AITA for adopting one of my brother's daughters while he's in a coma?
And yes, "one of" because he had two daughters. But! In my defense, I honestly never even knew the second one (20F) was alive. I had vaguely known about her, but she was the older sister and we'd never even spoken. She was never in the picture... until like three days ago.
Let me explain. My brother (45M) and I (44M) have been estranged for a long time. We used to be close, but politics got between us and we fought. It was bad, I'm not going to deny that. Once he gave me a black eye, it got super infected and never healed right. I used to hate him. Situations change though, and we finally had a chance for a reunion. All things considered, I was really looking forward to it.
Then everything went to shit. I'm not going to get into it but there was a huge fire—it was a freak accident, and before you ask, no I had nothing to do with it—and my brother and all his kids got trapped in a collapsing building. In the aftermath, the only ones I could find were my brother, and the girl who's now my daughter (now 17F). My brother was hurt really bad, though. He's been in a coma since then. Honestly I'm not sure if he'll ever wake up, but his doctor is a friend of mine and I've made sure they don't pull the plug. My brother's a fighter; I'm sure he wouldn't want that.
But after the accident... His daughter was there, all alone. Basically orphaned, no other family to speak of. Did I have my brother's permission? No. Did I legally have the right to adopt? Probably, I didn't actually take it in front of judge. I was all she had. I've raised her as my own daughter, I love her like my own daughter. She's had a number of mental health issues that I don't want to get into rn, but I've been supportive all the way, and while I'm unmarried, my pharmaceutical company does well enough that I can get her everything she needs.
Here's the issue, though. Remember that other daughter? She just showed up out of the blue, all grown now, and acts like I'm some terrible person for stealing her kid sister. Where was she, you ask? The day after the fire, she went and landed herself in prison. She's a real character—anger issues, trouble with the law going back to childhood, the whole nine yards—but boy does she think I'm The Asshole! Like, I was there for your sister, where the hell were you? Oh yeah, in fucking prison. (Sorry if this is coming across as unsympathetic. It's literally the first time I've talked with her face-to-face and she accuses me of being a groomer. She has this whole victim complex where she's convinced I'm the reason for everything that went wrong with her life). What's worst is, I think my daughter's starting to believe her.
Soon I'll be running for political office, and this older sister is coming in and trying to tear my family apart with her bear hands. She even got a cop* to start investigating my pharmaceutical company! (*I'm pretty sure she's fucking the cop. Like I said, she's a real piece of work.) Now a city council member got my main factory shut down, my business partners are calling for my head, this whole situation is exacerbating my daughter's psychosis, and I'm about at my limit. All because I dared to be a decent father.
Tldr: My estranged brother's in a coma, so I took in one of his daughters, and now the daughter I didn't adopt is calling me a monster. What do you think fellow Zaunites, AITA?
