Not Telling Children About Parents

Delilah Sharansky, the Jewish woman introduced on page 202, died in the accident that hospitalized Hanna's mother. Why do you think Sarah Heath never told Hanna about Delilah or her son, the artist Aaron Sharansky? Hanna is very hurt by this lack of knowledge: "It was going to take me more than one night to catch up with thirty years of missing information. Missing love. ... in the end, she'd made all the decisions, and I'd paid for them" (p. 213). And again, "Why hadn't she told me?" (p. 261).

I am puzzled too by Sarah not telling Hanna about her father. If he had some type of shady past or if Sarah was the result of parentage by a man with whom Sarah had had no releationship, perhaps waiting until Hanna was an adult would make sense. Hanna was now an adult though and the relationsip between Sarah and Aaron was a positive one. Marg's comment about Hanna being a difficult teen makes one realize that she may have been difficult to talk to, but it doesn't sound like Sarah made much effort throughout the years to talk to Hanna.
In the past, people used to try to hid the fact that a child was adopted from their child thinking that was the best thing. I had thought that this attitude had changed and that people tried to be more open with their children.
Sarah seemed so busy fulfilling her own professional interests that she didn't appear to give consideration to Hanna's emotional needs. It is surprising that Hanna grew up as well as she did given the lack of nurturing she received.