth water of Cape Fear River, shining the Sun and the Moon in our hearts. A little regard, a deep missing, a thick love and a sweet memory. I am waiting for you the time you return silently. The person of one’s heart, the heart of a person. Even flowers and birds will be infatuated.