Cerita Pendek & Novel Familial Bond Marriage

My son, Tyler, never really had his dad around growing up. Because my husband, Ethan, was a top doctor, always working late. He pulled countless patients back from the brink of death, but he misdiagnosed his own son's pneumonia as a simple cold. All because he was on the phone with his first love, Isabella, while he was supposed to be listening to Tyler's chest. That night, when Tyler's life was on the line, Ethan claimed he was in a critical surgery and hung up on me ten times. I rushed our son to the hospital, only to find out my husband was at a birthday party for Isabella and her daughter. In the dead of night, Isabella posted a photo of the three of them on Instagram. At the same time, my son, Tyler, died in the very hospital where his father worked. The next day, I held a funeral for my son all alone. Three days later, I boarded a plane out of Seattle, clutching a photo of my son. It was only then that my husband, Ethan, found out Tyler was dead, started searching for me like a madman.

After my dad's first love moved into our house and became my tutor, my mom never raised her voice at her again. She just coughed worse and worse, until one day I found the lab report she'd thrown out. Stage IV lung cancer. That afternoon, Dad came home with his arm around her, and walked right into Mom sitting on the couch. There was a flicker of guilt on his face. "Helena, if you've got something to say, just say it. Don't make a scene in front of the kid." Mom was eerily calm. She pointed at the woman and said, "She gets on her knees and apologizes to me three times. And you sign over half the company. Then we're done." Dad thought she'd lost it. But in the end he signed the share transfer. After that, Mom's pills kept multiplying and her appetite kept shrinking. But she hired the best lawyer in town, and over and over she taught me how to manage those shares once I was old enough. Dad never figured out the one thing that mattered. Mom was already on her way out.

All it takes is one offhand remark from Tanya Smith's childhood sweetheart, Harry Lieberman, calling our daughter, Melanie Curry, and me fat and ugly to wound her pride and send us both to a weight-loss training camp. For an entire year, I barely get enough to eat. I starve until I develop heart disease and endure one torment after another. Melanie has it worse. The grueling workouts and constant hunger push her body to its breaking point, leaving her barely alive. Desperate, I call Tanya for help, but she sounds heartbreakingly contemptuous. "It's just a weight-loss camp. So what if you skip a few meals? Think of it as detoxing. Don't make such a big deal out of it. And don't call me again until Melanie reaches her target weight!" With that, she hangs up. Later, Melanie passes away from organ failure due to malnutrition and overtraining. Tanya comes to take me out of the camp. Her tone is as critical and condescending as ever. "Has she finally lost weight? Or is she planning to stay in there until she dies from being so fat?" My eyes are empty, my gaze hollow. Tanya has no idea that our daughter is dead.

I went alone to my favorite singer’s concert. During the song selection segment, I was really excited and hoped that I would be lucky enough to be picked. But in the next second, I saw my husband, who was supposed to be on a business trip, appear on the screen. Next to him was Mia Louise, his first love. “I’d like to pick Back To The Past. I want to go back three years when I hadn’t broken up with Mia.” The entire stadium cheered and celebrated their love. I was the only one in tears. During the next song selection segment, I saw my teary face show up on the screen. “I’d like to pick Back To The Past as well. I want to return to the time when I never said yes to Samuel Gardner’s proposal.”

My husband was like a broken record. His answer was always the same. "I can't leave." On our wedding anniversary, he said he couldn't leave because he had to take Natalie Rivers out and cheer her up. When I miscarried, he couldn't leave because he had to take Natalie to therapy. Even when my mother died, he still gave me the same answer. "I really can't leave. Natalie's depression has come back, and she can't be alone." Still weak after my miscarriage, I kept vigil alone for three days. That was when I finally understood. To him, neither our baby's life nor my mother's life mattered. My relatives were shocked to see me handling everything alone. "Josh really isn't coming?" After saying my final goodbye to my mother, I stood up and answered calmly. "No. He doesn't have that obligation anymore."

After I quit my job to become a full-time househusband, my wife, Brooke Lowell, left me with nothing but a bank card capped at 1,000 dollars a month. She said children had to be raised with hardship to grow up strong, and was always worried I might secretly give our daughter special treatment. But 1,000 dollars was nowhere near enough to cover a household's monthly expenses. Every time the kindergarten asked for nutrition fees, I could only swallow my pride and beg for leniency. "She's just a child. Why does she need that much money? You've got some nerve, living so comfortably on 1,000 a month." I had thought Brooke's harshness was meant to temper our daughter's character. That illusion lasted until I asked Brooke for 300 dollars to buy clothes for our daughter's Children's Day performance. What I received instead was humiliation and ridicule from everyone. Brooke accused me of acting like a spoiled rich kid, wasting money on unnecessary clothes. My mother-in-law complained that I dressed too poorly, like a beggar bringing shame to the family. Even my daughter blamed me for embarrassing her, saying I had ruined her Children's Day and damaged her props. I bowed my head, apologized, and paid compensation. Only then did I discover that my bank card had been frozen. The very next moment, Brooke's crush posted on social media about his son receiving a luxury mansion. 'Already a house-owner at three! Who'd believe she's not his birth mother?' Only then did I understand. People who truly loved someone would never be stingy when spending on them.

My son, Andy, had a sudden liver failure and needed a liver transplant. The only compatible match was my wife, Vivian Grant. I had begged her for 20 days to give Andy a liver transplant. Finally, she caved in. I waited the entire day in front of the operating theater, but she didn’t appear. On the same day, her first love, Jason Sanderson posted on his social media. [20th day of traveling around the world. Dr. Grant had given up her career to help fulfil my son's dream of traveling the world.] Only then did I find out that Vivian had been travelling the world with Jason and his son, Luke, since day one. That night, I received a call from Vivian. "Charlie, Luke had gotten full marks on his exam. His wish was to have his Daddy and Mommy travel around the world with him. As you know, he doesn't have a Mommy. I couldn't bear to watch him not get his wish. "We'll return in three days. We can have the surgery for Andy then." She had no idea that what awaited her at the hospital was Andy's lifeless body.

During the university’s hundred-year anniversary celebration, my daughter was cast as the lead in a play. A certain female classmate who had always been jealous of her conspired with others to swap out the safety cables. Halfway through the performance, the cable snapped, and my daughter fell from a great height. She bled to death on the spot. I rushed onto the stage in a frenzy, but my daughter’s advisor and others held me down with all their might. My wife was heartbroken. In front of the media cameras, she wiped away her tears. “My husband had been so desperate for our daughter to become famous that he secretly changed the safety wire to a thinner one...” Amid a storm of online abuse, I jumped to my death, filled with bitterness. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day of the anniversary celebration. Without a word, I immediately withdrew my daughter from school and locked her at home. That evening, I sat in the audience at the school anniversary gala. When it was time for the final play, the female lead wore my daughter’s costume and took the stage. My heart sank, and I looked around. The group that had bullied my daughter was sitting in the row in front of me. So, who exactly was the person hanging in midair right then, wearing my daughter’s costume?

After his twin brother dies, my husband, Cassian Howell, starts supporting two households, splitting our family's money equally between them. Half goes to our daughter and me, and the other half goes to his late brother's widow, Esther Heaton, and her son, Noah Howell. He says he can't let his nephew grow up without a father figure. When our daughter, Anne Howell, graduates from elementary school, her teacher asks each student to contribute 50 dollars toward graduation photos. Cassian refuses at once, calling it an unnecessary expense. It's the same excuse he used the week before when I asked him for new undergarments. I call him. "I'll go without if I have to, but everyone in her class is getting graduation photos. Anne is the only one who hasn't paid." He sounds annoyed. "Faye, you know I have two households to support. We have to cut costs wherever we can." Before I can answer, he hangs up on me. Moments later, Esther posts a photo in our family group chat: a limited-edition children's camera and a brand-new designer bag. Her caption reads, "Thank you for the gifts, Cassian! I'm so grateful Noah has a father figure in his life, all thanks to you." I stare at the words "father figure" for a long moment before I finally understand. In Cassian's heart, Esther and her son are his real family. Anne and I are just outsiders he can afford to neglect.

My son and daughter-in-law suddenly returned home after living abroad for more than a decade. They spoke with my granddaughter in Datrenan the entire time during dinner. My granddaughter said, "Dad, Grandma's ugly and dumb. She's embarrassing!" My son just laughed. "What can we do? Country people are like that." I didn't understand what they were talking about, so I simply smiled and placed a chicken wing into my granddaughter's bowl, trying to please her. However, she threw it in my face instead. "Gross! It's all your fault that Grandpa and Kasey can't be here!" I was stunned. My husband died decades ago, and… who was Kasey?

I spend the New Year at my girlfriend Lucy Greenwood's house. During a game of poker, her whole family keeps helping me win. The more I win, the bigger the smile on her mom Eva Lane's face. I excitedly reveal my hand. "A royal flush! I win!" Eva immediately hands me a stack of cash, beaming. "Wow, Milo, you're really lucky." I assume they like me, which is why they let me win 13 hands in a row. Just then, a quiet voice speaks up. "You still want to keep winning? This game takes lives in exchange for luck… Once you've won enough money, it's time to pay with your life. If you play that card, you'll have to live the rest of your life as Lucy's comatose older brother."

After five years of marriage, the doctor told me I was pregnant. It was something I had waited for so long. Yet, along with that good news came a nightmare. My medical tests showed that I had cancer, and it had already spread. The doctor gave me less than a month to live. I froze, gripping the report so tightly my knuckles turned white. Tears streamed down my face as I thought about how my unborn child would never get to feel a mother's embrace. My grief was interrupted by the ping of an incoming text message. It was from Mom. [Since you're so selfish and refuse to donate a kidney to save Nattie's life, you should divorce Davon. Let him marry Nattie instead. At least that way, you can fulfill her dying wish.] My tears fell harder. It was not that I refused to donate a kidney to Natalie Rivera, my sister, who was in the final stages of kidney disease. In truth, I only had one kidney left. Five years ago, I had already given one to Dad. Now, with my life counting down to its final days, I decided that I would donate my remaining kidney to Natalie. I would also let my husband, Davon Parker, go with her. Before I went into surgery, my parents praised me for finally being thoughtful, saying I had finally learned to care about my sister. They said that once the surgery was over, the whole family would go on vacation together. Davon even said he was proud that I was no longer selfish and promised he would make it up to me in the future. None of them knew I did not have a future. After the surgery, what would be pushed out of the operating room would be a cold, lifeless body.

The day I became the state's SATs valedictorian, my father, with his dyed blond hair, got so excited he put his food delivery helmet on crooked. He threw his arms around my mother, tears streaming down his face. "Honey! See that? I told you our genes were anything but ordinary! The curse's been lifted! Our son's gone and become the greatest of all time!" My mother, who had just dyed her hair purple, smacked her thigh as she shed tears of joy. "Bull! This is all because I quit the club scene for good and started selling grilled cheese sandwiches at the night market! God has seen my sincerity and rewarded us for it!" As I watched them celebrate like a pair of overgrown teenagers, I read the floating comments across my vision and had to blink away my tears. "You dummies, this has nothing to do with luck!" "You two swallowed so much bitterness just so your son could stand tall in public! Frankie over here got beaten and didn't dare fight back while Tanya pricked her fingers raw just to support his studies. You two sacrificed everything you had just so he could live well."

The year I returned to the Moretti family, everyone expected the biological daughter and the adopted daughter to fight for their place in the family. But Gianna was different. She was the first to learn sign language so she could communicate with me. She knew I hated sitting with my back to a door. She also knew I didn't want anyone asking why I still refused to speak after two years back home. That night, at a charity gala, my father was supposed to sign an agreement that would end our family's involvement in the port's illegal operations. Instead, Luca Vitale stormed in with representatives from eight families and proposed a toast to my father. He took one sip and collapsed. A second later, the ballroom screen lit up. Gianna's payment to a pharmacist and chat messages mentioning "Dad's wine" had been used to make it look like she'd bought drugs to murder our father. She really had made that payment. She handed over her phone for everyone to see, but the original messages had been deleted, and she couldn't recover them. Luca gave us ten minutes: hand over Gianna or hand over the port. All the while, Luca's doctor stood beside my father with a syringe in his hand. He refused to say where he'd gotten it. My mother told Luca, "You can have the port. You can't have either of my daughters." Gianna pulled away from her anyway and walked straight to Luca. All she asked was that he let our father go to the hospital first. As she passed me, she signed with trembling hands, "Don't tell them about your past for my sake." I stared at the syringe. I'd seen that same medical kit at the clinic in Malta. I'd also seen what happened to patients once they became bargaining chips. If Gianna was willing to go that far for me, then I was willing to risk everything for her, just this once.

I’m the Blackthorn family’s top surgeon and their “cleaner.” I’ve handled countless messes for Evan Blackthorn. I was also his secret lover for five years. He was inside me more times than I can count, holding me tight as I came apart, kissing me with an obsession for my body he never bothered to hide. It all ended after sex one night, when he said with a casual laugh, “I should get a wife, Rachel.” “And maybe you should find a good man and get married, too.” I wasn’t angry. I just quietly said, “Okay.” In my last life, I insisted on staying by his side. It got me both my hands broken, my career as a surgeon shattered. In the end, during a raid by a rival family, he left me behind as bait, holding his brother’s widow, Sofia, tenderly in his arms. So this time, I learned my lesson. I stayed away from him. Found a new man, just like he wanted. But this time, the always cool and calculated Mafia Don lost his mind.

By the fifth year of my marriage to James Hill, he began pretending to be his late twin brother, the late Don of the family. With that, he took over all of a Don’s duties and the role of my sister-in-law, Hilary’s husband. Every time after he slept with her, he would cut his arm open, kneel before me, and beg for forgiveness. “Pia, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Once Hilary gives birth to the heir and secures her position, I’ll fake my death and come back for you.” He told me his twin brother had died saving him, so he had to fulfill his brother’s last wish. During the year he pretended to be his brother, James slept with Hilary ninety-nine times. After a full year, Hilary finally gave birth to the family’s heir. I truly believed James would fake his death as promised, then take our son and me away from this bloody life. However, I saw him with Hilary in his arms, teasing the tiny baby she carried. “Hilary, I’ll stay with you and our child until he’s ready to take over as the next Don.” Silently, I wiped my tears and went back to my room to pack my suitcase. My son saw me crying and ran into my arms, gently wiping away my tears with his little hands. “Ma, Aunt Hilary already had her baby. Why isn’t Papa coming home yet?” I placed my clothes into the suitcase as I told him softly, “Because he doesn’t want us anymore. But don’t be sad, sweetheart. I will build us a home.” If James wanted to raise an heir, then I would return to North Atlantis’s most powerful mafia family, take my rightful place as my father’s heir, and become the Godmother of the Mafia.

My daughter, Clara Williams, turned seven today. We played a simple game to celebrate. The rule was easy. I would start a sentence, and she would finish it. It was a popular trend designed to see if a child was being criticized. "First sentence," I said, leaning over the table. "Look at the other kids…" I waited, a warm smile on my face. I had never raised my voice at her. I spent years protecting her world, building her confidence brick by brick. I knew she was happy. Her soft voice shattered that illusion instantly. "They are so much better than you," she said, reciting the words by heart. "You aren't even worth a single hair on Lily's head." Lily. She was the daughter of Donald Williams’ ex-girlfriend, Valerie Thompson. My chest tightened. The air left my lungs all at once. It took everything I had to swallow the lump in my throat and move to the second prompt. "What do you have to complain about?" "Lily is younger than you," my daughter cut in, her voice small. "You have to give up everything for her." She looked up at me nervously. Her little hands twisted the hem of her shirt under the table. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing down the sudden surge of nausea. I took a slow breath and tried sentence three. "You've grown up already…" "Go to parent-teacher conferences by yourself," she answered, looking at the floor. "I have to play family games with Lily." I stopped. I couldn't bring myself to ask another question. The cold truth was sitting right in front of me, but I was still clinging to a tiny shred of hope. "Sweetheart," I whispered. "Who told you those things?" "Daddy did." She caught the change in my tone and panicked. She quickly blew out the birthday candles, trying to lighten the mood. She closed her eyes tightly, making a wish out loud. "I wish I can be a better girl. Then Dad will be happy, and he will treat Mommy better." The last candle flickered and died. Darkness crept over the room. My illusion collapsed right along with it. I thought I was shielding my little girl from the monsters of the world. I never guessed her own father, Donald Williams, was the biggest among the monsters.

When the call came that her mother had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and was in a coma, Clara Gabriel's mind went blank. She bolted from her desk. "Where do you think you're going?" The cold voice of her fiance, Julian Vance, cut through the office. "You're still on the clock." As Clara turned to the man she was supposed to marry, her eyes were filled with tears. "My mother is in the ICU." "Going there won't change the outcome," Julian said, his expression completely unreadable. "You are the future first lady of this company. Are you really going to set an example of abandoning your post?" Clara's chest tightened. "This is an emergency. It's only ten minutes before my shift ends…" "Clara," Julian interrupted, his tone darkening. "Sit back down." He paused and adjusted his cuffs. "Rush-hour traffic is backed up for miles. You won't find a cab anyway. Wait ten minutes, and I'll drive you." Rush hour was brutal. It was only ten minutes... Clara walked back to her desk in a daze. She kept telling herself that Julian was just being pragmatic. He was right. But despite how she kept staring at her screen, the burn behind her eyes refused to go away. ---

Everyone said my wife, Zoey Harper, was an amazing wife and mom who'd do anything for me and our son, Leo. Leo's doctor warned us three times that he might not make it. Then he died. Zoey claimed she was overseas for work. She wasn't. She'd invited Peter Cole—the first love she'd never gotten over—and his family to our apartment for dinner. I came home carrying Leo's urn, ready to confront her. Instead, she tossed my luggage into the hall. "We have guests, and we're out of rooms. Go stay somewhere else for a few days."

My wife was in a car accident and barely clinging to life, but I calmly stood outside the operating room listening to a sales agent introduce a new apartment to me. The doctor, covered in blood, came up to me. "The patient was impaled by a hard object in her lower body. There are two options. We can remove her uterus immediately, or we can try to preserve the organ, but that will require extremely precise equipment and the cost will be very high. "Please decide quickly. She doesn't have much time." I answered impatiently, "Then remove it. Don't waste the effort." When my mother-in-law heard that, she broke down in front of me, wailing. "Jason, I'm begging you. Use the money to save my daughter. If they remove it, how is she supposed to hold her head up for the rest of her life?" My father-in-law pleaded through tears too. "She's your wife. Can you really bear to watch her lose the chance to be a mother? Aren't you going to think about your own future?" I quickly stepped back and said, "If you want to save her, pay for it yourselves. I don't have any money." "Didn't we give all our money to you two? Take out the four hundred fifty thousand dollars you saved to buy a house and save her first!" My voice shot up instantly. "What? Spend four hundred fifty thousand dollars to save a piece of rotten meat? Are you kidding me?" As I spoke, I tossed my card to the sales agent and paid in full on the spot for the new apartment I had just chosen.