Across

Hi all, here’s another little fiction gem, which I’m going to have trouble categorising. Write in with your suggestions (or, naturally, your complaints!) if you have any. Let’s go with humour. Enjoy!

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Betty was nice, but it was Cathy he married. She knew what was best for him and insisted she could take better care of him. Betty moved in across the road, so they were neighbours anyway.

They all visited each other regularly. Sometimes he’d visit Betty, or Betty would visit Cathy, or Cathy would visit him, and so on. They had plenty of time for visits. One Sunday, the doorbell rang while he was with Betty. Unless he was with Cathy? There were two young men outside, each with identical smiles on their faces that reminded him of someone. “Hello, Father,” they said. His sons, of course. That’s why they looked familiar. And they were naked, and small, and bald. Possibly they had only this minute been born.

He was delighted, of course, but it did mean he was kept busy for a while. They didn’t look like Betty or Cathy, so he kept them secret. He named one Kentucky and one Tennessee, and paid a woman from town to come and be their wet nurse.

“Wouldn’t you like two strapping sons?” He’d ask Cathy, and she’d say she would, but she already had him, and he was all the cuteness she could handle.

“How about it, two fine young lads?” he’d say to Betty, and she’d squeal and tell him he was a very naughty man.

So he raised them both himself. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Cathy to look after Betty’s children, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask Betty to look after Cathy’s children. Once they were properly grown up, they looked just like him. One visited Cathy and one visited Betty, and he was free to move in with the woman from town who had been their wet nurse.

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