**Diary Entry**
*He’s nothing like me!* The line rang out from the telly, another low-budget drama filling the room. *How can you not see it? He’s your spitting image!*
Victor forced a chuckle, glancing at his wife. It had been her idea to spend the evening with tea and this melodrama. If someone had told him then that this ridiculous soap would shatter his family, he’d have laughed in their face.
*I get where he’s coming from, though,* Victor remarked coldly, still staring at the screen. *Our lads—none of them take after me. Not one. All four of them? They’re all you. Maybe I should get a DNA test too.*
*That’s not funny,* Rita scowled. *What’s got into you?*
*I mean it. I’ve been told. I know they’re not mine.*
*What rubbish! Who’s been filling your head with that?*
*A mate. From work. Took one look at our family photo and said, ‘You sure they’re yours?’ And you know what? It hit me. They don’t look like me. Don’t act like me.*
Rita went pale. Her chest tightened—anger, hurt, panic. Twenty years together. Ups and downs, illnesses, exams, childbirth… and now this? All because of a single comment from a stranger?
*You really think I’d lie to you for two decades? That I’d make you raise another man’s kids? Have you lost your mind?*
*Stop pretending! You see it too! They’re all you! So what am I—just some uncle?*
*Who is she?* Rita’s voice turned icy. *The woman who put this nonsense in your head?*
*It’s not a woman! A mate at work. He’s been through this himself.*
*Oh, naturally. And you—so easily swayed. Like a leaf in the wind. So, you’re leaving?*
*Yes,* he said flatly. *I want the test. If even one of them isn’t mine—that’s it. They’ll have no father listed.*
The kids, once they found out, stopped speaking to him. The eldest, eighteen, swore he’d never call him *Dad* again. The youngest, just five, would stare at him, confused, and ask, *Daddy, are you cross?*
The family crumbled. Friends, relatives, colleagues—all stunned. Rita was devastated. Victor dug in, deaf to reason. The real culprit? Alice, the new girl at work—young, ambitious, all sharp smiles and sly charm.
*Don’t get me wrong,* she’d whisper over coffee, *but it’s odd, isn’t it? They haven’t got a trace of you. Not your looks, not your temper. It happens, you know…*
At first, he fumed. Then doubted. Then believed. Courts, tests, results—four certificates confirming it: Victor Miller, father. Biological.
Alice wept, begged forgiveness, swore it was love, that she never meant harm. He married her a week after the divorce.
But the new life crumbled too. Work turned hostile. He was sacked—Alice soon after. Friends vanished. Neighbours muttered as he passed. And before long, Alice packed her bags—*couldn’t take the pressure.*
He tried to go back. Knocked on the old front door.
*Sorry,* Rita said, *we don’t need you anymore. We’re doing just fine.*
And there Victor stood—alone. No family. No friends. No children, who, as it turned out, were far more like him than he’d ever realised.
