He lived to be 96, and not once in my life did I question that he was my father. The truth only came out after his death,

“I think to understand how it happened—you have to know that he adored my mother. They were married for 67 years. He treated her like gold. He always opened doors for her. He did the vacuuming. The grocery shopping. He’d cook us dinner every Saturday. He’d come home from work at 5:30, and anything my sister and I wanted to do—he’d do it: play baseball, go to the lake, anything.

 I never heard him complain. He never once got mad at me. I wasn’t the best driver, and a couple times I crashed our car into a snowbank. But it was always: ‘Are you OK?’ Not once did he say: ‘What’s the matter with you?’ That’s how he was. He was the gentlest man. My relationship with my mother could be challenging, and Dad knew that. So he tried to make up for it. He was the one who was always there. He was the one that I could go to for anything. He lived to be 96, and not once in my life did I question that he was my father. The truth only came out after his death, when my son decided to get a DNA test. He discovered that he was one-third Italian, which didn’t make any sense. Because nobody in our family was Italian. He did some research and narrowed it down to four brothers. 

Their last name was Lombardi. That’s when we called my cousin Denise. Her mother had been my mom’s best friend. I asked her point blank: ‘Do you know anything about my biological father?’ There was a long silence. Then I asked her if she’d ever heard the name ‘Lombardi.’ There was another silence, and she said: ‘Mr. Lombardi was your mother’s boss at the jewelry store.’ She went on to tell me that my father had always known. And that he’d decided to forgive my mother. And to raise me as his daughter. And to take the secret to his grave, because he didn’t want to hurt me. 

I cried when I found out. But that only lasted a minute. Because it didn’t change anything. It didn’t change my amazing childhood. It didn’t change my relationship with my father. Denise told me that she had been there when my parents came home from the hospital. She watched my father carry me in the house. And she said she’ll never forget the look on his face. She’d never seen him so happy in his entire life.”