A Man in His Forties

Albert Melville was holding a paternity test report. He risked another look at it and was again bruised by the cold, piercing conclusion on it.

He pounded the steering wheel hard and wailed in his car.

According to the test, his twin kids had two biological fathers.

The girl was the child of another man, and the boy was his.

As a general practitioner in the Inpatient Department of MacPherson Hospital, Albert knew very well what that meant.

Her wife had cheated on him! The existence of the twins was solid evidence! She had cheated on him in the most disgusting way he could think of.

The first time he had sex with his wife, he remembered, was on their wedding day. And the next month, she got knocked up.

They had gone abroad for their honeymoon the second day after the wedding, and they had been alone during the honeymoon. So if she had slept with another guy, she could only do it on their wedding day.

And Albert and that unknown guy had almost boned the same woman at the same time.

What an insufferable humiliation!

"Isabel, why did you do this to me?"

Known as the most beautiful woman in City J, Isabel Melville, his 28-year-old wife, was a deputy director in the Finance Department of the JL Company.

Albert was poor four years ago when he just graduated from medical school at JD University. By chance, he met his senior schoolmate, Isabel. The two fell in love soon and got married.

"I come from the poor countryside. My parents are old and have run out of their money for me to go to college. After graduation, I met Isabel, the prettiest girl in the college. I married her and have kids with her. I thought I was finally settled in City J. I thought I was blessed. But in the end, it is just a scam!"

"Do you love me?"

"Why did you lie to me?"

"Why were you with another man on our wedding day? Why did you humiliate me in such a way?"

"I have been fooled for four years. Four years! I'm so stupid!"

...

Albert didn't know how long he had been in the car until he was startled by a string of phone calls from the twins' kindergarten teacher.

He collected himself and realized it was half-past six already after he put it through. The kids were two still in kindergarten. The teacher could not reach Isabel, so she called him.

"Darling, I got a dinner party at the company tonight, and I must be there. I'll come home later, so remember to pick the kids up."

Albert was a bit disappointed when he thought of what Isabel had told him.

For several times, Isabel had told Albert that she would come home late with excuses of the activities in her company. She always claimed she needed to work overtime, or she said she was going to hang out with her colleagues and friends. She left every time after simply informing him.

In retrospect, Isabel was very likely to be with the other guy when she was out. Never worried that his wife would betray him, Albert was settled when he took care of his children at home, read medical books, and wrote theses.

Albert didn't even know how he got to the kindergarten and how he picked up his child.

When he got home and looked at the sofa that had been there in the past four years, the pictures of Isabel and her lover fooling around on it appeared in Albert's mind. The sofa, the carpet, the table, the kitchen, and even the bed in their bedroom... It was his home, but it was invaded.

Attacked by a wave of nausea, Albert rushed into the bathroom and almost spewed his gut up.

"Dad... Take the tissue."

A soft, young voice came from behind him. It was his daughter, Veronica Melville.

"Get out!"

Albert was touched first because his daughter was so sweet. But the next second, when it occurred to him that he was not the girl's father, Albert was attacked by another surge of disgust!

He pushed the girl away. To his surprise, she fell to the ground.

She knocked her head on the floor and burst into tears out of pain.

"You don't love me now, Dad! You don't care about me anymore!"

'I'm not your dad. Your dad is...' Albert almost shouted it out. But at the sight of the innocent look on the girl's face, he felt his heart softened. This was the baby girl he had loved and taken good care of in the past three years!

'Isabel betrayed me. Her bastard lover humiliated me. But the child is innocent...' Albert went over and picked up his daughter. With Veronica in his arms, he couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

"Don't cry, Dad. Don't cry. I don't feel pain now. I'll be good. I'll be a good girl."

The little girl was frightened by her father's reaction. She cried even harder while she was comforting him.

His son, Nelson Melville, came over with a tablet in his hand. The boy adjusted the green glasses that helped correct his vision and shook his head. "Dad, you're drunk. I'm telling Mom and asking her to teach you a lesson!"

Albert looked over his shoulder at him with watery eyes. The boy was his own son.

"Don't cry, Dad. Don't cry. I fell because I was not careful. It doesn't hurt."

The girl wiped the tears off Albert's face.

"Dad, I'm hungry. When are we going to have dinner?"

Nelson asked heartlessly.

Albert caressed his daughter's face gently and checked the back of her head. After making sure that she wasn't bleeding, he asked her, "Does it hurt?"

"No. It doesn't hurt. Dad, I'm hungry, too. I fell because I was too hungry."

The child was innocent. How could he be mad at her?

After regaining his composure, Albert washed his face and made dinner for the twins.

He sat at the table and watched the two little people wolfing down the food. He would have been very gratified and happy if he hadn't found out about the truth. He would have even taken out a camera and recorded the very moment so that he could relive the happiness from time to time. It would have been a sweet memory.

But now, the more he watched them, the sadder he became!

The girl was the child of another guy. Albert had raised her for the guy for three years. He had taken such good care of her in some random guy's stead for three years!

As usual, after the twins finished dinner, Albert washed them up, changed their clothes, dried their hair, and let them play in the room.

After all of that, Albert felt drained. He was left empty and upset.

He called his wife, but her phone was off.

Dang it! Was she with her lover again? What a whore!

He threw the phone away. It bounced on the sofa, off the carpet, onto the clean floor, and finally glided to a corner.

Albert caught the brand name of a bottle of drink in the corner.

'Donkey? Are you mocking me that I'm a stupid donkey?'

'Yeah, I am a stupid donkey who got cheated!'

Albert fetched the bottle and poured a glass for himself.

Should he divorce Isabel?

A horrible thought came to his mind. His wife was unfaithful. His marriage was a lie, and his wife's betrayal was a fact. The paternity test had made it clear that he was not Veronica's father. What was the point of keeping the family going? He should divorce her.

But soon, Albert was out of breath at the realization of the cruel fact.

The place was bought by his mother-in-law, and Isabel was the owner of it. The car in the garage was given to him for work by his father-in-law because the old man wanted a new one. The family had hundreds of thousands in savings, but most of the money was earned by Isabel. The cards and deposit books were all with his wife.

And Albert got to work in the Inpatient Department only because his father-in-law had pulled some strings.

Once he got divorced, all he had would be gone.

Even his son liked his wife more!

"What else do I have?"

Petrified, Albert couldn't breathe.

"Am I a good-for-nothing? Am I that useless?"

"No, I still have my medical skills!"

"Without a car, a wife, a job, or a roof over my head, I can still come back to my hometown with my son. I can survive with my medical skills."

"No, I don't want to go back like this!"

"Mom and Dad have sacrificed so much for me. If they find out that I'm such a failure, they're going to have a heart attack out of anger."

"My fellow villagers all regard me as a promising man. I've gone to college. I've married such a beautiful city girl. And I have twin kids. I got a place and a car in the city. And I secured a decent job in a big hospital. I am the role model of the young people in the village. If I go back with my son like that, I'm going to be a huge joke!"

"Without Isabel or the job in the hospital, I could still survive in City J four years ago. Even if I weren't doing as well as I am now, I would still get married and have kids. So, I am still who I was."

"I've been treated and cuckolded like a fool in the past years. If I left just like that, I'm no different from an outcast, whipped dog!"

"I can't swallow it!"

Albert was cast into a haze, and the haze was cleared from time to time before it captured him again. Regardless of that, the thought of divorce had taken root in his mind.

"Isabel, why did you do this to me?"