17:01
Three immediate replies of “Got it, Dad” lit up my screen, and a warmth spread through my chest. In all these years, with these kids by my side, I had never once been lonely.
The next day, I packed a small bag and drove back with Serena to the old family home. It looked exactly as I remembered, and for a moment, I was lost in time.
Stepping inside, I immediately saw the man Serena now called father.
My ex-wife’s current husband. My own brother, Hugo.
Dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and gold-rimmed glasses, he moved through the crowd of friends and relatives with an air of scholarly charm. The moment he saw me, his face lit up with a warm, welcoming smile.
“Brother! It’s been too long. We were so worried about you.’
#1
‘It’s Dad’s 80th today, we were all hoping you’d make it. It’s cold outside, come in, have some hot tea.”
The surrounding relatives started whispering, their gazes a mixture of curiosity and judgment. I was the eldest son who had vanished for years, neglecting my family. I knew exactly what game he was playing, but I couldn’t be bothered to engage.
Serena, however, frowned and pushed past me, running to Hugo and speaking in a deliberately loud voice.
‘Dad! I brought you so many presents! Look at this watch!”
‘Serena, you’re such a good daughter. This is beautiful, it must have cost a fortune,” Hugo said, his eyes flick- ing to me, a glint of triumph in them.
‘It was just my scholarship money. Besides, it’s only right for a daughter to spend money on her father…”
Watching this touching scene of fatherly love, I calmly sipped my tea. Serena was a good kid. She just had the wrong dad.
‘Victor! My son!” My mother rushed out from an inner room, her eyes welling with tears as she looked at me. ‘You’ve suffered all these years. You’ve gotten so thin.”
‘It’s good you’re back, it’s good you’re back!”
She looked at me with genuine pain in her eyes. They knew they had wronged their eldest son. When my father’s investments failed and the family went bankrupt, it was I who had dropped out of school to work. They took the money I sent home and scraped by to put Hugo through college. Later, I used my savings to buy back the family home so they could retire in peace. When Hugo returned from his studies abroad, I got him a job at Aura Corp while I stayed home to raise the three children.
A bitter smile played on my lips. What did all that effort matter?
They had always preferred Hugo-the polished, well-educated son who shared their “sensibilities.” I was just the embarrassing house-husband. As Aura Corp grew, Hugo, not I, looked like the heir to a fortune. It was Hugo whom Bianca took to galas and high-society events.
17:01
Chapter 1
I was the one who helped her build the company from nothing. I was the one who raised the children. I was the one who gave up my own education for my brother.
And yet, every single one of them had given their loyalty, their love, to him.
My wife, my partner, had an affair with her own brother-in-law right under my nose. And everyone, including my own children, covered for them.
“Dad, Uncle Hugo is one of us now. He’s educated overseas. It’s better for all of us if he’s the man by Mom’s side,” my eldest, Lara, had told me carefully.
“Yeah, Dad. Image is everything in our circle,” my son, Isaac, had added, nodding sagely.
“Uncle Hugo is the only one who understands me. He’s my real parent,” Serena had declared without hesitat
ion.
