**The Secret That Tore Us Apart**
I thought I knew my family, but one whispered confession shattered everything. My sister—the woman I’d always believed to be my mother—lay dying. “Sebastian, I haven’t much time left,” she murmured, her voice trembling. “Promise me you won’t tell Jeremy or Emily the truth I’m about to reveal. And do whatever it takes to keep the peace after I’m gone.”
“I promise,” I said firmly, gripping her cold hand. I’d loved her despite her favouring Jeremy and Emily over me my whole life.
“Sebastian… we’re not mother and son…” she whispered.
My heart stopped. What did she mean?
The old family house in the countryside near Gloucester had been a point of contention for years. “We should sell it,” Emily insisted. “Who needs that crumbling heap? Let’s split the money!”
“Emily, the house costs nothing to keep,” Jeremy argued. “Life’s unpredictable—what if one of us needs it?”
“Nothing to keep?” She scoffed. “Who pays the council tax on this ‘palace’ with its view of an abandoned field? I want to live now, not when I’m old!”
Emily worked as an accountant at a local firm, married to Victor, a lorry driver. She acted as though she’d done him a favour by marrying him, while his mother called her a “flighty social climber who’d drop him the moment someone better came along.” Their marriage was a string of quarrels, with Emily pressuring Victor to “better himself” while secretly eyeing greener pastures.
Jeremy, meanwhile, fancied himself the family’s success story. A council officer in Gloucester with a modest salary, he lived with his wife, Olivia, and their two children. Olivia had once tried opening a dress shop, but the venture failed, and she resigned herself to “holding on to what she had.” Jeremy privately hoped the family home would go to his children—after all, neither Emily nor I had any.
But Jeremy had another family—a mistress, Katherine, and two sons by her. Olivia suspected but stayed silent; where else could she go? Jeremy played the dutiful husband while living a double life.
“Sebastian, Jeremy won’t sell his share. Back me up!” Emily called me during one of my business trips.
“I don’t need the money. Sort it out yourselves,” I replied.
“You always avoid family matters!” she snapped. “I want a divorce, a fresh start. Who’ll want a thirty-five-year-old with no flat of her own?”
“Emily, without Victor, you’ll drown,” I warned.
I tried to broker peace. “Jeremy, take my share as a gift and buy Emily out. Then the house is yours.”
“Think I’m made of money?” he sneered. “Emily will demand top price. But sure, give me your share—you’re the rich one, after all.”
Five years younger, Jeremy had always envied me. Emily masked her resentment with flattery; Jeremy just sneered.
I remembered my sister’s—no, my *mother’s*?—dying words:
“Sebastian… we’re siblings. Same father. You were his child with another woman. My mother wouldn’t let him acknowledge you, so I adopted you.”
I was numb. The woman I called Mum was my sister. My grandfather, my father.
“Why now?” I choked out.
“Your real mother took the money and vanished. I couldn’t tell you sooner—I was afraid for Jeremy and Emily. They’re reckless, bitter… I failed you all.”
She wept. I held her. I’d always known she loved them more.
The house debate dragged on. Jeremy sneered at my offer to insure it against the downstairs neighbour’s gas leaks—”Charity, is it?” Emily simpered, “Oh, Sebastian, what would we do without you?” But her sweetness was poison.
Then Jeremy called Emily one day: “Sebastian’s given us his share. Cut ties. What did you say to him?”
“Nothing! He was always odd. But I’m keeping my half.”
Too late for regrets. Neither had valued me until I was gone.
My solicitor rang: “The gas leak happened. The house is ruined. The insurance will cover it.”
“Ensure Jeremy and Emily get their share,” I said.
I’d kept my promise to her. But who was I to them? The outsider who propped them up until they bled me dry.
Now, nearing forty, I walk away. The house overlooking the old churchyard is rubble—just like the lies we called family.
I won’t waste my present fixing the past.
Who am I without them? That’s a story I’ve yet to write.
