In the beginning

there was us. A small family; mum, dad, two kids, a dog. House, car, suburbia. It was all pretty nice, as far as I was concerned. I was the youngest.

Mum and dad were my best friends. They were great, never treated me as a kid, talked to me properly. I fought with my sister -- or perhaps she fought with me, I'm not sure, but we fought. But that's ok. We eventually stopped, sort of grew up and turned all adult and sensible. At least she did. She went off to set up her own standard family, and I started faffing around the world, unable to settle down.

And so it went. For years. I'd visit 2-3 times a year, spend every minute with mum and dad as intensely as I could, knowing that time was precious and I would soon go back to wherever my life took place at the time, to whatever job I was holding at the time. We laughed a lot. And sometimes we cried. We're a little sentimental that way. We cry together.

Sister lives close to them, so she spends her time less intensely with them and gets annoyed with them more easily. I can't afford to get annoyed any more, the time with mum and dad is too precious for that.

You're waiting for the upsetting break, aren't you?

Here it is.

Phone call made by strange man to sister while she is at work. The man says he is her brother, that they have the same father. Sister has no idea what to say. She is understandably shocked. Like me she thought she knew her dad. She thought the strange man must be some sort of nutcase. She asks for time, gets his number. But he asks her not to talk to dad.

That's strange. Why not? We've always talked to dad. About everything. There is nothing we can't talk to dad about. Or is there? And what about mum?

Of course she talks to dad. There is nothing else to do. She offers to tell me for him, to make it easier as she knows how close we have always been, that it might be less of a let-down hearing it from her. The let-down being that there was something I didn't know, that a secret was being kept. From me. By him. The number 1 person in my life.

But he told me himself. It wasn't easy for him, and the moment he told me I realised his world was falling apart. My dear, sweet, kind dad was suddenly looking into the blackest black of his life, and I could see in his eyes that he had no idea how to live with having kept a secret -- or perhaps, lived a lie -- for so long. And I knew, just knew it was up to me to find a way for everyone to live with the news. Including the stranger.

Because if there was one thing we could not do, it was to reject him. A man who had spent half a century not knowing his birth parents, not knowing if he had brothers and sisters. There is enough imagination and empathy in me to know that facing rejection for an adoptee must be absolute hell.

I'm going to skip the intervening first contact for now. Apart from hardly understanding a word he said -- he spoke with a heavy, northern accent, we're over the first awkward point, but have yet to meet face to face.

But there's one thing that really irritates me. He keeps opening every damned communication with 'little sister'. As if he's marking his territory and can't stop in all the excitement. I hate it. And I have no idea how to tell him not to as I don't know him well enough to know how he'd take it. And I still don't want to hurt him. Or my dad. Or my sister. Or mum, who has nothing to do with any of this. When is he going to get over it? Not even my sister refers to me as sister, and he's only my HALF brother. Should I perhaps open my replies with 'Dear HALF brother' in return...?

Of course not.

But...