“He said himself they don’t look like him: how a TV show tore my family apart.”
—”He doesn’t look a thing like me!” shouted the character from the cheap soap opera on screen. “Are you blind? He’s your spitting image!”
Victor forced a smirk and glanced at his wife. It was her idea to spend the evening with tea and telly. If anyone had told him this very drama would crack his family apart, he’d have laughed in their face.
—”You know, I get where he’s coming from,” Victor said coldly, eyes still on the screen. “My own sons don’t look a thing like me. Not one. All four of them—carbon copies of you. Maybe I ought to get a DNA test too?”
—”Oh, very funny,” Rita grimaced. “What next?”
—”I’m serious. I’ve been told. I know they’re not mine.”
—”What on earth are you on about? Who told you that?”
—”A bloke from work. Saw our family photo and asked, ‘You sure they’re yours?’ And you know what? It hit me—they’re not. Not in looks, not in temperament.”
Rita went pale. Her chest tightened with hurt, anger, panic. Twenty years together. Side by side—hardships, joys, exams, childbirth. And now? One look at a photo, and he trusted a stranger over her.
—”You honestly think I’d lie to you for twenty years? That I’d palm off someone else’s kids on you? Have you lost your mind?”
—”Oh, stop pretending! You can see it yourself—they’re your doubles! What am I to them, some distant uncle?”
—”Who is she?” Rita’s voice turned icy. “The woman who’s put this nonsense in your head?”
—”What woman? It was a colleague! A man! He’s been through it himself.”
—”Of course. And you—just like a schoolboy. First bit of wind, and you’re blown over. Divorce, then?”
—”Yes,” he said flatly. “I want the test. If it turns out not one of them is mine—that’s it. Let ‘father’ stay blank on the forms.”
When the kids found out their dad doubted their parentage, they stopped speaking to him. The eldest, eighteen, swore he’d never call him ‘Dad’ again. The youngest, just five, would stare at him, confused. “Daddy, are you cross with us?”
The family crumbled. Friends, relatives, coworkers—all horrified. Rita was devastated. Victor? Stubborn, deaf to reason. The real cause? Alice. The new girl at work. Young, ambitious, with a dazzling smile and the instincts of a predator.
—”Don’t take this the wrong way,” she’d whispered over coffee. “It’s just odd, isn’t it? The kids took nothing from you. Not a single trait. And these things do happen…”
First, he was angry. Then doubtful. Then convinced. Next came court orders, tests, results. Four reports: Victor Miller—biological father.
Alice wept, begged forgiveness, swore it was love, that she never meant harm. He married her a week after the divorce.
But the fresh start never came. Work turned hostile. He was sacked. Alice too. Friends vanished. Neighbours glared. Soon, Alice packed her things and left—”couldn’t handle the pressure.”
He tried going back. Knocked on the familiar door.
—”Sorry,” Rita said. “We don’t need you anymore. We’re fine.”
And Victor was left alone. No family. No friends. No children—who, as it turned out, were far more like him than he’d ever realised.
