I’m Katrina, 31, and I always thought I knew my family. My dad and I, along with my older sister, have always been close, or so I believed. After my mom died, Dad became everything: protector, guide, the one keeping our small family together. I never imagined there were secrets buried beneath that trust.

Last weekend, we were clearing out my dad’s study, preparing for him to move into a smaller place. Among a messy stack of old documents and papers, I spotted an envelope with my name and my sister’s name scrawled across it. Curiosity got the better of me.

I opened it and began reading. The words on the page shook me to my core: a woman confessing to an affair, revealing she became pregnant, pleading for forgiveness from her husband, but being rejected and forced to leave. My stomach dropped. I turned the page, and froze. It was from my mother.

Everything changed in that moment. My mother had cheated on my dad. There’s a half-sibling out there somewhere. My mother… is alive. And my father, the man I trusted completely, had lied to both me and my sister for years.

I’m still trying to process it all. How could he hide something this massive? Where is she now? Who else exists that I don’t know about? I know one thing: nothing in my family will ever feel the same again.