My grandmother’s sister got pregnant. Back in the day, it was accepted to “travel interstate to look for work” and come back alone nine months later.

Thirty plus years later, my mother rattled some cages whilst doing the family tree and word got back to the cousin, who’d been looking for her birth parents. The cousin contacted her, they had a meet up and my mother filled her in about the family.

The gasps were many. The pearls were clutched.

Aunt still refused to acknowledge the cousin existed, which was extra bitchy considering she had later married the man she was pregnant to, and the cousin had several full siblings who didn’t know she existed.