My stepmother grew up in a home marked by abusive alcoholism, and I suspect she may have had borderline personality disorder. When George and I moved into her house, I was eleven, and he was eight. The memory that stands out most from that day is her explosive anger and emotional outbursts.

Our dad had never told her—the woman he married and had two children with—that he also had two adopted children.

After living with our elderly Italian grandparents for two years, he had no choice but to bring us to her house; there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else he would let us go. My dad, being very non-confrontational, never intervened or insisted that Dotti change.

Unlike what you might expect, […]