On the outside we looked like an ordinary middle class black family, but we were anything but. Right under the nose of daddy, my mother carefully orchestrated our double lives from the time we were born; lives we are still living and relationships we are still honoring as adults. The heaviest weight of all of this was the thought of the consequence if we got caught in the lie. My mother would tell us that if daddy ever found out he would kill her. The deception peppered with the domestic violence episodes we witnessed ultimately caused us both to suffer emotionally. Only a few were the wiser of the deception that we were living out, and the others just suspected. Until now.