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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. People

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Speaker 1: came racing out of their houses in their backyards, and

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Speaker 1: these are all people who knew everyone involved and saw

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Speaker 1: these children. I mean young teenagers children. My sister was

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Speaker 1: told my brother was fourteen in the street, you know,

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Speaker 1: essentially dead. This is Joanna Raykoff. Joanna is a novelist

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Speaker 1: and memoirist who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Picture a woman

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Speaker 1: with dark, curly hair, lively eyes, an easy smile, a

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Speaker 1: woman you might pass on the cobblestone streets of Cambridge

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Speaker 1: and imagine that she has had a simple, lovely life.

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Speaker 1: But Joanna's life has been shaped by an enormous secret.

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Speaker 1: It a family tragedy that she was shielded from until

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Speaker 1: well into adulthood, a secret that cast a long, sad

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Speaker 1: shadow over her childhood. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is

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Speaker 1: family secrets. The secrets that are kept from us, the

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Speaker 1: secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep

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Speaker 1: from ourselves. I was born in the Hudson River Valley

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Speaker 1: in a town that a lot of people know. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of a popular town outside the city called Nayak.

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Speaker 1: So Nayak sits on the river sits on the Hudson River.

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Speaker 1: It's a very beautiful, beautiful place. It's a place that

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Speaker 1: you know, Manhattan Night's like to come visit for the day.

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Speaker 1: There are wonderful restaurants and beautiful shops and lovely walks

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Speaker 1: along the river, seafood restaurants, boats, that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: It's a lovely place to live. Kids all walked to

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Speaker 1: school there at sort of a utopian place. So I

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Speaker 1: was born in this town and my father had a

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Speaker 1: dental practice in the town. And when I was about three,

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Speaker 1: for reasons that were were not quite clear to me,

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Speaker 1: my family moved to a few towns over. We moved

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Speaker 1: to a very different place. We moved inland to the

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Speaker 1: kind of mountains a few miles up from nyack Um

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Speaker 1: to a very very tiny town called Pomona that was

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Speaker 1: more a very new town. It was kind of a

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Speaker 1: fake town that catered to people fleeing the city as

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Speaker 1: they did in the seventies, and was filled with brand new,

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Speaker 1: modern glass houses. We moved to one of these houses,

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Speaker 1: a very large house that was kind of surrounded by forest.

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Speaker 1: It couldn't have been more different than nyak which was

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Speaker 1: this tiny The ancient town where the houses are very

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Speaker 1: close together, and we knew all our neighbors and kind

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Speaker 1: of ran back and forth between their houses and this

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Speaker 1: new town Pomona, the houses were sent much farther away,

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Speaker 1: and you couldn't see your neighbors. And in retrospect, I

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Speaker 1: realized that was what my parents wanted. They wanted privacy,

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Speaker 1: they wanted to be anonymous in this town. At the time,

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Speaker 1: I didn't understand it, And what I did understand was

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Speaker 1: that this felt like a kind of scary, strange place

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Speaker 1: to me. And I also understood that my mother was

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Speaker 1: sort of unhappy in this place, and I didn't understand why.

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Speaker 1: You know, I would walk into the kitchen and find

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Speaker 1: my mother crying, or I would do some small thing

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Speaker 1: that didn't seem at all like a big deal to me,

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Speaker 1: like take my security blanket out of the dryer on

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Speaker 1: my own, or said this this really happened, um, and

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Speaker 1: my mother would you know, go crazy and start screaming

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Speaker 1: at me in this sort of hysterical way and grow

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Speaker 1: so angry at me that I truly couldn't understand it. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, screaming get away from me. I can't look

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Speaker 1: at you, I can't see you get away from me,

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Speaker 1: and as a small child, I spent a lot more

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Speaker 1: time with my father. There's a way in which, you know,

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Speaker 1: some people maybe are just by nature kid people, and

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Speaker 1: some people are not. And my father just was a

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Speaker 1: kid person, and he just loved doing stuff with me.

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Speaker 1: And so my childhood, when I think back on it,

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Speaker 1: and as I as I experienced it at the time

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Speaker 1: as well, had these kind of polarities to it. I

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Speaker 1: have such vivid memories of being of kind of trapsing

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Speaker 1: around this giant cold house, not quite knowing what to

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Speaker 1: do with myself, or sitting by myself playing with my

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Speaker 1: million barbie dolls, um wishing that my mom would sit

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Speaker 1: on the floor and play with me. And then also

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Speaker 1: have these memories of going to the park with my dad,

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Speaker 1: going to this lake nearby and feeding duck. Joanna has

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Speaker 1: a much older sister, Amy, who no longer lives at home.

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Speaker 1: By the time Joanna is a toddler, this is familiar

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Speaker 1: to me. I grew up that way too, the feeling

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Speaker 1: on the one hand of having a sister and on

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Speaker 1: the other of being alone, surrounded by the eyes of

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Speaker 1: all your toy animals, your barbies, staring back at you,

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Speaker 1: I had those barbies to army of barbies, army of

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Speaker 1: barbies who are like your friends and only friends or

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Speaker 1: so would feels exactly making up stories for them and

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Speaker 1: so Um. Yes, So I did grow up feeling like

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Speaker 1: an only child. So I had an older sister who

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Speaker 1: was eighteen years my elder, Amy. I didn't really understand

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Speaker 1: where she lived or what she did. Amy Um basically

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Speaker 1: graduated from college by the time I was born, and

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Speaker 1: in a way, the role she played in my life

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Speaker 1: was more of an aunt, a kind of fond but

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Speaker 1: distant aunt. She would occasionally come to our house on

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Speaker 1: my birthday, you know, give me a little present. She

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Speaker 1: would often show up at her house unexpected. So I

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Speaker 1: didn't I just didn't understand. And I think, if I'm

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Speaker 1: really honest, which I'm sorry, I often try to kind of,

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Speaker 1: I will be honest here and say I really often

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Speaker 1: try to sugarcoat our life and make excuses for everyone.

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Speaker 1: But the truth is I'm sort of struggling that to

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Speaker 1: cry here. You know, I I was just filled with longing.

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Speaker 1: I wanted I so badly, just wanted her to be

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Speaker 1: a sister, sister too, despite her age to come back

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Speaker 1: and live with us and be there every day. We're

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Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, we'll be back in

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Speaker 1: a moment. What Joanna didn't realize was that there was

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Speaker 1: an entire tragic history surrounding her sister Amy. Sometimes Joanna

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Speaker 1: would walk in on her mother crying or looking horribly sad,

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Speaker 1: and she would ask what was wrong, because Joanna presumed

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Speaker 1: that she she must have done something wrong that her

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Speaker 1: mother's sadness had to do with her. In general, I

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Speaker 1: knew not to ask anything of more depth than what's wrong,

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Speaker 1: you know, to not kind of probe at all. And

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Speaker 1: as an adult it's actually been I'm forty six years old,

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Speaker 1: and it's still very very hard for me to probe deeply,

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Speaker 1: to ask my mother difficult questions or to tell my

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Speaker 1: mother difficult things. But it also is difficult for me

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Speaker 1: to talk I realized to talk to other people, to

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Speaker 1: kind of probe deeply into other people's lives, and it's

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Speaker 1: affected my friendships. There's this way in which I was

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Speaker 1: kind of raised in this environment of just pretending that

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Speaker 1: everything is fine. This is the work of a lifetime,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. Sometimes we're able to look back, or we're

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Speaker 1: forced to look back. And see all the ways in

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Speaker 1: which our childhood selves have formed the adults we've become.

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Speaker 1: Especially when we discover a secret that has been kept

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Speaker 1: from us, we can look back and see the isolation,

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Speaker 1: the loneliness, the walking on eggshells that we once had

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Speaker 1: to do. And finally we understand all the ways we

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Speaker 1: were shaped by the unsaid. Because here's the thing. We

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Speaker 1: feel the things that are hidden from us, they live

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Speaker 1: in our bodies, in our bones, but as children we

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Speaker 1: don't understand. It's only later that the piece has fallen

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Speaker 1: a place. And for Joanna, one of those pieces was

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Speaker 1: a trio of portraits that hung in her childhood home.

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Speaker 1: One was a boy, dark hair in a style that

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Speaker 1: dated the portraits, neatly parted on the side and kind

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Speaker 1: of brushed to the side. It was sort of nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties look, though I didn't quite understand that. I just

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Speaker 1: knew that this was a different thing from a different era.

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Speaker 1: And then there were two girls who did not look

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Speaker 1: like at all. One girl had dark brown hair and

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Speaker 1: bright green eyes and kind of olive skin, and um

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Speaker 1: was looking at the artist in a very kind of

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Speaker 1: I don't want to say ferocious because that's too extreme,

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Speaker 1: but a kind of bold way and smiling, but not

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Speaker 1: a smile of joy, a kind of smile of engagement.

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Speaker 1: More and um an intelligence. There was a fierce intelligence

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Speaker 1: to this girl, really captivating. And then the third one

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Speaker 1: was also a girl younger who had beautiful blonde hair,

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Speaker 1: kind of ash blonde um that kind of curled softly

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Speaker 1: to her shoulders, and bright blue eyes and a much

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Speaker 1: kind of softer expression on her face. She looked kind

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Speaker 1: of shy, almost kind of bashfulled. Both girls were matching

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Speaker 1: blue ribbons in their hair. The children were of indeterminate age,

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Speaker 1: like it wasn't quite clear to me. Maybe the older

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Speaker 1: girl was on the cusp of adolescence, like ten or eleven,

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Speaker 1: maybe twelve. The other two kids, it wasn't clear. Um,

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Speaker 1: they weren't little kids, but nor were they teenagers. So

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Speaker 1: these portraits um sort of gazed down at me for

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Speaker 1: a lot of my day as I watched TV, as

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Speaker 1: I did everything, and I had no idea who they

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Speaker 1: were of I honestly thought that they were art. We

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Speaker 1: had a lot of art in her house, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of original art of all from all different eras,

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Speaker 1: all different types. I told myself that these were just

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Speaker 1: beautiful paintings, and so what did I do with this?

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Speaker 1: I I loved them, and I would gaze at them.

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Speaker 1: I would sit there on the sofa. I was a

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Speaker 1: huge reader, and I spent a lot of time just

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Speaker 1: lying on the sofa eating an apple, and I would

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Speaker 1: kind of gaze at them and make up stories about

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Speaker 1: them in my head. And I would when I read books,

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Speaker 1: I would kind of imagine the characters as as looking

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Speaker 1: like these kids. Joanna also recalls a mysterious photograph in

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Speaker 1: a home that has no family photos at all. There's

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Speaker 1: one picture in Joanna's dad's office, a place he retreats

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Speaker 1: to to smoke his pipe and do paperwork, of a family,

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Speaker 1: but whose family. These people are strangers to her still,

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Speaker 1: they pull her in and she knows in a bone

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Speaker 1: shaking way that she'd better not ask about it. But

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Speaker 1: when she's about ten years old, her need to know

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Speaker 1: wins out. So finally, one day, after contemplating it for

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Speaker 1: a very long time, I said, who are these people

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Speaker 1: in the photo? And my father said, you you really

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Speaker 1: don't know who these people are? And I said no,

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Speaker 1: But I felt there's a horrible guilt, This horrible guilt

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Speaker 1: because and I thought, I guess I should know who

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Speaker 1: they are. And he he said, even sort of incredulous,

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Speaker 1: and he took the photo from me, and he pointed

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Speaker 1: to the woman in it and he said, that's your mother.

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Speaker 1: And then he pointed to the man in the photo,

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Speaker 1: who was also smiling and laughing and looked very happy,

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Speaker 1: and he said, you and that handsome devil is me.

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Speaker 1: And then he pointed to the teenagers, the children in

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Speaker 1: the photo, and he said, this boy right here is

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Speaker 1: your brother Mark. And so one of the people in

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Speaker 1: the photo who I had perceived as being a girl,

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Speaker 1: was a boy who had very long hair and you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of delicate features. Um, and I suddenly went the

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Speaker 1: minute he said boy, I realized, oh my gosh, that

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Speaker 1: is a boy. I hadn't realized it, but in my

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Speaker 1: mind was reeling because of course I didn't know that

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Speaker 1: I had a brother. And then he went on and said,

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Speaker 1: in this girl right here, that's your sister Amy. You

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Speaker 1: know your sister Amy, And I said yes. And then

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Speaker 1: he pointed too the other girl, the third girl who

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Speaker 1: had could have blond, curly hair, and he said, and

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Speaker 1: this beautiful girl is your sister Anita. And his voice broke,

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Speaker 1: and it never seen my father cry and all my

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Speaker 1: father was always happy, and it just kind of held

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Speaker 1: me close to him, and you, I just said oh.

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Speaker 1: And he helped me for a long time, and then

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Speaker 1: I it was my bedtime and I said good night

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Speaker 1: and I left. So in all the years between that

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Speaker 1: first conversation Joanna and her father had in which he

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Speaker 1: told her of her brother and sister, those pastel portraits

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Speaker 1: on the family room wall, they never again spoke of

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Speaker 1: her siblings, Anita and Mark. If people asked Joanna if

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Speaker 1: she was an only child, she would respond that she

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Speaker 1: had one sister, a much older sister. She just didn't

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Speaker 1: allow herself to go there. In a way, she unconsciously

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Speaker 1: conspired with her parents to allow the secret to go

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Speaker 1: back into its hiding place. After all, this is a

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Speaker 1: secret kept not only by Joanna's parents, but by her

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Speaker 1: entire large extended family. If you think about it, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of amazing Joanna never learned more about her siblings.

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Speaker 1: Think of the many many cousins of Joanna's, the aunts

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Speaker 1: and uncles, the satyrs, the thanksgivings, the reunions, the Mother's

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Speaker 1: day lunches. Not one mention of her vanished brother and sister.

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Speaker 1: Was it a conspiracy of silence? Did my parents ay

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Speaker 1: to my whole family, we don't want Joanna to grow

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Speaker 1: up with the specter of the lost children? Is that

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Speaker 1: what happened? Or was it just kind of an unspoken

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Speaker 1: rule in my family, a very talkative, kind of stereotypical

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Speaker 1: Woody Allen movie Jewish family in which people were always

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Speaker 1: talking and arguing. Was it just an uns oken rule

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Speaker 1: that no one was ever going to talk to me

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Speaker 1: about this? I still don't know. It's one of the

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Speaker 1: things I'm struggling to find out. I know my mother

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Speaker 1: very much did not want me to be tainted by

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Speaker 1: this tragedy or to feel like a replacement child in

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Speaker 1: any way. She's told me this explicitly, that she didn't

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Speaker 1: want me to be known as the girl whose brother

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Speaker 1: and sister died, or the girl whose parents had this

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Speaker 1: horrible tragedy happened to them. She wanted me to be

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Speaker 1: my own person, free from the burden of this tragedy.

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Speaker 1: And I really I respect her so much for that.

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Speaker 1: I understand that I do, I really really do. The

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Speaker 1: only clues that Joanna has as to the fate of

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Speaker 1: her siblings is when as a child she eavesdrops on

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Speaker 1: her mother's telephone conversations. My mother, almost every evening, like

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Speaker 1: so many mothers of her generation, would spend the evening

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Speaker 1: talking on the phone to her friends and so. Then

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Speaker 1: she would sit in her bedroom using her blue rotary

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Speaker 1: dial phone talking dif friends, and I would be reading

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00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:05,800
Speaker 1: or watching QV and I would catch these glimpses of

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Speaker 1: the subject. I would hear these these little bits and

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Speaker 1: pieces of things. And one of the things that would

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00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:15,040
Speaker 1: often jump out at me, probably because the tone of

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Speaker 1: her voice changed, would be this term the accident. So

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Speaker 1: she would say, you know, oh, we weren't at that

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Speaker 1: wedding that was right after the accident, or oh, I

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Speaker 1: didn't do X y Z, you know with the synagogue

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Speaker 1: that was right after the accident. I just couldn't do

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Speaker 1: anything at that time, or oh I lost touch with

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Speaker 1: so and so after the accident, I just couldn't see

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Speaker 1: her anymore. So my child brain started to realize that

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Speaker 1: there had been there the accident meant something to do

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Speaker 1: with my brother and sister. It took some time, but

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Speaker 1: I made the association, though I was, of course afraid

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Speaker 1: to ask what the accident was, and I developed a

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00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:02,360
Speaker 1: whole story in my head it which was that my

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00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:07,600
Speaker 1: parents had been driving a car. I imagined it as

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Speaker 1: the car that we had at that point, which may

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Speaker 1: have been a giant chevery cabrief classic um. And it

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Speaker 1: had been snowing, and they had been in an accident

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Speaker 1: on the highway and something had happened. I couldn't envision

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Speaker 1: the actual accident, but I would lie in bed at

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Speaker 1: night and kind of run through this scenario, the story

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Speaker 1: of my parents driving the car in the snow and

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Speaker 1: some sort of accident happening that resulted in my brother

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Speaker 1: and sister somehow dying. Um. And it would somehow simultaneously

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Speaker 1: terrify me so that I couldn't fall asleep, but also

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Speaker 1: comfort me so that I could. But I of course

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Speaker 1: never asked what the accident was. Imagine growing up without

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00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,719
Speaker 1: critical information about your family. Imagine creating your own story,

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Speaker 1: one that feels satisfying enough and survives into adulthood until

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00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:08,399
Speaker 1: someone shatters that story. That is exactly what happened in

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten. Joanna is married and the mother of

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Speaker 1: two young kids. Her first book, a novel, is about

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Speaker 1: to come out and paperback and one of her first

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Speaker 1: events is at a small independent bookstore in Maplewood, New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: When she gets there, the audience is packed a great thing, obviously,

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Speaker 1: and there are quite a few staff members lined up

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00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:33,280
Speaker 1: to greet her. So I was going down the line

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Speaker 1: as if I were at a wedding, shaking their hands.

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Speaker 1: And I get to this one particular man and he

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Speaker 1: shake my hand and tears welled up in his eyes,

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Speaker 1: and he, with his voice breaking, said to me, can

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00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:51,879
Speaker 1: get very nervously. Can you do you come with me?

301
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Speaker 1: Could you? Could you come with me for a second.

302
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:55,439
Speaker 1: Could you just come to the office for a second.

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Speaker 1: So I went with him, and we got to the

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Speaker 1: office and he was actually sweat adding really profusely, and

305
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:05,760
Speaker 1: he handed me some water and was kind of hunting

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00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:11,320
Speaker 1: and hawing, and then finally he said, I'm Jonah Zimless,

307
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:15,480
Speaker 1: and he sort of looked at me. I'm not really conveying.

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Speaker 1: He said it to me in this kind of pretendous way,

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00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 1: you presuming that I would know who he was, but

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Speaker 1: I did not. And and then he said I'm the

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00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: owner of this bookshop. And I thought, oh no, this

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00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:28,600
Speaker 1: is going to be a terrible thing about my book

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Speaker 1: he's telling me he's the owner of the bookshop, and

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00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:34,159
Speaker 1: all of these thoughts were raising through my mind. But

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00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:35,879
Speaker 1: then he sort of looked perplexed, and he said, you

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00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 1: don't know my name. You don't know who I am.

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Speaker 1: And I said, no, I'm you know, I'm sorry. He

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Speaker 1: said I was your brother Mark's best friend. And that

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00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 1: was when sort of the tears really let loose, and

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Speaker 1: he said, my family lived, we were neighbors in Nayak.

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Speaker 1: I was your brother Mark's best friend, and I was

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00:20:57,280 --> 00:20:59,399
Speaker 1: in love with your sister Anita. And then he just

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00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:03,479
Speaker 1: fawn started crying and we sort of sat there. I

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00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 1: started crying too. I had never met anyone who knew

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00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,000
Speaker 1: my brother and sister, because of course I did. All

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Speaker 1: my cousins, my aunts, and uncle's family friends, they all did,

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Speaker 1: but they didn't speak of them to me. So I

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00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:17,080
Speaker 1: had never been in this situation before with someone who

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00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:22,160
Speaker 1: was a peer of my brother and sister and knew

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Speaker 1: them really well, and for who like who had sort

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00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:27,639
Speaker 1: of suffered a loss himself, you know, to use the

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00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:33,639
Speaker 1: contemporary parliance. And he just started talking about the accident,

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00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,360
Speaker 1: about our town, Nayak, and how the accident had affected

334
00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: our town, but he I didn't understand anything that he

335
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 1: was saying. He was naming people's names and discussing repercussions

336
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,399
Speaker 1: and all sorts of things, but I didn't know any

337
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 1: of this. And he kept saying, I know you know this,

338
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,119
Speaker 1: and I knew you knew this, and I finally said,

339
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:58,119
Speaker 1: I just I I need to tell you something. I

340
00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:01,439
Speaker 1: actually don't know anything. And he looked at me a

341
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: little bit like I was crazy, and I explained, I said,

342
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: you know, I know that I have his brother and sister,

343
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:14,480
Speaker 1: but my parents have never ever talked to me about them.

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00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what happened. I I sort

345
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 1: of know that there was an accident, but I don't

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00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,679
Speaker 1: know what that accident was. And he was so stunned,

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00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 1: I mean, his jaw dropped open, and he just kind

348
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 1: of stared at me for a very long time. And

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00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 1: you know, then he of course said what I guess

350
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:38,879
Speaker 1: any empathic, normal person would say, which was he was like,

351
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 1: oh god, oh God, And he felt horrible, and it

352
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 1: was clear that he didn't know how much to say

353
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: to me, like he wanted to talk to me about

354
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: all this, but he didn't necessarily feel that it was

355
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: his place to tell me about this horrible tragedy in

356
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: my own family. He basically said, you know, this was

357
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: a tragedy for the whole town. The whole town was

358
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: in mourning, the whole town was affected by it. And

359
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:06,360
Speaker 1: then he said, you know, I know there was obviously

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00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: a tragedy for your family. I'm not in any way

361
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 1: comparing our grief and sorrow to your family is. I'm not.

362
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 1: Please don't think that I am. This conversation between Joanna

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00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 1: and Jonah is the first of several talks they have

364
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,639
Speaker 1: in which the horrific truth of the accident that killed

365
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 1: her siblings slowly reveals itself. On that first evening, she's

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00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 1: so shaken by the conversation that she sits in the

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00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 1: office of his bookstore sobbing. Later, he contacts her again

368
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: and makes himself available to her should she want to

369
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: know more. Jonah also asks Joanna if he can put

370
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: her in touch with others, some people from Nayak who

371
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: want to connect with her. It turns out that there

372
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: was a world of people affected by this accident. They've

373
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:58,200
Speaker 1: spent their lives devastated by it talking about it all

374
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 1: the while. Joanna's family moved into their glasshouse and lived

375
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: in complete silence. We're going to take a quick break.

376
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 1: Here are the bare bones of what happened. In June

377
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: of nine, the year before Joanna's birth, her parents went

378
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: on a vacation to Grand Bahama Island to celebrate their anniversary.

379
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: It was not a trip Joanna's mom wanted to make,

380
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: but her dad convinced her that it would be fun.

381
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 1: They left Mark and Anita, both middle schoolers, along with Amy,

382
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: a high school student, in the care of their maternal grandmother, Pearl,

383
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: a sweet, sweet person, but not someone who could necessarily

384
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 1: control teenagers. Before their trip, Amy had turned seventeen and

385
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: they had given her a car, a red Mustang convertible.

386
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: Amy decided to take her younger siblings, along with a

387
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: family friend named Rachel Finer, to the beach in Westchester

388
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: and then passa blee to a rickety old amusement park

389
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: called Ride plain Land. So this was a Sunday night

390
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: at the end of June. It was a beautiful day

391
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: out and you know, it got dark very late at

392
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: that point. Nayak is a pedestrian town. It's a real,

393
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: as I said, utopian, old fashioned American town where kids

394
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: play in the streets. There's not a lot of traffic.

395
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: There were tons of families and kids in the town,

396
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: and at this time, there were all of these kids

397
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: playing on their lawns, you know, having barbecues, all sorts

398
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: of stuff was happening. As Amy and the kids drove

399
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: along Broadway, a large sedan that had gotten off the

400
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: thru away from a different exit, crashed into the convertible.

401
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: Joanna researches the coroner's report and discovers that the kids

402
00:25:54,840 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 1: weren't killed on impact, but were gravely injured. So this accident,

403
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: you know, which was just brutal, it was loud, you know,

404
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: the impact was heard literally throughout the town. That's not

405
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: just a kind of thing to say like, it was

406
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,679
Speaker 1: actually heard throughout the whole town. And people came racing

407
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: out of their houses in their backyards. And and these

408
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: are all people who knew everyone involved and saw these children,

409
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: I mean young teenagers, children. My sister was child, my

410
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 1: brother was fourteen, as was Rachel in the street, you know,

411
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: essentially dead and um, the finders who lived right there,

412
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: it's so horrible. They were waiting for Rachel to come home,

413
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: waiting for her, getting angry. You know the parents were

414
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: getting angry, thinking where is she, Why isn't she home yet?

415
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: Why isn't she home yet? What's wrong? They thought she

416
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: was going to be back butch earlier, and they heard

417
00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: the accident and they went running out into the street. Yeah,

418
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: there are some secrets that, even when revealed, unpacked, understood,

419
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: will never fully be put to rest. How can a loss,

420
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: this violent and profound, one that affected an entire town

421
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: and devastated two families ever be made Okay, time heals

422
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 1: all wounds, it is said, or God doesn't give us

423
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: more than we can handle, or my personal favorite, everything

424
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: happens for a reason. These are the things well meaning

425
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: people say to those who are grieving. We don't like

426
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that there are some wounds that will always

427
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: remain at least somewhat open, that it is our job

428
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: to bear them, to transform them slowly over time by

429
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: making meaning out of them, something Joanna is doing. And

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00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: the writing, research and reporting of this story she has

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00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: never known, and it haunted her all the more because

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00:27:54,640 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: of not knowing. Healing all of us back as in

433
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: honestly pretty unbearable. I have three kids now. They are fourteen,

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00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: ten and three and it's simultaneously is causing me to

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00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: remember so much about my own childhood, which then of

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00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: course forces me to think about how I am as

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00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: a mother and makes me so conscious of every choice

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00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 1: that I make while simultaneously feeling strangely vulnerable, you know,

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00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: sort of remembering all of these moments from my own

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00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: childhood when I felt so alone and afraid, or confused

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00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: or sometimes happy. Honestly, just but just remembering my way

442
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: back into my childhood is a really profound thing to

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00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: do as a parent, particularly a parent with kids at

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00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: these very developmental ages. Also my son and daughter being

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00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: about the ages that my siblings were when they were killed.

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00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: I have been doing this research very very slowly, because

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00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: each time I uncover something, it just eviscerats me in

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00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: a matter that I was not prepared for. You know,

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00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: I have a history as a journalist or reporter. You know,

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00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: I've done a huge amount of research for you know,

451
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: fiction projects, for my last memoir project, and I thought,

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00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: I'm ready for this. I'm ready to to sort of

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00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: lay bare these secrets. I'm ready to kind of talk

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00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: about all this with my family. But maybe you're never ready.

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00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a world in which you had never

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00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: known this, where the secret remained very in those portraits

457
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: on the wall. You know, imagine a past in which

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00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: you would never ask the question. I mean, do you

459
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 1: in any way I wish that you didn't know this?

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00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: Maybe a little part of me does and wishes that

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00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: my relationship with my mother and my sister could be

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00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: less complicated. You know that, because my relationship with my mother,

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00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: whom I love dearly and I love like in this

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00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,719
Speaker 1: animal love, and you also feel so protective of in

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00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: so many ways, But my relationship with her is very fraught,

466
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: and I just wish that it could be less complicated.

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00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: So it's not so much that you wish you didn't

468
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: know the secret as that you wish the secret had

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00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: never existed. Yeah, I either wish I had never existed,

470
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: or I wish that maybe they had. But the truth

471
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: is you can never truly shut the door. Right. Here's

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00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: Joanna reading from the manuscript of her upcoming memoir. Where

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00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: do I start? How do I begin? How do I

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00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: tell a story that begins before my birth? Or rather

475
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: I should say the story that resulted, grim and improbable

476
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: as it sounds, in my existence, it's a story that

477
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: now I'm called upon to tell this explanation of my life,

478
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: of my family, of how I came to be. Nearly

479
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: every day, every time someone innocently asks do you have

480
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters? Or are you from a big family?

481
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: But there's no easy answer, no response that won't lead

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00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: to further questions at best, or at worst make the

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00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: inquirer uncomfortable or horrified, or sad or filled with regret

484
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: that she'd brought up such painful memories. There's no answer

485
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: that won't lead to an awkward social moment, a tragic

486
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: silence within a gay part, and after the shockwas off,

487
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: there will still always be more questions, questions I can't

488
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: necessarily answer. I'd like to thank my guest, Joanna Raykoff.

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00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: You can find out more about Joanna and her books

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00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: at Joanna Rakoff dot com. Family Secrets is an I

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00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: Heart media production. Dylan Fagan is a supervising producer, Lowell

492
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: Brolante is the audio engineer, and Julie Douglas is the

493
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd like

494
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: to share with us, you can get in touch at

495
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: listener mail at Family Secrets podcast dot com, and you

496
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: can also find us on Instagram at Danny Ryder, and

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00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: Facebook at Family Secrets Pod and Twitter at fami Secrets Pod.

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00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: For more about my book, Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot

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00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: com For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the

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00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen

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00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows,