In the three days that had passed since I'd found out that my entire life was a lie, my sister might be my half-sister and my mother was batshit crazy and completely deluded, I watched Abigail for any signs that she was getting ready to take off with Griff and run from this real-life episode of Dr. Phil. She seemed to be OK as she processed what she'd learned, at least outwardly, and I didn't notice her looking at me closely as if trying to determine if I'd inherited my mother's ability to live in an alternate reality.
My mother had tried to call and text me several times after that horrible scene, and, when I hadn't answered, she'd recruited Katie to get through to me. The first few calls and texts from my sister I ignored, not wanting to get into it with her over the phone, but when she persisted, I reluctantly answered.
"Kade, Mom's freaking out!" Katie launched right in. "She said you got mad at her for no reason and won't talk to her. What's going on?"
Out of all the things I'd learned when my mother had been letting loose with all sorts of secrets, the one about Katie possibly being Roger's daughter and not my father's presented me with the biggest moral dilemma. Did I tell Katie the whole story? Did I ruin her beliefs about mom and dad's seemingly perfect marriage and tell her our idyllic childhood was just a sham? Was there any reason to shake up her world and make her question who actually fathered her?
I wish I still lived in that blissfully unaware bubble. I'd known things weren't perfect when I'd had to marry Charlotte to save the business, but I hadn't known I was stepping into such a huge pile of shit and secrets. Really shitty secrets.
When I'd talked to Abigail about the whole situation, she'd also been unsure as to what the right thing to do was. She'd thought about her answer for a long time before offering her opinion.
"I don't know how to answer that, Kade. On the one hand, the truth has a way of eventually coming to light and if Katie found out her big brother knew everything and didn't tell her, that might hurt her even more than the news itself. On the other hand, what purpose would telling her serve? You'd shatter her world, possibly, if she found out that the man she loved all her life wasn't really her biological father. I'm sorry I can't give you a clear answer, but I'm just not sure of the right way forward in this instance."
"It's murky as fuck, that's for sure," I'd said to her. "It was my mother's story to tell, but now that I've been told, does that make it my story to tell? Does Katie have a right to know all of this? I feel like she does, and maybe a paternity test would prove my dad was her father, so at least that uncertainty could be put to rest. But then I've exposed her to my mother's double life and that would probably destroy their relationship, maybe in a way that they could never repair it. Since Katie was always closer to my mom and dad than I was, Mom being out of her life would be more a blow for her. I'm not sure how she'd handle it."
Since no neon sign had appeared telling me what to do, I really wanted to start throwing shit I was so frustrated at this predicament my mother had dropped in my lap. Although my mother and Roger apparently had no qualms about hurting people, I had a conscience and it bothered me.
"God, I'm trying to think of the way through this that will hurt Katie the least. Not telling her anything is obviously the option that doesn't affect her life in any way -- unless it all comes out and then she'd feel betrayed by mom, by me, by Roger."
"It's such a mess, Kade. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't," Abigail had commiserated with me.
"I even looked up DNA tests," I'd admitted to Abigail. "There are tests that can prove if someone is your full sibling or half-sibling. The results could either give Katie peace of mind or tear apart everything she thought was true."
