I’ve never seen her before but there is something familiar about her.
She looks a lot like me.
“Can I help you?” she asks, and I’m shocked by how much she sounds like me too.
At first, I don’t speak. It feels like I can’t. Instead, I just stand and stare.
She’s wearing my black velvet dress, the one I was going to put on tonight.
“Who are you?” I ask, but my voice comes out as a whisper.
“I’m Eden Fox. I live here.”
2EDEN
I’mEden Fox. What are you talking about?”
The woman stares at the key I am still holding as though I am brandishing a weapon. She looks down on me in every way, making me feel oddly self-conscious about my running clothes, when she is wearingmydress and standing inmyhome. Then she looks at me as if she thinks I am crazy or dangerous or both.
For a moment I wonder if I am.
But IamEden Fox and thisismy house.
We might have only moved in a few weeks ago, but I’ve barely left Spyglass since then. The previous owner lived here for almost one hundred years. To say that the house was in a state of disrepair would be putting it politely, but things that get broken can often be fixed with a little love and hard work. Despite my husband’s impressive salary as the CEO of a company in London, there still wasn’t much spare cash after the move, so I did a lot of the work myself. I haven’t forgotten ripping up carpets, sanding floors, or painting the walls all on my own while Harrison was still in the city. I put my blood, sweat, and soul into the place.
This house is mine.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” says the woman claiming it’s hers and thatsheisme.
She does look a bit like me.
She’s wearing my clothes.
She even smells of my perfume.
The woman starts to close the door, and I feel off-kilter and strange, like when you know you’re having a bad dream and try to wake yourself up. But this isn’t a dream and I don’t understand what is happening.
I put my foot in the entrance, preventing her from closing the door, and she stares down at my running shoes. Her mouth forms a perfect O. She looks so shocked I almost apologize.
“I don’t know who you are, but this ismyhouse,” I insist.
“You’re clearly confused. I moved here a few weeks ago,” she says, sounding afraid.
But she’s lying.
Shedidn’t move here a few weeks ago,Idid.
A million thoughts race through my mind, but none of them make sense.
I worry that this is some kind of elaborate identity theft, but there is very little of any value inside. Harrison has a well-paid job, but with the mortgage and our daughter’s fees to pay, we are not cash rich. There is no logical reason for anyone to want to steal my name or my life or my things. We’re just normal people, living in a normal house, leading normal lives. I wish I hadn’t left my phone behind on the kitchen counter. At least then I’d be able to call someone, though I’m not sure who. I study the woman’s face, unnerved by how similar we look. Her long blond hair is even styled the same way as mine, her skin is painted with the same minimal makeup, and I know that’s my dress. It was from a tiny little boutique in London and I’ve had it for years, fixed it myself when it got torn at a party. I tend to make do and mend everything about my life.
She really does look like me. A slightly older, more polished versionof me. Like the me I could have been if I cared more about what I looked like. If I’d been able to spend the last ten years only looking after myself instead of my family.
The woman is clutching the front door and I see something else I recognize on her hand.
She’s wearing my engagement and wedding rings.
I always take them off when I run. Never wanting to attract attention to myself when out running alone at night. Stripping myself of anything valuable when I am vulnerable, because of a deep-rooted fear of having the things I love, things I worked so hard to get and to keep, taken from me.
