Chapter 5: How We Found Out
“Hate to give [you] the satisfaction, asking how you’re doing now
How’s the castle built off people you pretend to care about?
Just what you wanted,
Look at you, Cool Guy, you got it[…]
You gotta laugh at the stupidity,
‘Cause I’ve made some real big mistakes,
But you make the Worst One look fine,
I should’ve known it was strange,
You only come out at night.”
-- “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
-- Mary Oliver
By now, y’all know almost everything. And of course, this is just my side. If you were here with me, at my little house in Tennessee (I moved here in 2020), I would put the kettle on & give you a huge, cozy blanket and ask your Consent before sharing this story with you. Lolz. Nothing about this is fun, or funny. But I am sure as hell going to try for some laughs. Because we need it.
To get through this from start to finish, we need it.
And for my healing, I need witnessing. I need to birth this darkness into the Light.
I need accurate mirroring, which is really just y’all messaging me and empathizing. Or reading and crying. Or seeing Yourself in Me & letting me know.
“What the actual F??” is what I keep hearing, and boy is it VALID.
So, here is the Crescendo. July of 2020 was when Madison, Kylie, and I found out about the Affairs.
DISCLAIMER: Before I go into it all, I want to say One More Time that this is just one small piece of my story. While it ripped me in two, and while I somehow did not drink…it ultimately isn’t my marriage that was ruined. So, I write this because it feels Life Saving to be Honest out loud, finally. And I say too — don’t read it if you don’t have the stomach. No one is forcing you to. This is what happened to me…what I walked through, I like to say.
Because I had a choice, and I walked through this fire. Relatively fucking sober.
July 2020, The Day We Found Out
“I’ve been having sex with your Dad for two years,” Ally says, her voice steady but breathless. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I feel like you deserve to know.” My phone breaks up for a quick second as I pull off the highway. It’s raining sheets.
I pull into a rest stop halfway between Michigan and Chicago. The rain beats down on my windshield like paint splattering. My little sister, Kylie, called me moments before, sobbing. She was having a full blown panic attack. I talked her down before promising (three times) to call Ally immediately.
“I can’t handle this,” Kylie said. “Ally is saying…it’s gross. It’s so fucked up. There’s no way it’s true, but WHAT IF it is?” Her voice broke. She dry heaved. “Just call her, PLEASE. Please?”
She wouldn’t tell me details. She could barely allude to what Ally said without her voice breaking. She just insisted I call Ally, now.
“Yes, yes I will, right now,” I said. I’m the big sister. This one is mine to deal with. And I can protect Kylie, at least somewhat. And Ally’s probably lying. It’ll be fine.
I took a deep breath and called Ally. Kylie sent me her contact.
Now, Ally is telling me all of the disgusting details. She knows where my Dad’s best friend’s house is, George.
George hires sex workers to dance and do other sexual things for him at LEAST once a week. My whole family knows this. About five sentences in, Ally’s story sounds true. I want to throw up. I remember I have two more hours of driving before I’ll be home. I swallow the lump in my throat and keep listening.
“There’s one more thing,” Ally says. “Your dad had an affair with this woman when you were little…Rita, I think? I don’t know. He was always talking about Drunk Rita. But he had an affair, and you have a sister. Cynthia, maybe? I’m not sure of her name, but I think that’s what he said. It’s hard to remember now. The last time he and I talked was Christmas.”
My brain slows way down. Christmas. That’s 6 month’s ago. Cynthia. That’s Dad’s friend.
Ally got some names wrong, but the information feels true. Even when I was really little, I had this gross feeling that something was wrong. Something was going on, but I didn’t know what. My dad’s dirty jokes were one thing that always made me feel gross, but it was even before he started telling them with us kids in earshot. It was when I was small, when I just felt something was off between my parents.
My heart is in my throat now. Who else knows? I think. He told ALLY. This 25-year-old girl he was having sex with.
Ally knows where his office was. She tells me the story of the first time they had…sexual stuff happen, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Still, it doesn’t sound totally made up. I think of what Kylie will say when I call her back, and my stomach knots. Kylie is going to LOSE it.
The rain keeps smacking my windshield. I breathe in and out. Ally is still speaking.
“Emily? I’m so sorry. I know this is a lot. I just thought…if it were me, if it were my Dad, I would want to know.”
She was doing this and then, thinking she was doing us a favor? We would want to know? In this moment, I have no idea if I would’ve wanted to know. All I know is that I have two more hours to get home and I now have zero capacity to drive myself there. My hands are clammy. My mind is spinning.
YES, SURE, Ally, I definitely want to know about your gross sex with my Dad. Perfect. You went to pre-school with my LITTLE SISTERS, but SURE I want to know this.
I realize, mid-thought, that Ally is a fucking VICTIM here and I stop myself from going down the anger path. I remain calm. My brain goes into social worker mode. Be kind, I think. Be real. Be on the side of the young girl who was clearly manipulated by my wealthy, disgusting father.
I take another breath.
“Yeah, thanks, Ally,” I say. “And…what do you want by telling us this?”
I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but I can’t help but ask. What the actual fuck does a person want when they tell a family this?
My family flashes before my eyes: Oh dear GOD, this is going to be bad, I think. We have a huge family trip next week to northern Michigan. The biggest trip we do together all year. A full week of boating, bonfires, and grilling out. My Dad will be defending his beer pong championship with his best friend, Alan.
IF anyone is speaking to him, I think.
“Nothing,” She starts. “Like I said, I just thought you deserved to know. And he seemed stressed about this secret, so now you can deal with it as a family. Now no one has to keep secrets anymore.”
I mean, she’s RIGHT, but…this is not a secret I wanted to confront one week before Damien is going to propose to me in front of my family. Or ever, for that matter. But, she’s right. Something inside of me settles. The truth is like a door clicking shut, just like Laura McKowen says, it just fits.
I hang up with her and call Kylie back. We talk, she cries more, and I hold it together so she can break down. She holds our panic, and I hold our resolve to figure this out. We decide to 3-way call our other sister, Maddy. Kylie called her before this, while I talked to Ally, so Maddy has had a few moments to process. Still, her voice is shaking – it’s a mix of resolve and anger. Her fight response is activated.
“It would make sense,” Maddy says, referring to the daughter comment. We all take a breath. Nausea settles into my stomach. I’m still at the rest stop, and the rain is as intense as ever.
Dad had gotten weirdly close to his friend’s daughter, Laura, in the last 5 years. He helped her get a tutor for subjects she struggled in, helped her get to doctor’s appointments, and invited her to our family cottage in northern Michigan. Madison and Kylie “thought it was weird” in their words, or “hated it” in my Dad’s, but either way it was a point of tension between them. My Dad talked to me about Laura because he knew I wouldn’t object. And because Laura was becoming a social worker in part because I had inspired her with my work. That’s a story for another time though.
“It would,” I agree, “But I still just don’t know.” I don’t want Kylie to fully believe it, so I decide to hold both sides. Dad is going to have to weigh in sooner or later. We will get the truth. The idea of talking to him now though feels like I would rather take an ice bath. No, thank you.
“I just – I can’t – Ally!...” Kylie sobs. She has more to say, but she’s half hyperventilating and half crying into her sweatshirt, or her boyfriend’s. It’s unclear whose partners are on this call too.
“I know,” Maddy says in the gentlest voice I’ve ever heard her use, and then, clearer, “I know…it’s disgusting.”
We get off the phone. I take some deep, measured breaths and rest my head on the steering wheel. I only do that on days I’ve completely given up. Today now is one of them. I will never be the girl I was an hour ago, before I knew my Dad is a disgusting asshole. Never.
Isn’t it strange how no one tells us to mourn the before moments? Sometimes because, like now, we don’t know what events will divide our lives: Then and Now. Today, then Tomorrow. Before the diagnosis, and After. Single, and then Married.
We don’t always know.
* * * * * *
When I get home that night, I have no idea how I got there. I spent every minute of the two hours thinking, while also trying very hard not to think. Focus on the road, Emily. 10 and 2. Aim high. My Driver’s Ed teacher’s words echo in my mind. I breathe. I put the air on, then off. I cry to angry music. I cry to sad music. I scream into the silence, other cars sailing past me, their headlights cutting easily through the rain.
Maddy puts together a list of questions for Ally while I drive. She wants the truth, and she is going to get as much of it as she can. With logic and structure. Her comfort zone.
Kylie likes this plan: it allows her to hope that Ally is lying. We will find one detail that is completely wrong, and then it will be false. All of it. No one has another sister or another life or another family. All is well.
Maddy knows this, and she tries to keep Kylie calm. Maddy says she will handle it. She asks us to be on the call though too.
“You guys can help me ask follow up questions,” she says. “We have to get all of the information before we confront Dad. If we want to.” Her last statement hangs in the air. Kylie takes a shaky breath and starts crying again. I put my head in my hands.
At least I have these two, I think. Thank GOD I have them.
“Okay, so we’ll call in 2.5 hours, Em?” Maddy asks.
“Yep,” I say.
“Good. Just get home safely, and then we will talk to her. We’ll figure this out, okay, Ky? Don’t worry. We know Ally is unstable. We have no idea what’s true here. She could be making all of it up.”
The last two hours of the drive are a blur. I focus on driving, just staying between the lanes and letting the road guide me. Music seems foreign, like a remnant from the Before Times. Before I knew how disgusting my Dad is. Before I knew there’s a fourth Morris sister. Who maybe doesn’t know she is? Who does know? Maddy has all of this on her list.
But sure, maybe Ally is lying. Maybe this is all a joke. Maybe she made it up in rehab or wherever she is in California. All I know is that I’m going to be on a fucking beach being proposed to in ONE WEEK, and now it looks like my mother is going to murder my father before that happens.
Sigh. Like, I know it’s not all about me, but this is kind of about me, right?
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER
The birds are chirping outside my window. Damien has made us breakfast tacos again and I’m sipping coffee with oat milk in bed. It smells like he made bacon too. Any other day, this would be a lovely morning. Today, I have a conference call with my sisters and father before seeing five clients and then screaming into my pillow before bed.
Maddy is going to grill him, while Kylie and I listen in. He will know we are all on the call. We have a Plan. Maddy made it and is executing it, and Kylie and I helped. Thank Goddess for Maddy, I keep thinking.
Right before it, Kayla calls to check on me. She was one of the first people I texted when I got home from driving. We talked for 3 hours or so, and she was shocked at how Okay I was. And today, it’s more of the same.
“No, I’m fine, Kayla, really,” I say into the phone.
“Are you sure?? This is beyond messed up, Em!” Her Tennessee accent comes out and makes me smile.
“Yes, honestly, I am. My whole body feels calm. It’s like…this just validates everything I’ve realized in therapy these past three years. Since I quit drinking. In my BODY, it felt like that house was burning down…and that’s partially because Dad is so dysregulated and hyper, but it’s also because of his temper, and him being gone all the time, or distracted. I knew something was wrong. And this just confirms it.” I exhale big. I can hear Kayla nodding through the phone.
“YEP, yes, yep. Yeah. Ugh, Em. Wow. You sound fine! You sound calm and strong. Like I keep saying, you have such a deep anchor…” She trails off, “Oh, shoot, Jimmy is here! We are recording is track tonight. Can I call you later?”
We hop off. I breathe in and release it. Time for the call with Dad.
“Okay, girls, okay. Yes, I hear you,” Dad says. It’s 8:36am. His voice is shaky, but relatively calm. Maddy opened the call, and here we are. I’m holding my breath.
“Some of it is true,” He says. “Some of it. But we did NOT have sex,” He says. He proceeds to tell us his Side of the Affair. He was helping Ally open a yoga studio at one point?? There were many details. Maddy took notes.
“And then she tried to extort money from me!” He finishes.
Us three are breathless, and we’re texting while we talk.
“Do we believe him??” Kylie asks.
“No,” I say.
“Maybe,” Maddy texts. We return our attention to the call.
“Look, girls, she is not stable! She tried to get money from me after all this! Yes, it was not good. It wasn’t, BUT she…”
I tune out at this point, thinking I might throw up. The breakfast tacos seem like last year, another life, another Emily who has great sex with a gorgeous man with a 6-pack named Damien who fell out of the sky from an app called Bumble. Who is she?? She is SO cute. Am I dissociating?
After 30 more minutes, the call wraps up. Maddy says we will all talk tomorrow.
DO WE HAVE TO? My heart yells at me. Yes, I think. Yes, we do.
The rest of the week included this same phone call with different details, arguments, & points of contention. There was no real way to prove what was true and what was not. I stayed present enough to digest it all, unfortunately. But Ally’s story was different.
The things the two stories had in common were that: Ally & my Dad had some sort of weird sexual relationship; Dad definitely had more than one affair in the past; and we have a half sister from one of them, Laura. There were other details that I will leave out for the sake of people involved. But these are the pertinent ones.
I had called my 3 closest friends panicking throughout the week, and they each had given me insight. One, Liz, said to me: “Em, who had more power here?” gently, helping me start to see the Truth.
“And Laura?? A sister?? Oh my gosh…” K said.
Cut to Friday.
Maddy, Kylie, & I don’t quite know what to do. What do you do, at ages 25 & 30, respectively, when you find out you have a new sibling?
Do I send her a card?? I wonder. Do I call her or text? Should we have lunch?
I scroll her Insta — her eyes have always been my Dad’s eyes, and just now I see it. My heart aches. How could we not have known? It seems so clear now. That’s why he wanted Laura to stay with me in Chicago that one New Year’s. Because he loves her. Because she is his.
Like we are. Different, but similar. And then my heart hurts, bad, again.
Toward Laura, as days go on, I feel calm and accepting. I knew her before, so it’s not hard to make this transition when it comes to me and her. I reach out & she’s super happy to hear from me. She’s known for a little bit. Dad had told Maddy, Kylie, and me this too.
Dad also tells us that Mom already knew. In fact, Mom & Dad took Laura and a girlfriend of hers to Paris for a week the summer before.
So, Dad told Mom about Laura a few years ago. Great!, We thought. Even though the Paris trip is weird AF and hurts.
But alas, as it turns out, Dad told Mom — WAIT FOR IT — that Laura came about via sperm donation. He donated to a family friend, he said. And he said Mom bought it??
Multiple times after these phone calls with Dad & the girls, I considered chopping both ears clean off my head. How?? How? When?? Ohhh, when he was “working late” or on a work trip! I see, I see.
Sigh.
No one prepares you for this.
Dad promises us we will keep talking about this after the trip. He promises he will do weekly therapy, and pretty much anything else we ask. He sounds sad & desperate. And scared of us. It’s a role reversal we are all uneasy with.
Maddy takes the lead. She’s just done her MBA and she SHINES in this role. Kylie and I convene with her before the trip, and we decide to honor Dad’s request to not tell Mom about Ally. Not yet, we say. We will reconvene after the 4th of July, the big family trip.
It feels awful to all three of us to not call Mom NOW, and we debate it for days. But we keep coming back to what Dad said: “This will KILL her, you guys. It’s too much for her.”
{Today, that makes me want to scream. But, alas, we listened.}
None of us sleep the three days before going to northern Michigan. And then, once we’re there, we’re in Party Mode.
FOURTH OF JULY FAMILY VACATION
It is how it is every year: we have our four SUPER fun, super close guy cousins & their partners, Aunt Dede and Uncle Al, Mom, Dad, Maddy and her husband N, Kylie and her boyfriend M, and me and Damien piled into the cottage & apartment over the garage. We have fourteen cars because everyone drove JUST themselves, and my Dad is constantly playing Tetris with the vehicles.
If you take your keys for even five minutes, he WILL be looking for you to grab those, thanks.
One of our guy cousin’s has a girlfriend who has been up there more than once, so us three sisters cling to her, Angie. We all have a blast together, playing music on someone’s speaker while we kayak, boat, & some drink while others tan or play games or read. And then at night, we have a bonfire, play music & dance in the sand, and have heart to hearts as the sun sets over the lake.
This particular year, Damien & I bring our dog, Theo. I had rescued him the previous fall in Chicago, and although Damien didn’t love him at first, the two bonded after 3-4 weekends of hikes & park dates. Damien and I act like Theo is our newborn CHILD on this trip and tend to him at all hours of the day, afternoon, and evening.
We walk him up to the top of the property, then back down to the lake. Damien procures a neighbor’s dog life jacket for him and tries to teach Theo to swim. Theo hates it and acts like he hates us for throwing him in over and over. We laugh and chase him around the yard.
The night I realize he is going to ask me, it’s July 2nd around 4pm. It’s the very start of Golden Hour and we’re sitting outside on the deck with the dog & my parents & Maddy and Kylie.
“What are you going to wear tonight?” Kylie asks, looking over at me across the patio table.
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” I respond. “Why?”
“No reason, just wondering.” She says, a small smile forming at the corners of her mouth. A lightbulb goes off, and my heart lights up. Tonight, I think. It’s the first time everyone’s pretended like this to surprise me, and it’s so sweet. The energy around us is warm and excited.
I go get ready.
The proposal is sun-filled and picturesque and funny…and we celebrate with Grandma, Mom, Dad, & my sisters. And all of the cousins, and Aunts and Uncles, and our neighbors. The Lake is aflurry with music and champagne. Bruno Mars’ song, “Marry You” is on repeat. We drive to dinner and tell stories of me growing up non-stop. The cousins make me laugh, hard. As always.
Damien and I sit next to each other at dinner, and soak in the Love and Joy of everyone telling us their love stories and their ideas for our future and how much they can’t wait to see our babies. I’m laughing and twirling in my dress, making my own fun. Joking with the guys.
I smile and rub Damien’s neck with my fingertips as we all talk. I try to imagine the babies.
The last day there, Dad and I finally talk alone.
We walk along the beach at 7pm after dinner but before a bonfire. We barely fit it in. Is he avoiding me?
Kylie and M left a few days ago, so Maddy and I are the only ones here with him, Mom, and Grandma. And the Cousins, all in the apartment above the garage. There is truly never a quiet moment. Maybe he’s not avoiding me, I think. It’s still hard to tell what’s what, with his and Ally’s stories being so different. He still claims they never actually had sex. The things I heard they did instead though were worse, in my opinion. Again, where can I get my memory wiped?? Ears cut off?? THANKS.
“Em, we just can’t tell her,” He says. I’m brought back to my feet in the sand and my Dad ambling next to me. “With her health, and those surgeries growing up, you know…it’s not a good idea for her to know. It would be too much for her.”
I nod, but fury is burning in my tummy. This narrative of Mom being sick. Or too fragile. It feels gross. But I think, We will make a better plan later. I can get him to get Help. Once he gets good Help, we will be okay, right? I swallow the fury.
“Okay,” I agree, “But we can’t keep this secret forever. Me and Maddy and Kylie. We cannot.” I’m insistent.
“Yes, you’re right. Yeah, we will keep talking about it. We won’t let this end here. We will make a plan.” He matches my tone. I almost believe him.
“And you NEED therapy!” I insist. I won’t let this one go, I promise myself.
“Yes, yes,” He says, “I’ll consider it!” He laughs. I growl at him, not at all kidding.
“DAD!”
“OKAY, okay,” He says. “I feel fine, but okayyy.”
“You’re not fine. This is not fine.” I make sure to have the last word. He shakes his head and looks down at the ground.
“YOU GUYS!” Mom calls cheerfully from the deck, “Whatcha doing?”
I smile back, tears burning in my throat. “BE RIGHT THERE!” I call back.
TO PUT THIS ISSUE TO BED FOR ME, FOR NOW
Like I said at the Top of this piece, this part of my Story is not the Whole. This is one small piece, but it is a piece. My Dad had a 15-year Affair with “Cynthia,” resulting in “Laura,” & my sisters and I are still navigating it. Laura was born a few years after my sisters. I still am unsure when he found out she was his.
My heart is shattered. I feel betrayed? Even though it isn’t my marriage. He was gone so often, and it felt so off, and Everyone Lied. On and on and on.
And yet, at 33, after so much Emotional Work on this, I’m calm.
I am hurting, but all of this is just the Truth. And I’ve worked with so many therapists to figure out how to process my Anger & Grief (capitals because they were OCEANS of Anger and Grief). I’ve sat with the Oceans of sadness and let myself cry. Little Emily cries and Adult Emily shows up for her. Big time.
I’ve slowly been putting my Self back together since 2020.
There were more women he had sexual relationships with, up until pretty recently as far as I know. I don’t feel the need to share all of the details. What I will say, because I know that my Dad has impacted some of you reading, is the following.
Now, stay with me if you can. I’m going to reference a Netflix show, but I promise it relates.
Have any of you seen Riverdale? It’s a campy, silly show based on the Archie Comics. It has a frankly ABSURD plotline, but a super fun and attractive cast. I loved the Archie Comics growing up. My Mom bought these comics, plus the Betty & Veronica versions & Jughead versions, for me and my sisters. So when the Netflix show came out, I began watching. And in 2022, I followed through with watching all of it.
Veronica’s storyline in particular resonates, as does Cheryl’s (she comes out as queer later in the series!). Veronica’s Dad, Hiram Lodge, causes lots of harm to her and her Mom…and over time, to Veronica’s friends and to others in their town. When he finally dies, Veronica gives a Eulogy at his funeral. In it, you can hear her heart — split in two. She loves her Dad so much, but he has hurt so many people she loves. It’s both. It will never be one; it will always be both.
And TL;DR — that’s how I feel about my Mom too. But for right now, focusing on the “sins” of my Father, I want to say almost exactly what Veronica said to her Town to everyone who was negatively affected by Ed:
This is what I will leave you with, for now.
“Thank you all for being here.
I won’t stand here and wax sentimental about my father. He did HORRIBLE, unspeakable things to my Mother[…]to my sisters, to my friends, to this Town, and to Me, [Emily.]
But I am also making room for the fact that on occasion, he did a few Not So Horrible Things too.
The truth is that I [will love] him till the end. Make no mistake, I wish my father hadn’t done those awful things and I wish I could sort my feelings more cleanly, but I can’t.
And maybe there’s something to be said about a child’s willingness to forgive their fathers for the terrible things they might’ve done. But for what Ed Morris did to all of you, I apologize. And I also apologize for the fact that I will always, always love my Dad. [At this, Veronica’s voice breaks…and I’m watching and sobbing because it is the Realest Thing I’ve ever heard.]
I wish I didn’t love him, but I do.”