What would make a five-year-old suddenly pull away from the person he loved most?
When my son, Sam, stopped hugging and kissing his mom, I thought it was a phase. But it went on for weeks, and something felt off. I asked my wife, Candice, about it, but she brushed it off as “independence.”
Later, when I spoke to Sam, he said, “Mom has a secret. She cries when you’re not home.” He saw her holding a photo before she hid it under the bed. I found the photo in a green box—it was a man I’d never seen, but he looked just like Candice.
I confronted her that night. At first, she panicked. But then she told me the truth: the man in the photo was her twin brother—a brother she only recently learned existed. Her dying grandmother had revealed that Candice’s mother had an affair and secretly gave one twin to the biological father. Her mom’s husband was told the second baby died.
Candice had been torn with guilt, unsure if searching for her brother would ruin her family. That secret had been eating away at her, and Sam felt it.
I held her as she cried, promising we’d face it together. She didn’t have to carry this alone anymore. We’d start with that photo and go from there—one step at a time.