I often wonder when I first began to realize just how wrong my life had turned out.
I was born into a modest family. My parents both worked, and because I was their only child, all their attention flowed toward me. Looking back, I can admit they spoiled me a little. But it was the ordinary sort of love, the kind that makes a child feel safe without ever having to think about why.
I had a good father. I had a caring mother. For a long time, that felt like all I needed.
Everything was going well until the day my father told us something neither my mother nor I had ever expected to hear.
I can still remember how hesitant he was. He looked like a man forcing himself to walk into a storm he already knew would tear everything apart. He struggled to find the words, pausing more than once, but in the end he said them anyway.
He had a child with another woman.
