In A Family Across Town, you explore the lasting effects of your father’s decades-long double life, revealing how family secrets, divided loyalties, and inherited emotional patterns shaped your childhood and identity. Why was this an important book for you to write?

It was important for me to write my memoir because I felt that I had a unique story. I think most of us want to join a conversation when we have something new and worthwhile to add. If you consider the conversation to be about dysfunctional families, then I do think my story is unique and interesting.

 I also believed that there had to be people out there with a similar story who felt isolated with it. When you experience family trauma and you feel like you’re the only one, it is much harder to live withthe fallout. But the truth is, someone out there has likely experienced what you have. I’m that someone.  I hope my story makes people with family secrets and other unusual family dysfunction feel less alone. And, even better, come out with their story to comfort others.

What did you understand immediately, and what took years to make sense?

After discovering the secret, I immediately understood why my father was often absent from our lives — why he missed holidays and was gone so many evenings and weekends. It all began to make sense: The weird phone calls with his “nurse” upstairs in his room with the door shut; the fact that we were never allowed to go to his office; the fact that he introduced me as “Aynah,” instead of “my daughter, Aynah,” to people who could have known his other family.

What took years to make sense of was the why of it all: why would my father live a double life? Why would my mother live with a man who was rarely home and didn’t treat her respectfully when he was? I now believe my father fell in love with two women, and two separate freight trains (i.e., his two families)  began picking up speed at the same time: once the trains were rolling, and precious, vulnerable children were involved, it became increasingly harder to leave one family. As for my mom, it took me a while to realize that she had no options. There was no way to leave my dad and be on her own with four kids, as there were no effective child support laws to ensure my dad would help her monetarily.

What did you learn about the difference between loving someone and excusing their behavior?

When we love people, sometimes we excuse their wrongdoing because no one is perfect. And we want them to excuse our wrongdoing. But loving someone does not mean you have to excuse their harmful behavior. I loved both my parents, but I had a much easier time excusing my mom’s deceitful behavior than my dad’s. I learned that excusing harmful actions is much easier when you not only love a person, but you actually like them and want them in your life, as I did with my mom. My dad’s strange, offensive personality and his ill-treatment of my mom and others made his behavior harder to excuse. I didn’t necessarily like having my dad in my life. My mom was a good soul – loving and caring toward us despite her deception. And I simply liked being around her sweet, fun personality, so her deceitful actions were much easier to excuse.

Also, my dad was in a position of power, which he lorded over my mom: he had another woman because he could — he knew my mom couldn’t or wouldn’t leave. My mom was in a weaker position because she had no money or power. It’s easier to excuse someone’s behavior when they are more of a victim than an aggressor. He had more choices than she had, more chances to do the right thing – to choose one family and adequately support the other. She had very few choices, so her decisions were more excusable.

What do you hope readers who grew up with family secrets will recognize in the book?

That they are not alone. But growing up with secrets can have insidious effects on your mental health, so getting help from the right mental health professionals is wise. And as I say in the final words of my book, follow Hemingway’s advice and write (or speak) hard and clear about what hurts.

Author Links: GoodReads | Website