"God no – don't tell him. It would kill him. He is so proper, just us being stepsiblings is bad enough. Besides, I'm not sure he knows for sure that Dania is his child – the subject never came up and I never told him. It is the only secret I have kept from him. So we have to keep all this between us for now. I will help you – if you want me to – to keep your relationship from dad for the short run only."

Dania and I looked at each other stunned. Did we just hear that her mom, my father's step-sister, my new mom, was...