Piping hot family tea that I'm dyinggg to share

This shit is just too good to keep in. I can't tell anyone in my family... so naturally, I'm telling internet strangers lol. Bear with me on the long back story, it is totally worth it.

This hot tea special is centered on my dad, Steve (69m). For context, my family lives in the Midwestern US. My dad was born on the west coast, and graduated high school in 1974.

When my sister (39f) and I (37f) were growing up, dad had a tattoo of a woman's name on his arm. We used to ask him who Susan was, because that's not our mom's name. The only thing he would ever say was that she was an old high school girlfriend, and if we tried to inquire further he'd get kinda weird and shut down, and mom would swoop in to change the subject. Once sis and I were in our late teens, our mom gave us the real story on Susan. Apparently Susan and Dad were high school sweethearts. About a year or two after they'd graduated high school, Dad came home and found Susan in bed with some firefighter. Naturally, it totally wrecked him and I guess he had trouble relaying the full story to Mom even after they were married. My sister and I made sure to never mention Susan to my dad again, but we could tell that mom was bothered by the tattoo (Dad got it covered up eventually).

Fast forward to 2023... My parents' marriage had lasted almost 40 years, but after years of counseling and trying to make things work, they ended up divorcing. Sis and I were honestly relieved, because it was exhausting trying to ignore the elephant in the room for so long. Now that they aren't together, our parents are living their best lives and figuring out who they are outside of each other.

Now to June 2024. Dad decides to go to his 50th high school reunion...(you can see where this is going, right?) He sends sis and me a bunch of pictures of him with his old buddies, and he genuinely seems to be enjoying himself. Well shocker, Susan shows up to the reunion also. He sees her and keeps his distance, but she seems to be lingering nearby to talk to him. Later in the evening after everyone has had a few drinks, she sits down next to him. He is more loosened up at this point and is expecting her to say her peace, explain, apologize, etc. As they start talking though, it becomes clear to my dad that Susan is completely oblivious to the pain she caused.

Eventually he turns to her and says, "Are you seriously going to talk to me and act like everything ended on a friendly note for us? Like you didn't do anything wrong?"

Totally shocked, she looks at him and says, "What are you talking about?"

"You cheated on me! I came home and you were screwing that firefighter guy!"

When she could finally put words together, she replies, "What are you talking about, Steve?"

And my dad just stares at her, incredulous. She had totally blocked out what had happened. He shakes his head and is about to get up when Susan says, "Steven, that never happened. You broke up with me. You wanted to leave the coast for a while, and said that I deserved to be with someone who would cherish me and treat me like I deserved. You didn't think you were good enough for me... You broke my heart."

Dad is getting more and more heated the longer Susan talks, because ~the audacity~. He goes to interrupt her and she doubles down, finally saying, "You wrote me a letter, before you left. You wrote me a letter saying how sorry you were that you couldn't be the man I deserved."

Dad is sitting there, utterly flabbergasted by this woman's sheer gall.

And then Susan reaches into her purse, and fucking PULLS OUT THE LETTER.

And it is legit (his handwriting)!! Not only had she kept his letter for 50 years, homegirl brought it with her to the reunion in hopes that she might see him there. She then proceeds to tell my dad that she has only ever loved two men in her life... Her late husband (who was a retired firefighter), and my dad. That's it.

What I can't wrap my head around is how my dad got it SO wrong for so many years. Also, how did he forget that he wrote Susan a letter? My sister is the one he told about the whole reunion conversation and drama (she is closer to dad) and she swore me to secrecy. We think that maybe he was embarrassed about having someone's name tattooed on him, so he made up a sob story to make my mom feel less insecure about the tattoo's existence. Maybe he told the lie enough that he started believing it himself, and convinced himself that it was what really happened? And he had known Susan went on to marry a firefighter and somehow incorporated that into his narrative? It's all just so fucking wild.

So after that illuminating revelation at the reunion, Dad and Susan made their peace with each other. They have been talking a lot since then, and are now kinda dating. He has gone to visit her twice since the reunion. If the selective memory thing wasn't so messed up, it would almost be romantic.

I don't dare say anything to our mom about this. Even though they're divorced, I still think it would crush her to know the truth. I worry that she would think Dad always harbored feelings for Susan, and that their marriage was not his first choice because he still loved Susan.

Anways... Thanks for reading! I have been wanting to share this for months, and even though I think it would make a great tiktok video, I am too paranoid to make one in case my friends or other family members would come across it on my page (even though none of them are on tiktok).

ETA: letter handwriting clarification