Tired of returning home to only my daughters, I finally became the father of a son—but the more I looked at him, the less he resembled me. I left my family for a mistress, but when I returned, my eldest daughter said something to me that terrified me… It was too late.
Tired of returning home to only my wife, I always dreamed of a son. Our first three children were girls. My father had four brothers, I was the eldest, and the whole village whispered:
“This family must bear heavy karma—no son to continue the lineage…”
My wife suffered greatly from these words. During her fourth pregnancy, she gritted her teeth and carried the child to term, despite the doctor’s warnings about her fragile health. When I learned it was a boy, I cried with joy.
But the more he grew, the more something troubled me. He had white skin, narrow eyes, and a high forehead. And I—swarthy, with deep, dark eyes and sharp features…
I began to doubt.
In moments of irritation, I would sarcastically ask my wife:
“Are you sure this is my child?”
She cried silently. My eldest daughter, 13, looked at me for a long time, sadness in her eyes, saying nothing.
One day, I secretly left home to see my mistress, a hairdresser ten years younger than me. She reassured me:
“I gave you two sons, not like that woman…”
I was blindsided. I didn’t even try to find out how my wife and children were living or surviving. I spent a whole week with my mistress in a hotel room, dreaming of a new family “like me.”
Until that rainy day came when I returned with the firm intention of getting a divorce.
As soon as I opened the door, I saw my daughters sitting in silence, their eyes red. The eldest came over, pointed to the bedroom, and said in an icy voice:
“Daddy, go say goodbye to her…”
I froze.
I rushed into the room. My wife lay there, white as a sheet, holding an unfinished letter. My son had been taken to a neighbor’s. She had taken a sleeping pill—the same one I’d bought for my mistress…
I screamed, shook her body, and called for help. But it was too late.
The letter contained only a few lines:
“Forgive me. I gave birth to our son, thinking he would bring you closer to me. But when you left, I realized what I’d already lost. If in the next life I can be the mother of my children again, even if I can’t be a wife.”
I collapsed on the floor, covering my head with my hands, and my daughter’s sobs felt like a knife in my heart. As for my mistress, when she found out that my wife had died because of me, she became frightened, cut off all contact and ran away into the night.
