My name’s Mara, I’m 34, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around losing my dad just two months ago. It was sudden, like one day he was here, calling me to remind me to “check the tire pressure,” and the next… he was gone. My sister Liana (31) and I have been moving through this weird fog of grief ever since.

Dad left $500,000 to the two of us. It wasn’t shocking as he’d been open about it, and he always said he wanted us to have a cushion he never had growing up. It felt like his last way of taking care of us. And then, just when we thought we could finally breathe again, chaos walked right in.

His lawyer called, saying a woman named Angela, 39, contacted him, claiming her 9-year-old son was my dad’s secret child, and that she wanted a third of the estate, just like that. I swear, my stomach dropped. Not because I believed her, but because I knew this was going to get messy.

Here’s the thing: My dad had a vasectomy 15 years ago. Documented. Confirmed. Done.

So I’m already sitting there thinking, “This lady is really trying it.” We agreed to let the lawyer handle everything because neither of us wanted to deal with her directly. But she kept pushing, sending dramatic messages about my dad’s “hidden relationship” with her.

Then… she made the mistake that ruined her whole story. In a call with the lawyer, while arguing about why she “deserved” a portion, she literally said: “I already told my son his real dad would finally give us money.”

His real dad. She realized what she said a second too late. The lawyer even asked her to repeat it, and she panicked. She stumbled, backtracked, tried to twist her words, but it didn’t matter. Her claim was rejected immediately.

A few days later, we received a letter from her ex (the actual father) apologizing for the chaos. He said, “My son doesn’t deserve to be dragged into her schemes.” And yes, that hit me harder than anything. I should have felt relief. And I did. Well, for a moment at least. But the whole situation left a bitter taste I can’t shake. Grief is hard enough without someone trying to steal from you.

And here’s where things get messy. To stop anything like this from happening again, I asked the lawyer to put a restriction on Dad’s estate so no new paternity or heir claims could be opened without court-verified proof first. It basically shuts the door on any “surprise siblings,” real or fake.

My sister agreed. But my aunt (my dad’s only sister) said I went too far. She told me, “If your father really had a child you didn’t know about, you just locked them out forever.”

Was I right to put that restriction on the estate, or did I cross a line trying to protect what my dad left us? I really want to hear what others think.