In her story, a woman received a poison pen letter accusing her of having a son with someone other than her husband. She was found dead after a daily nap, with a note saying "I cannot go on ..." That was a fictional account, I am sure.
However, in real life I have come across one parallel case. A friend of mine is married to man with five brothers. One of those brothers has a young son with some congenital defect that could be fatal if not treated. In order to find a suitable bone marrow donor, all the uncles as well as the nucleus family members went for blood tests and tissue typing.
All five brothers were gathered in the home of the affected boy. They proceeded to compare test results. All six men were trained in science. One glance at the blood types, their faces paled. My friend, who is married to one, could not comprehend anything even when she looked at the myriad result; since she was in the arts stream as early as lower secondary school. Being alert and curious, she quietly memorized each individual result and consulted me when she came home.
Being conservative Chinese, the entire incident was swept under the carpet and not mentioned again. It is clear that at least three of the six brothers were conceived from man or men other than the legal father. By now, the long suffering father had died. The mother who has led such a colorful life is rather old and is becoming senile. Little wonder that the old woman would complain that throughout her married life, her husband had beaten her time and again. In the old days, wife beating was somewhat tolerated and not many couples would divorce even if there was spousal abuse. It is interesting that deep secrets such as these could not be submerged for long. I guess this saying explains it somewhat: old sins cast long shadows.
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