Chapter 4 - My Daughter Called Me a Liar
For a moment, I thought I had heard him wrong.
“She was running from me?”
Ethan closed the metal box.
“Not you exactly.”
“I am getting very tired of that sentence.”
“Another you.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have photographs.”
“I have proof of three.”
“Three Claires?”
“Three crossings.”
My laugh sounded ugly.
“You kept a scrapbook of my alternate lives and never thought to mention it?”
“You never remembered.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
I walked to the other side of the kitchen because if I stayed close to him, I might hit him.
“Start talking.”
Three years earlier, he said, the Claire who woke in this house had not been me.
Not this world’s Claire either.
She was thirty-five, married, no children, and terrified.
She kept saying another version of herself had learned how to cross on purpose.
“She said emotional shock creates the first opening,” Ethan explained. “But once you cross, it gets easier.”
“Like tearing fabric.”
“That was her metaphor.”
“What happened to her?”
“She vanished after six hours.”
“And your Claire came back?”
“Yes.”
“Did she remember?”
“No.”
“Then who took the photographs?”
“I did.”
I stared at him.
“That picture with three of us?”
His face hardened.
“That was the part I didn’t want to tell you.”
I waited.
“Your Claire came back before the other one left.”
Cold moved through me.
“Both were here.”
“For eleven minutes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“They argued.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“The other Claire kept saying, ‘She’s the dangerous one. She’s the one who keeps wishing.’”
I felt pressure behind my eyes.
“I didn’t even know any of this existed.”
“I know.”
“Then why would she be afraid of me?”
“She may not have meant you personally.”
“But you think she did.”
Ethan did not answer.
I grabbed my phone.
“I need to talk to Lily.”
“The other Claire won’t let you.”
“Then I’ll find another way.”
I knew my daughter’s phone number by memory.
I dialed.
Three rings.
“Hello?”
My whole body went weak.
“Lily.”
Silence.
Then, cautiously, “Who is this?”
“It’s Mom.”
A pause.
“No, it’s not.”
My throat closed.
“Lily, listen to me.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me. Your mother.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know about the crack in your phone screen. I know you hide sour candy in the blue shoebox in your closet because Dad says it ruins your teeth. I know you got a C on your algebra test last month and made me promise not to tell Grandma.”
Her breathing changed.
“Mom?”
I nearly cried from relief.
“Yes.”
“Why are you calling from a weird number?”
“I need you to listen very carefully.”
A door slammed in the background.
Lily lowered her voice.
“You’re downstairs.”
My heart pounded.
“That woman is not me.”
Silence.
Then Lily laughed nervously.
“What?”
“The woman downstairs is not me.”
“You’re being weird.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No, seriously. Stop.”
“Lily, please.”
Footsteps in the background.
My voice came faster.
“Ask her what I told you the night you got your first period.”
“Mom!”
“Ask her.”
“That’s gross.”
“It matters.”
“What did you tell me?”
“I told you I cried so hard when I got mine because Grandma told me I was becoming a woman and I thought that meant I had to move out.”
A tiny sound.
Lily remembered.
I continued.
“You laughed for ten minutes. Then you asked if we could get milkshakes.”
“Chocolate for you. Strawberry for me.”
I covered my mouth.
“Yes.”
Footsteps closer.
Then my own voice came through Lily’s end of the call.
“Who are you talking to?”
Lily whispered, “Nobody.”
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
I stood.
“Lily, go to your room.”
The other Claire’s voice sharpened.
“Give me the phone.”
“Mom, stop.”
I heard a struggle.
Not violent.
But forceful enough that the phone hit something.
Then the other Claire came on.
“You called my daughter.”
I almost screamed.
“She is not your daughter.”
“You are upsetting her.”
“You are living in my house.”
“I am fixing your house.”
“Put her back on.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“Do you know what Lily told me last night?”
I went cold.
“What?”
“She said she wishes you liked her.”
The words hit me in the chest.
“You’re lying.”
“She said every conversation with you feels like she is interrupting something more important.”
“Stop.”
“She asked if I was okay because I hugged her for no reason.”
I sat down.
Ethan reached toward me. I pushed his hand away.
Other Claire continued.
“Noah asked if we could make pancakes on a school morning. I said yes.”
“You don’t know them.”
“I’m learning.”
“They are not a project.”
“No. They are children who deserved a mother who was present.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“Whatever happened to you does not give you the right to steal my life.”
Her voice went flat.
“I didn’t steal a life. I stepped into one you had already started abandoning.”
Then she hung up.
I sat in silence.
Ethan crouched in front of me.
“Do not believe everything she says.”
“She knew exactly what to say.”
“That’s different.”
“No. She knew because she’s me.”
“Then she also knows your insecurities.”
I looked at him.
“You mean she is weaponizing them.”
“Yes.”
For the first time that morning, Ethan sounded like the man I had once trusted.
I wiped my face.
“Then I need to stop reacting.”
“Good.”
“I need information.”
“Better.”
“Show me everything.”
We spent the next two hours going through the metal box.
Three crossings over eight years.
Ethan had documented dates, strange behavior, phrases, photographs.
Every event followed an emotional rupture.
A death.
A breakup.
A betrayal.
The first crossing happened eight years earlier.
The Claire who appeared claimed she had made a choice so terrible she would give anything to undo it.
“What choice?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t say.”
The second was the frightened Claire three years ago.
The third was now.
Except something did not fit.
“This world’s Claire crossed before I arrived,” I said.
Ethan nodded slowly.
“Probably.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe my world.”
“That would mean there could be two of you there.”
“One already is.”
“No. I mean your Claire and this Claire.”
I stared at him.
The thought was worse than anything yet.
What if the woman with my family was not the Claire who belonged here?
What if there were more?
My phone buzzed.
A text from Lily.
My hands shook as I opened it.
MOM I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING.
Then another.
THE WOMAN DOWNSTAIRS JUST TOLD DAD I’M HAVING A BREAKDOWN.
A third.
SHE SAID SOMEONE IS PRETENDING TO BE YOU.
I typed fast.
LOCK YOUR DOOR. KEEP NOAH WITH YOU.
The typing bubble appeared.
Then vanished.
A minute passed.
Another message came.
But the words were wrong.
Too formal.
Too controlled.
LILY IS SAFE. DO NOT CONTACT HER AGAIN.
My breath stopped.
Then a photograph arrived.
It showed Daniel sitting at our kitchen table.
Judith beside him.
The other Claire across from them.
On the table was a manila folder.
I recognized the logo.
A psychiatric clinic.
May you like
Under the photograph, one sentence appeared.
BY TONIGHT, YOUR FAMILY WILL HAVE A REASON NOT TO BELIEVE A WORD YOU SAY.
