Chapter 2 - Where Are My Children?
I called the number.
It rang once.
Then disconnected.
I called again.
“This number is not in service.”
I stared at the screen as if the phone itself had betrayed me.
Ethan took it gently from my hand.
“Claire, sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“You are shaking.”
“My children are missing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because they exist.”
He looked at me with the careful expression people use around injured animals.
That made me furious.
“Don’t look at me like I’m crazy.”
“I didn’t say you were crazy.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking something is wrong.”
“Yes. I woke up in the wrong life.”
His jaw tightened.
“Did you take anything last night?”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
The successful version of me had apparently built a life in which hallucinations were more believable than children.
“No.”
“Drink?”
“Apparently not enough.”
He crouched in front of me.
“Tell me what you remember.”
So I did.
Daniel.
Our fight.
Vanessa.
Lily on the stairs.
Noah asleep down the hall.
The broken wineglass.
Judith.
My lost job.
The sofa.
Ethan listened without interrupting.
When I finished, his face was pale.
“What?” I asked.
He stood.
“There are things in that story you shouldn’t know.”
My pulse jumped.
“What things?”
“Vanessa.”
“You know her?”
He walked to the window.
“Vanessa Lane works across the street from my office.”
I stared.
“That proves something.”
“It proves you know the name of a woman in Chicago.”
“You said you didn’t know Daniel.”
“I don’t.”
“What about Judith?”
“No.”
“Lily? Noah?”
“No.”
He turned back to me.
“But you said you lost your job at an agency two months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You never worked at an agency.”
“In this life.”
He flinched at the phrase.
I pressed on.
“What do I do?”
“You’re a family law attorney.”
I looked down at the expensive suit jacket hanging over the back of a chair.
“Family law.”
“You’re good at it.”
“Do I like it?”
“You hate everybody before breakfast, so I assume yes.”
That almost sounded like the Ethan I remembered.
The man I had loved when I was twenty-three.
The man I left after he asked me to move with him to New York.
In my world, I chose Chicago.
I chose stability.
Six months later I met Daniel at a Cubs game.
Everything that mattered came after that.
“What happened to us?” I asked.
Ethan’s face softened.
“Us?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“You came with me.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
One decision.
One different answer.
And an entire life had grown around it.
“You moved to New York,” he continued. “Law school. We broke up for a year. Got back together. Broke up again. Got back together again.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It was terrible.”
“Are we together now?”
He hesitated.
“That depends on the week.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then the grief returned.
“I need to find Daniel.”
“If he exists.”
“He exists.”
“How?”
“Because I remember him.”
Ethan dragged a hand through his hair.
“Fine. We search.”
We spent the next hour online.
Daniel Morgan was a common name.
My Daniel was forty-one, worked in commercial real estate, had a scar near his left eyebrow from a bike accident at seventeen.
I found seventeen men before I found him.
A company website.
Morgan Urban Development.
Senior project director.
Chicago.
My Daniel.
I gripped the laptop.
“That’s him.”
Ethan leaned closer.
The photograph showed Daniel in a charcoal suit.
Same eyes.
Same slight tilt of his mouth.
My husband existed.
I clicked his profile.
Marital status did not appear, obviously.
Then I searched social media.
Private account.
A profile picture loaded.
Daniel standing beside a blonde woman.
Vanessa.
I felt the floor drop beneath me.
Ethan said nothing.
I zoomed in.
Vanessa Lane had one arm around Daniel’s waist.
Between them stood a little girl around six years old.
Not Lily.
Not Noah.
A caption beneath the public cover image read:
Five years with my favorite people.
I stared until the letters blurred.
“In this world,” I whispered, “he married her.”
Ethan touched my shoulder.
“Claire.”
“She wasn’t just some coworker.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know my husband.”
“Your husband in another life.”
The distinction was a knife.
I stood.
“I’m going to see him.”
“That is a terrible idea.”
“I don’t care.”
“He doesn’t know you.”
“I need to look at him.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe if I see him, I’ll wake up.”
I grabbed keys from the bowl by the door.
Ethan snatched them first.
“You don’t know where you’re going.”
“I know where his office is.”
“You know where it was in your life.”
“Then drive me.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“You are asking me to take you to stalk a married stranger because in another universe he is your husband.”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
Then sighed.
“God, I forgot how impossible you are.”
“You remembered.”
His face changed.
The words landed between us.
He had said forgot.
Not imagined.
Not guessed.
Forgot.
I stepped closer.
“What do you mean, you forgot?”
“Nothing.”
“You said you forgot.”
“Figure of speech.”
“You used to say that exact thing to me.”
“Because I knew you.”
“Fifteen years ago.”
He looked away.
I felt a cold suspicion forming.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Claire, not everything is a conspiracy.”
“Then look at me.”
He did.
“Have I ever talked about Daniel before?”
“No.”
“Have I ever talked about children?”
“No.”
“Have I ever woken up and acted like this?”
His silence was too long.
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“Ethan.”
“Once.”
The room went completely still.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“What happened?”
“You woke up screaming that your mother was dead.”
“My mother is alive.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“You said the house was wrong. You kept asking where Rachel was.”
“My sister?”
He nodded.
“What did you tell me?”
“I told you Rachel was in Boston.”
“She lives forty minutes from me.”
“Not here.”
I could barely breathe.
“How long did it last?”
“About six hours.”
“And then?”
“You fainted.”
“What happened when I woke up?”
“You didn’t remember any of it.”
I stared at him.
“So this has happened before.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I know you had some kind of episode.”
“You didn’t tell me because?”
“You were terrified. The next morning you were yourself again.”
“Myself.”
He nodded slowly.
The word sounded suddenly dangerous.
“What did I say before I fainted?”
Ethan looked toward the floor.
“Tell me.”
“You said someone was standing in your kitchen.”
“Who?”
“You.”
A chill moved over my skin.
“What do you mean?”
“You pointed at the doorway and screamed that there was another Claire watching you.”
I stopped breathing.
The phone buzzed again.
This time I did not want to look.
I forced myself.
Unknown number.
A photograph had been attached.
My kitchen.
My real kitchen.
Blue sofa visible through the doorway.
Lily standing at the counter.
Noah eating cereal.
Daniel pouring coffee.
And beside him, with one hand resting casually on my son’s shoulder, stood me.
Not a photograph of me.
Me.
Same hair.
Same face.
Same wedding ring.
Smiling at my family.
May you like
Under the photograph were four words.
I TOLD YOU. THEY’RE FINE.
