My ex-in-laws spent months painting my daughters as “heartless villains” who drove their father to his death. But when their friends cornered my 17-year-old at the market on her birthday, I decided it was time everyone learned the complete story my in-laws had been hiding. My name’s Carla, and I’m 46 years old.
Before everything shattered, I thought we were just an ordinary family with two teenage daughters, a husband who burned pancakes, and a house that smelled like coffee. People said we were stable. I believed them.
But back then, I had no idea my daughters were carrying a crushing secret. It started with a school project. Mia, my 17-year-old, needed baby pictures.
She and her younger sister, Lila, were searching the family computer when an automatic backup popped up from their father’s phone. They almost closed it. Almost.
Inside were photos of Thomas with another woman in our living room, taken when my daughters and I were away on vacation. Then hospital photos of her holding two newborns. Then, there was a picture of Thomas holding both boys, grinning.
The timestamps showed nights he’d claimed he was working late. Weekends he’d supposedly gone out of town. Days I’d called and gotten distracted replies.
My daughters printed three photos and waited for him to come home. “Dad,” Mia said when Thomas walked into the kitchen. “What is this?”
She put the pictures on the table.
His face went from pale to furious in seconds. “You went through my private files?” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how wrong that is?”
“Are they your babies?” Lila whispered.
“Our brothers?”
Instead of answering, he did the cruelest thing possible. “If you tell your mother, you’ll destroy this family,” he’d warned. “Do you want to be responsible for that?”
They didn’t.
So they tried to carry it alone. They didn’t know what else to do. For weeks, my daughters sat at dinner choking down food while their father asked about homework.
They watched him kiss me goodnight and thought, “You’re lying to Mom’s face.”
Mia started avoiding Thomas. Lila’s grades dropped. They withdrew in a way that felt wrong, but when I asked, they said it was just school stress.
It finally broke when I found them on my bed surrounded by tissues and those photos. “Mom,” Mia said, voice shaking. “We have to show you something.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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