My SIL Did a DNA Test for My Daughter Behind My Back — When I Learned Her Reason for This, I Went Low Contact with My Brother

“You’re raising a dead woman’s affair baby.”

My sister-in-law shoved a DNA test in my face—one she ran without my consent, using my daughter’s DNA. She even said it in front of my six-year-old. I was so stunned I laughed, until my daughter clutched my leg and whispered, “Daddy… am I still yours?”

That broke me.

I’ve always known the truth. Ava isn’t biologically mine. Her parents—my best friends—died in a car accident when she was a baby. I was 24, terrified, and unprepared, but I stepped up. I didn’t save her out of obligation. I did it out of love. I became her father in every way that matters.

What my sister-in-law didn’t know was that this cruelty wasn’t even her idea. My brother fed her a lie—that Ava was the product of an affair, that I was “trapped” raising someone else’s child. So she went looking for proof, never thinking about the damage.

When confronted, my brother finally admitted it. He called my life a “sacrifice.”

He was wrong.

Loving Ava isn’t a burden. It’s my salvation.

I cut ties with him. My daughter deserves safety, not suspicion. That night, as I tucked her in, she asked again if I was really her dad.

I kissed her forehead and said the only truth that’s ever mattered:

“Always.”