**July 14th – A Soap Opera and My Shattered Family**
*”He doesn’t look a thing like me!”* The line rang out from the telly, spat by some bloke in that cheap soap opera. *”Are you blind? He’s your spitting image!”*
Victor forced a smirk and glanced at his wife. It was her idea—tea and telly night. If someone had told him this very drama would tear his family apart, he’d have laughed in their face.
“Funny,” he said coolly, eyes fixed on the screen. “I know exactly how he feels. My lads? Not a shred of me in any of them. All four—carbon copies of you. Maybe I ought to get a DNA test, eh?”
“Brilliant,” Rita muttered, wrinkling her nose. “What next?”
“Dead serious. I know the truth. They’re not mine.”
“Have you lost the plot?! Who told you that?”
“A mate at work. Took one look at our family photo and said, ‘You sure they’re yours?’ And d’you know what? I realised—no. They don’t look like me. Don’t act like me.”
Rita paled, her chest tight with hurt and panic. Twenty years together—trials, laughter, exams, births. And now… a single glance at a photo, and he trusted a stranger over her.
“You honestly think I’d lie to you for two decades? Force another man’s kids on you?! Are you mad?!”
“Pack it in! You see it too—they’re *your* doubles! So what am I? Their bloody uncle?”
“Who is she?” Rita’s voice turned to ice. “The woman who put this rubbish in your head?”
“Woman? It was a bloke! A colleague! Been through it himself.”
“Right. And you—like a schoolboy. First whisper of nonsense and you buckle. So, you’re leaving?”
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “I want the test. If none of ’em are mine—that’s it. ‘Father unknown’ on the birth certificates.”
The kids, once they heard, stopped speaking to him. The eldest, eighteen, swore he’d never call him “Dad” again. The youngest, just five, stared up at him, baffled. *”Daddy… you cross?”*
The family crumbled. Friends, relatives, colleagues—stunned. Rita was shattered; Victor, stubborn, deaf to reason. The culprit? Alice. New at work, ambitious, all gleaming teeth and predatory charm.
“Don’t take this wrong,” she’d murmured over coffee. “Just odd, isn’t it? Kids usually get *something* from their dad. Looks, temperament. But yours? Nothing. Makes you wonder…”
First, he’d been angry. Then doubtful. Then convinced. Then—court orders, swabs, lab results. Four certificates: Victor Turner. Biological father.
Alice wept, begged forgiveness, swore it was love, not malice. He married her a week after the divorce.
But the fresh start soured. Work turned icy—both sacked within months. Mates vanished. Neighbours spat as he passed. Soon, Alice packed up and left—*”can’t handle the fallout.”*
He tried crawling back. Knocked on the old door.
“Sorry,” Rita said. “We don’t need you anymore. We’re fine.”
And so Victor stood alone. No family. No friends. No children—who, as it turned out, were far more like him than he’d ever realised.
