Who Is the Woman Kissing My Husband?

My three-year-old daughter hides behind the sofa whenever I try to hold her now.

“Mommy is scary,” she whispers, clutching her stuffed bear.

I thought it was just a toddler phase. Until I checked the hidden camera in my bedroom.

A woman who looked exactly like me stepped out from the shadows of my antique mirror, slipped into my husband’s bed, and kissed him.

——

I sat locked in the study, staring at the live feed. Out of the shadows of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, a woman stepped onto the rug.

She wore my missing champagne nightgown. Her dark hair fell in my exact cut.

Dominic shifted in his sleep. His arm snaked out. He pulled her against his chest, his thumb lazily stroking her spine.

Bile surged up my throat. I killed the screen and shoved away from the desk.

In the hallway, Freya stood frozen near the top of the stairs. She gripped her stuffed bear, trembling.

"Baby, why are you out of bed?" I crouched, reaching for her.

Freya flinched violently, hitting the wall.

"What's wrong? It's Mommy."

Freya hesitated. Slowly, she raised a shaking finger, pointing past my shoulder at the master bedroom door. "Mommy," she whispered. "Is the singing lady gone?"

"What lady, Freya?"

Her lower lip quivered. "The one by the big mirror. She smiles and sings the baby lullaby. She rubs her tummy... but there's no baby."

I snatched Freya up, kicked the bedroom door wide open, and slammed the light switch.

Dominic groaned, shielding his eyes. I yanked back the covers. Empty.

I spun toward the mirror. Only my pale, panicked face stared back from the antique glass. I dumped Freya in the armchair and flew across the room, jamming my hands behind the mirror, clawing at nothing but solid wall. Nothing.

"Genevieve?" Dominic squinted at me. "What are you doing?"

I spun around. "Where is she?"

"Where is who?"

"Don't play stupid! The woman!" I pointed at the empty space. "She crawled into this bed. I saw the camera feed."

Dominic swung his legs out of bed. He reached out to press his hand to my forehead.

I slapped it away. "I'm not crazy." I pulled up the hidden camera app and shoved my phone into his chest.

A gray box flashed: [File Corrupted.]

I snatched it back, wildly dragging the timeline to eight o'clock. Static. Nine o'clock. Snow.

"There is no video, Gen," he said calmly.

"She was here—"

"If you just quit that demanding architecture job and focused on preparing for a second child, you wouldn't be having these psychotic breaks."

"Leave my job out of this."

Dominic sighed, pointing at the armchair. Freya was curled into a tight ball, weeping into her bear. "You're scaring her."

He gripped my shoulders, pulling me toward the bed. "I'm under enough pressure at the bank. I can't handle you inventing hallucinations to avoid talking about having a son."

He pulled me onto the mattress, wrapping his arms around me.

My face pressed into his neck, and my breath caught.

Underneath his sandalwood cologne, a sickly-sweet floral scent clung to his skin. Tuberose. A perfume I didn’t own.

I lay rigid against his chest, staring into the dark until dawn.

The kitchen smelled of sizzling bacon.

"You look awful," Dominic noted, sliding a plate across the island. "Sleep it off today."

I ignored the food. "We need to talk about the camera glitch."

Dominic stopped chewing. "Are you really going to use our daughter to invent a ghost story? Just because you don't want another baby?"

"Freya saw her. She told me—"

Dominic crouched beside the highchair, cutting me off. "Freya, sweetie. You just had a bad nightmare last night, right? There was no lady."

Freya looked at his stern, smiling face. She bit her lip and obediently nodded.

My stomach hollowed out.

By noon, I was staring blindly at a blueprint at my firm. A file slapped onto my desk.

My partner, Sarah, crossed her arms. "Third revision you've botched, Gen. You've been a ghost lately. Go home."

I didn't argue. I grabbed my keys.

The house was dead quiet. I grabbed a hammer and tapped every inch of the wall behind the antique mirror. Solid concrete.

Frustrated, I dragged the kitchen trash out to the curb. Across the low fence, a blinking red LED caught my eye.

My neighbor, Margo, had installed a new smart doorbell. The wide-angle lens pointed directly at my front porch.

I crossed the lawn and knocked on her door.

"Genevieve!" Margo smiled.

"Margo, I'm so sorry. I think a package got stolen off my porch last night. Could I check your camera? Around ten?"

"Of course." Margo pulled out her phone.

I scrolled the timeline to 9:45 PM.

A woman appeared on my driveway. She wore my navy wrap dress, her dark hair falling perfectly over her shoulders. She stepped up to my door and pressed her thumb against the biometric lock.

The bolt clicked. The green light flashed. She walked inside.

Margo squinted at the screen. She let out a polite, confused little laugh.

"Genevieve... isn't that you?"