Chapter 4. The Truth is Out

A year after my parents divorced, My older sister stayed in Timaru to be with her boyfriend. She decided to stay with Steve (Our dad) because he had a new job that required him to be at sea on a fishing boat for 6 weeks following a week of rest at home and then he would be out to sea again. Because of this, my sister had to take care of the bills, her own finances and also the mail. One day as my sister was looking through the mail and she came across a letter for child support. She opened the letter believing it was a payment that needed to be paid to our mum.

However, she came across something that would confirm Steve to be the worst of the worst. My sister tore open the letter and started to read in disbelief, Our father had a hidden child in Dunedin! As she continued to read it said that Danny was born in 2003 which is the time my mum was in the hospital going through life sucking chemotherapy. My sister decided to move back to Dunedin the next day, breaking up with her boyfriend and leaving the house and bills for Steve to come back to.

When my sister discussed what had happened, I remember that while my mum was going through chemo, Steve was always helping a lady ‘fix her computer’ at first there was a computer that he fixed of hers at our house and as time passed he would constantly leave and say he was going to her house to fix the computer. After confirming the details from the child support letter it turns out that Steve had had an affair with a married woman resulting in another child. After more conversations with my sister, we began to realize the suspicious actions of Steve when we lived together. For example, steve locked the mailbox when we lived together and he was the only one with access to it. Steve was also the only one who had access to a computer and no one was allowed to use it.

After coming to realization with reality and finding the hidden secrets he had kept to himself for so many years, I began to hate Steve more. While my loving mum was going through life threatening surgeries, my so called ‘Dad’ was off sleeping around with another woman. After hearing the truth of what had happened it was a very disturbing and unsettling time for my family to overcome. Steve had betrayed all of us and more importantly was able to hurt my mum even further.