Talk about keeping it in the family.
A mom is catching flak online after falling in love with the brother of her dead husband.
It wasn't even a whole year after Kaitlin Norton's husband, Aaron Smith, passed from a drug overdose before she sought romance with his older sibling, Rory.
"I was not expecting his voice to remind me of Aaron so much," the 30-year-old widow from New Hampshire told Truly. "It was such a comfort."
They've now been shacked up for the better part of seven years and co-parent four children — two of whom they had together.
At first Rory expressed an extreme distaste for Norton as she and Aaron were battling a mutual prescription drug addiction early in their lives.
"I didn't really trust her," Rory said.
In 2015, Norton admitted that she and Aaron were "stealing from people and doing whatever we could to get high."
Norton ultimately sought rehab to shake her addiction, whereas Aaron declined. She said he would call her at the facility, and she could tell he was still using drugs.
It reached the point where she stopped taking his calls — only to learn a week before her release that he died of his overdose as a 22-year-old.
She began reaching out to his older brother Rory for comfort, and he would visit her along with Norton's son, Camden.
"That's kind of how we started getting closer," she said.
Rory admitted that the two were initially "hesitant" to share their love with family members — Jess, Aaron and Rory's mom, said she thought it was "weird" at first.
"My first thought was, 'How would Aaron feel?' I knew we would not like it at all. He would not be happy," said Rory.
It was only after a heart to heart between Rory and his mother that she decided to come around.
Still, many online were quick to be critical, Norton said. Rory, in particular, has been sneered at as the "uncle daddy" of the kids.
"Something bad happened to her, something bad happened to me — and basically we found comfort in one another," Rory said. "The negativity doesn't do anything to us … I think we're good for one another."
