He was just always there.That’s how I’ve always thought of him. Not a ghost, not an apparition, but a solid, comforting, slightly annoying fixture in the landscape of my life. The man who always came around. He’d be at our house for Sunday dinner, tinkering with my father’s old car in the driveway, or just sitting on the porch swing, sipping iced tea, watching the world go by. He wasn’t family by blood, not exactly, but he was closer than some of my actual aunts and uncles. He was a constant, a warm shadow, a gentle, knowing presence.
My husband travels for work. A lot. Weeks at a time, sometimes a month or more. It’s the price we pay for the life we have, he says. And it is a good life, I tell myself, trying to quiet the hollow echo in our home, the cold space in the bed where he should be. The quiet gets too loud sometimes. The evenings stretch out, long and empty, punctuated only by the distant hum of traffic and the mournful cry of a night train. I’d try to fill the space with books, with TV, with frantic cleaning, but the loneliness always seeped in, thick and suffocating.And then there was him.
He’d start showing up more often when my husband was gone. Not in an intrusive way, never like that. Just… there. A knock on the door with a fresh-baked pie, an offer to fix the leaky faucet I hadn’t gotten around to calling a plumber for, an unexpected evening visit to share a story about his day. He’d sit on the couch, not too close, just close enough that I could feel the warmth of another human being beside me. We’d talk for hours. About nothing, about everything. He’d listen with those kind, crinkled eyes, really listen, in a way my husband, bless his busy heart, hadn’t truly listened in years.
A man | Source: Midjourney
I found myself looking forward to his visits. Craving them. Was this wrong? I’d push the thought away, deep into the recesses of my mind. He was family. He was a friend. He was just… being kind. He understood the silent language of my loneliness, somehow. He knew exactly when to show up, exactly what to say to make the heavy weight on my chest lighten a little. He saw me. Truly saw me.
One particularly bad night, my husband had called, exhausted and distant. We’d had a fight, a stupid one, about his absence and my resentment. He’d hung up abruptly, leaving me staring at my phone, tears streaming down my face. A few minutes later, there was a gentle knock. Of course. It was him. He just walked in, saw my face, and without a word, pulled me into a hug. It was a fatherly hug, at first. Comforting. Then it lingered. And lingered.
His hand stroked my hair, then traced down my back. I leaned into it, desperate for any warmth, any connection. He pulled back slightly, his eyes searching mine, full of an emotion I couldn’t quite name. Pity? Longing? I was so broken, so vulnerable. And he was there. Always there.
He whispered my name. So softly. My heart was pounding. Every fiber of my being screamed NO, but every lonely, aching part of me was screaming YES. And then, his lips were on mine.
A man sitting in his apartment | Source: Midjourney
It was soft, tentative at first, then more urgent. A desperate kiss, born of shared loneliness and unspoken desires. I kissed him back. I shouldn’t have. I KNEW I SHOULDN’T HAVE. But I did. My world tilted on its axis, spinning uncontrollably. His hands found my waist, pulling me closer. The touch was both alien and achingly familiar.
The night was a blur of guilt and a strange, terrifying relief. I felt disgusting. A cheat. A liar. But also… seen. Loved, in a twisted, forbidden way. He stayed until dawn, holding me, whispering reassurances that I barely heard over the roaring in my ears. When he left, the silence of the house was even heavier, more suffocating than before. A tangible presence of my betrayal.
Days turned into weeks. My husband was still away. He still came around. We didn’t speak of that night, not directly. But there was an undeniable current between us, a shared secret that both shamed and bound us. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of my own making. How could I have done this? What kind of person was I?
Then, cleaning out my mother’s old boxes from the attic, boxes she’d asked me to go through years ago but I’d always put off, I found it. Tucked beneath old photographs and yellowed letters, a small, worn leather diary. My mother’s handwriting. The year written on the cover was the year before I was born.
I opened it, my fingers trembling. It was a confession. A secret life. Pages filled with agonizing entries about a passionate, forbidden affair. About a love she couldn’t deny, even though she was married. About a baby. Her baby. My baby. The father… he wasn’t my father. My legal father, the man who raised me, who loved me. No.
A person holding a scrapbook | Source: Midjourney
I skimmed through the pages, my breath catching in my throat, a cold dread seeping into my bones. Her words painted a picture of a man who was always there for her, a solace, a constant. A man who loved her fiercely, but they could never be together. He was married, too, to a woman who desperately wanted a child. They had made a pact, a heartbreaking sacrifice for their families, for their children. To raise me in the proper home, but he would always be around. Always.
I turned the page, my eyes blurring. She wrote his name. Clear as day. The name of the man she loved, the real father of her child.
NO.
IT CAN’T BE.
The name stared back at me, mocking, cruel. The name of the man who always came around. The man who had just left my bed.
My entire life was a lie. My parents’ marriage. My identity. Every comforting, fatherly hug he’d ever given me. Every kind word. Every shared glance. It wasn’t just comfort, not just a deep friendship. It was a secret love, simmering beneath the surface, a twisted continuation of what he’d felt for my mother. And now, for me.
My head spun. The kiss. The touch. The desperate intimacy. I HAD CHEATED WITH MY OWN BIOLOGICAL FATHER.
A man standing in his house | Source: Midjourney
The world didn’t just tilt. It shattered. And I was left, standing in the ruins of my life, holding a diary that held the most horrifying, heartbreaking truth I could ever imagine.
