The cat in the bag

I believe that everyone and every family has things that they wouldn't want anyone to know of, but then, it is one thing to have a secret, and it is another thing to stop that secret from getting out. My family, as beautiful as it was, had its secret, though it wasn't a harmful secret but we didn't want anyone else to know about it to avoid emotional traumas. It was a shame that this secret had to be spilled, and a bigger shame that it came from me.

Source

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My family is a family of six; my parents and their four children. I am the eldest, and I have two sisters and one brother who isn't biologically related to us. My dad had adopted him when he was little, abandoned by his birth mom in our backyard. My dad didn't know who the mother was, and I was only three years old then. He and my mom took in the child and nursed him as theirs.
Nobody knew he wasn't their birth child. I was only aware because I had been with my father the day he was found, but my other siblings had no idea that their big brother wasn't blood-related. My parents and I tried our very best to keep this secret to ourselves, as the boy too had no idea that we weren't his real family, but then one day, there was an accident, and the secret could no longer be hidden.

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Jude had been running home from school when a bus hit him and he suffered severe bleeding. When we heard the news, we all ran to the hospital to get our blood tested so we could donate to him, but surprisingly to my siblings and the doctors who knew we were a family, none of our blood matched with his.
He was O+ and the rest of us were A+. This was a shocking realization for everyone. My dad paid for the transfusion of blood from the hospital's blood bank, but people who were there started making crazy assumptions. They thought my mom was to be held accountable for having a child who had a different blood group, and my dad waved it off and told them that he wasn't bothered about it, but somehow, the kids at school taunted one of a little sister, saying my mom had cheated on my dad to have Jude and she came home crying her eyes out.

"Lily, why are you crying?" I asked her.

"Did mom cheat on dad to have Jude?" She asked me and I was shocked.

"Where did you hear such nonsense?" I asked her.

"The kids at school said it. One of them has an aunt who works as a nurse at that hospital, and she told him. Everyone knows about it now, and they were all laughing at me today." She narrated and sobbed harder.

I heaved a sigh and hugged her close. I wondered if I should keep quiet and let her deal with the taunting, or probably tell her the truth to ease her mind. After deliberating on this, I decided to tell her the truth which I regretted later on.

"Lily, Mom didn't cheat on Dad to have Jude. As a matter of fact, Dad brought him." I said to her.

"How do you mean? Are you saying that Mom is taking the blame for Dad's cheating?" She asked, and I shook my head in response. "So what are you saying then?" She asked again.

"Dad found him in our backyard the day he was born. He couldn't throw him away, so he brought him in and mom nursed him as their son." I explained to her.

"So he isn't even related to us, and he dares to treat us like his younger siblings all the time?" She nagged.

"Don't be rude, Lily. I shouldn't have told you this, but I need you to stop thinking that Mom had a child for another man. He is your elder brother, and you mustn't disrespect him, or I'll never forgive you."

"Does he know about this?" She asked again.

"No, he doesn't and he shouldn't find out. It was just Mom, Dad and me before now. Now you know about it too, but Dad mustn't find out that I told you about this, and Sophie must never know about this. You know she adores Jude; don't make things hard for them." I warned and hoped she'd heed them.

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Lily began to change her attitude towards Jude. She became crankier whenever he was around, and she stopped playing with him. I noticed these changes, and it saddened Sophie since they always played together. I made a mental note to talk to Lily about her attitude but I kept postponing it until one day Lily let the cat out of the bag in the most stupid way ever.

We were at dinner, and Lily was digging into her food without swallowing the ones she had in her mouth. Jude, out of his care for her, tried to stop her and she snapped at him.

"Why are you acting like you're the one eating the food?" She asked with an angry look. Our parents kept quiet, probably thinking they might be having a little feud, but it got out of hand before we could do anything.

"I just want you to be okay. You might choke on your food if you keep rushing it. That's all I'm saying." Jude politely replied.

"I do not need you to babysit me. It's none of your business how I choose to eat my food, so stop acting like you're my real brother." The moment those words left her mouth, I felt my soul drain from my body. Lily took a while to understand what she had just spilled; she apologized and left the table.

Source
That night, I had an earful from my parents, and they blamed me for letting the cat out of the bag. It took a long time for Jude to understand and forgive everyone, but in the end, I was glad our issues were resolved.