Eighteen years. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once. My husband, gone so suddenly, just a few months after our beautiful Susie came into the world. She was the light that pulled me through the darkest days, a constant reminder of the love we shared, and the love I still held for him. Every milestone, every achievement of hers, I’d whisper a silent prayer to him, tell him how amazing his daughter was. Susie’s eighteen now, a stunning young woman, so much like him in spirit. She carries his eyes, his laugh. I thought we were so close. We’d faced so much grief together, just the two of us against the world. I thought there were no secrets between us.
Then came that Tuesday evening. I was walking past the hallway, heading for the kitchen, when I heard her. She was on the landline, back to me, voice low, hushed. A secret conversation. I stopped, my hand already reaching for the light switch.
“Okay, Dad,” she whispered, her voice soft, almost yearning. “I miss you too.”
My breath hitched. My heart, which had been beating steadily for eighteen years on the memory of one man, lurched to a standstill. Dad? My mind screamed. HER DAD IS DEAD.
She must have sensed my presence. Her shoulders stiffened. She hung up, a little too quickly, and spun around, a startled look in her eyes. “Who were you talking to?” I asked, my voice flat, unrecognisable even to myself.
She blinked, a forced casualness. “No one. Wrong number.” She walked past me, too fast, too evasive.
But it wasn’t a wrong number. Not with that look. Not with that word. Dad.
All evening, a cold dread coiled in my stomach. Is she talking to herself? Is this a new, disturbing way of grieving? Is she in some kind of trouble? The questions spun like dervishes in my head. Who could it be?
Later, when she was asleep, I crept to the landline. My hands trembled as I pressed the menu button, scrolling to the call log. There it was: the last outgoing number. Unfamiliar. My finger hovered. Don’t do it. What if you find something you can’t unsee? But the curiosity, the icy grip of fear, was stronger than any caution. I dialled.
It rang once. Twice. Three times. Each ring a hammer blow to my chest. Then, a click. Breathing. A man’s breathing. Heavy, slow. I froze, not daring to speak.
And then, his voice. Deep, a little rough, full of surprise. “Susie!”
The single word detonated my world. Susie. Not “hello.” Not “who is this?” Just “Susie!” As if he knew her. As if he knew me. My hand flew to my mouth, stifling a gasp. I dropped the phone as if it had burned me. My legs gave out. I sank to the floor, shaking.
The next day was a blur of frantic searches. I got the number, cross-referenced it. Found a name. A man I didn’t know. A man who lived three states away. A man who, according to his social media, had a daughter named Susie.
My heart hammered against my ribs when I confronted her. She denied it at first, then burst into tears, the dam finally breaking. “He’s… he’s my biological father,” she choked out, words tearing at my soul. “I found him a few months ago. He said he always wanted to know me.”
The air left my lungs. My beautiful husband. The man who loved her fiercely, who never once questioned her parentage, who died thinking she was his flesh and blood. He wasn’t her father. My husband died believing a lie.
But that wasn’t the deepest cut. That wasn’t the secret that has been eating me alive since that night. The real confession, the one I’ve held tighter than any other, is that my husband died a happy man, a proud father, because I allowed him to believe it.
Eighteen years ago, before we were married, before Susie, there was someone else. A brief, foolish affair. A mistake. And then, a positive pregnancy test. I told my husband, my future husband, it was his. He never doubted me. Not once. He was overjoyed. He planned the nursery, he spoke to my belly, he loved that baby with every fiber of his being. And he died, holding our newborn girl, believing she was the most precious part of him.
I knew. I knew the truth, and I buried it. I let him love her, raise her, claim her as his own. I let him die, believing he had left behind a legacy, a piece of himself. And now, Susie knows he wasn’t her father. And she has found her other father. But she doesn’t know the full truth. She doesn’t know that I am the one who orchestrated the lie, the one who betrayed her late father’s trust, and built our entire life on a secret that is now shattering everything. And I don’t know how to live with that. Or if I can ever tell her.
