I’ll never forget the night my husband asked for a paternity test. His mother’s poisonous whispers had finally gotten to him. “Just to ease their minds,” Ben pleaded, as if doubting my faithfulness was some minor favor.
I agreed—on one condition. “We test you and your father too.”
What followed felt like a spy thriller. We swabbed our baby’s cheek during his checkup. For Ben’s father, we staged an elaborate ruse involving a “new eco-friendly toothbrush” he obligingly used during a visit.
When the results arrived, we saved them for a family gathering. The first test confirmed our son was Ben’s—no surprise given his identical chin dimple. The second test? That’s when the room went silent. Ben wasn’t his father’s child.
The look on Karen’s face—part horror, part guilt—told the whole story. Her decades of judging me had been pure projection. Ben’s father left immediately, filing for divorce soon after.
Our marriage survived, but only after hard work in therapy. As for Karen? She learned the hard way that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
