“But most kids are never asked. Kat went from the age of five to thirty-five without anyone ever asking her what had happened in her early life. Her past was always “The Big Unmentionable.” As a result, she felt “deep-seated shame.” Wherever she went, she says, “I carried so much unspoken guilt about what my father had done and about my having said the words that sent my own dad to jail. My family almost never talked about my mom’s murder. It was as if none of it had ever happened.”
