"Oh my God! Harry! It's so nice to see you!" Anne exclaimed when she accidentally stumbled into her old school friend on the street. She had left her five girls with her mother, a rare break for her, and wanted to get a cup of coffee on the streets of Seattle.

"Anne, it's lovely to see you too! Hey, would you want to get some coffee and catch up?" Harry answered, and she nodded immediately. They went into the café and chit-chatted until Harry asked about her family.

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"Oh… that's actually a difficult subject," she began.

"Well, raising five children is not easy for anyone," Harry commented, knowing a bit of her from social media and such.

"Matthew? What are you doing here?" she asked, looking at his uniform and the pretzel tray.

"Yeah, sure. That's hard. But it's more than that," Anne continued. "Matthew changed after the birth of our twins. They're 9 and they barely speak to their father. I think they're scared of him."

"I don't understand," Harry said.

"Matthew wanted a boy, and we hoped, but we had two beautiful girls instead. That's why we got pregnant again and again, but we kept having girls. After our fifth daughter was born, Matthew became another man. He filed for divorce, and I don't know what I'm going to do," Anne explained about her husband, her hand wiping the sweat forming on her forehead.

"Wow. That's rough. But think about this, you'll be better off without him, right? I mean if he hasn't been speaking to your eldest girls, then he couldn't have been the best father to the rest. You already raised them on your own," Harry encouraged. "And now that I'm in Seattle permanently, I could help. You could move in with me."

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Anne's jaw dropped. She didn't expect such an offer from Harry, especially since they had just met again after many years. But she knew back in school that he always had a huge crush on her. Still, that offer was too generous and kind. She couldn't accept it. She changed the subject, and they talked about his successful life.

Meanwhile, things at her house got even worse over the next few weeks. They were divorcing, but Matthew still lived with her, acting like he was single, partying, making noise at odd hours, waking the girls, and being a menace to them.

Anne would talk to Harry all the time, and his offer still stood. But when Matthew decided to bring a girl over to their marital home, Anne was done. She called Harry, packed, and left the house with all the girls.

Their divorce got more complicated when she took Matthew to court to get their big house back. Despite her living in Harry's house, her soon-to-be ex-husband didn't deserve to keep their big home. The judge granted her every request based on Matthew's horrible lifestyle and gave her full custody without question.

Eventually, she and Harry fell in love, and he bought an even bigger home for their family. When she and the girls moved in with him, she put her house up for rent and stopped thinking about Matthew for many years.

***

A year after marrying Harry, Anne had their son, Alan, who was the most beautiful boy in the world, and he had five big sisters adoring him at every moment. Anne couldn't have been happier.

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More time passed, and one day, she picked Alan up from preschool and decided to drop by the mall to buy him new shoes. The girls were busy with their extracurriculars, so it was only mother and son.

Anne never imagined she would run into Matthew there. He was working at the pretzel shop, in charge of distributing free samples at the mall, and Alan ran up to him asking for some.

"Alan, don't run away from me like that," she said to him before catching a glimpse of Matthew's surprised eyes.

"Anne?"

"Matthew? What are you doing here?" she asked, looking at his uniform and the pretzel tray. It didn't make sense. Matthew worked in an office as an executive. He earned a decent amount of money. He was required to pay tons in child support, but he never did, and Anne didn't care. She had more than enough for her girls. But he wouldn't be able to pay what was required with a minimum wage job at the mall.

"I'm working here," he said and looked at the boy holding her with one hand and munching on a pretzel with the other. "Is this your son?"

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"Yes, this is Alan," Anne answered, feeling an intense pride that she had a son that wasn't his. "He's Harry's kid."

"Oh, nice to meet you, Alan," Matthew said, looking down and giving the kid a weird look. Of course, it was not Anne's fault that she gave birth to girls. The sperm determines the gender, and everyone knows that. But Matthew had decided to blame her for years and checked out of their marriage because he wanted a boy, as if gender was important at all.

Luckily, the girls now had an actual father figure, thanks to Harry, who loved them dearly from the first moment they met. They didn't need him, and Anne never had to see him.

"Listen, Anne. I didn't want to ask this now. I wanted to take you to coffee or something. But I'm desperate. I lost everything due to my lifestyle, and I was wondering if we could sell our old house," Matthew asked, his head down in shame.

"Oh… well, it's currently being rented. But I'll think about it," Anne said. "We have to go now. I'll call you about the house."

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She grabbed Alan's hand tightly and walked away from the man who didn't know what he had thrown away. But she was going to be the bigger person. She sold the house and gave him half its worth, although legally, she could keep the entire thing. But something in her gut told her to do the right thing.

Eventually, Matthew asked to see the girls, but none of them wanted that. The twins were teenagers who grew to hate him, and the rest followed their big sisters' footsteps. Matthew stopped asking about them and stopped calling after a while. They never saw him again. He wasn't family.

What can we learn from this story?

• Family is more than just DNA. Matthew didn't want to be a father to his children, and Harry stepped up for the girls.
• You might regret your actions. Matthew lost everything, including his high-paying job, and it was clear he regretted what he did, but he couldn't take it back.

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