Chapter 3 - The Photograph That Shouldn't Exist
I dropped the phone.
Ethan picked it up before the screen went dark.
His face drained of color.
“That’s you.”
“No.”
“It looks exactly like you.”
“That is my face. It is not me.”
He enlarged the photograph.
I wanted to stop him, but I could not look away.
Lily was wearing the oversized Northwestern sweatshirt she slept in.
Noah had his blue cereal bowl.
Daniel’s coffee mug was the chipped black one I had bought him for Father’s Day.
This was not an old photograph.
It was morning.
My morning.
And someone wearing my face was standing inside it.
Ethan whispered, “That’s impossible.”
“Finally.”
“What?”
“Finally you believe me.”
“I believe the picture exists.”
“You saw what happened three years ago.”
“I saw you have a breakdown.”
“You saw another me.”
“I saw you point at an empty doorway.”
“Maybe it wasn’t empty.”
He looked at me.
I could see his mind trying to build a normal explanation and failing.
“Can you respond?” he asked.
I grabbed the phone.
WHO ARE YOU?
The answer came almost immediately.
YOU.
I typed harder.
WHERE ARE YOU?
HOME.
MY HOME.
A typing bubble appeared.
Then:
NOT ANYMORE.
My chest tightened.
Ethan said, “Ask what she wants.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
This time the pause was longer.
The reply arrived.
WHAT YOU WASTED.
I read it twice.
Then a second message.
A HUSBAND WHO STILL COMES HOME.
A third.
CHILDREN WHO STILL NEED THEIR MOTHER.
A fourth.
A LIFE THAT CAN STILL BE SAVED.
I felt sick.
“You know what that sounds like?” Ethan said.
“Someone judging me.”
“It sounds personal.”
“It is personal. She is me.”
“Or someone who knows you.”
“How would anyone here know about Daniel and the kids?”
He had no answer.
I sat on the edge of the couch.
The first wave of panic had burned through me. What remained was colder.
Anger.
This woman had my children.
She knew their routines.
She had put her hand on Noah.
She was standing close enough to Daniel to smell his coffee.
“I’m getting back.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Ethan paced.
“If this is some kind of… split reality…”
“Say it.”
He looked embarrassed.
“Parallel universe.”
“There.”
“Fine. If that’s what this is, what caused it?”
“The fight.”
“You’ve fought with Daniel before.”
“Not like that.”
“What was different?”
I thought about it.
The broken glass.
Lily on the stairs.
The wish whispered into the dark.
I wish I could see the life I should have had.
My stomach turned.
“I asked for it.”
“What?”
“I said I wanted to see the life I should have had.”
Ethan stared.
“That isn’t a mechanism.”
“I know.”
“People say things they regret every day.”
“Maybe not every version of them says the same thing at the same time.”
The idea came out before I could examine it.
Ethan stopped pacing.
“What do you mean?”
“What if she wanted my life while I wanted hers?”
We both looked at the phone.
The silence that followed was worse than the messages.
I typed:
DID YOU ASK FOR MY LIFE?
No answer.
I tried again.
DID YOU WANT TO TRADE?
The typing bubble appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Finally:
YOU WERE THE ONE WHO OPENED THE DOOR.
My mouth went dry.
“What door?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know.”
Then the phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered so fast I almost dropped it.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
My breathing.
Not similar.
Mine.
The same tiny catch between inhale and exhale when I was trying not to cry.
“Claire?” I whispered.
A woman laughed softly.
Hearing my own laugh from another throat made my skin crawl.
“You always did ask obvious questions,” she said.
I gripped the phone.
“Put Lily on.”
“No.”
“Put my daughter on.”
“She’s eating breakfast.”
“Then put Noah on.”
“He has school.”
“Don’t touch my children.”
“Your children?”
Her tone changed.
Still my voice.
Colder.
“You spent months barely looking at them without checking your email. You snapped at Lily for leaving a cup in the sink. You told Noah ‘in a minute’ so often he stopped asking.”
Tears burned my eyes because the cruelest part was that some of it was true.
“You don’t get to judge me.”
“Someone should.”
“Who are you?”
“I already told you.”
“No. Which life?”
A pause.
Then:
“The one you would not have survived.”
My anger faltered.
“What happened to you?”
“You don’t get my story yet.”
“You stole mine.”
“I took an opening.”
“Daniel is going to know.”
She laughed again.
“Daniel noticed you were gone before you did.”
I froze.
“What does that mean?”
“He asked me this morning why I seemed calm.”
My stomach twisted.
“He said he missed me.”
“Stop.”
“He kissed me.”
“Stop.”
“He apologized about Vanessa.”
The room tilted.
“What?”
“He said nothing happened. He said he liked the attention because you had stopped seeing him.”
“Don’t.”
“He cried, Claire.”
My hand shook.
She knew exactly where to cut.
“He said he wanted to fix your marriage.”
“Our marriage.”
“If you wanted it, you should have taken care of it.”
I heard movement behind her.
Then Noah’s voice.
“Mom? Where’s my lunch?”
I nearly screamed.
“Noah!”
Silence.
Then the line went dead.
I called back.
Number unavailable.
I sank onto the floor.
Ethan sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Finally he said, “We need to figure out the pattern.”
“I need to go home.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know what it is to hear your child call another woman Mom.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’re right.”
I looked at him.
There was something in his face I had not seen before.
Pain.
Not sympathy.
Memory.
“What happened three years ago?” I asked.
“I told you.”
“No. You told me I saw another Claire.”
“That’s all.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Ethan, I spent twelve years married to a man who thinks silence isn’t lying. I know what lying looks like.”
He stood.
“Not now.”
I followed him.
“Then when?”
He walked into the kitchen.
I saw him glance at the top cabinet.
It was instinctive.
Tiny.
But I saw it.
“What’s in there?”
“Nothing.”
I stepped around him.
“Move.”
“Claire.”
“Move.”
I grabbed a chair and climbed onto it.
He cursed.
Inside the cabinet was a small metal box.
Locked.
I turned toward him.
“Open it.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll break it.”
“You’re in a lawyer’s house. Don’t threaten property damage.”
“It’s apparently my property.”
He gave in.
The key was taped beneath the cabinet shelf.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens.
Some showed me.
Some showed versions of me.
Different hair.
Different clothes.
Different lives.
In one, I was visibly pregnant.
In another, I stood beside a woman I did not recognize.
In another, I was sitting in a hospital bed with a bandage around my head.
At the bottom of the box was a photograph dated three years earlier.
Ethan and I stood in this kitchen.
But between us was a second Claire.
Same face.
Different haircut.
She was looking directly at the camera.
On the back, written in Ethan’s handwriting, were five words.
SHE SAID IT WOULD HAPPEN AGAIN.
I turned toward him.
“You knew.”
Ethan looked at the floor.
“I knew it was possible.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
My voice broke.
“And you were going to let me think I was crazy?”
He looked up.
“No. I was trying to keep you from remembering why the other Claire came here.”
“Why?”
His face tightened.
“Because she was running from someone.”
“Who?”
May you like
Ethan swallowed.
“You.”
