She stopped putting cinnamon in her coffee, even though she had done it every morning since we met.
She pushed away a plate of mushroom pasta and said, "You know I hate mushrooms."
Alma loved mushrooms.
Once, on our anniversary, she had made me drive 40 minutes because a restaurant had truffle risotto.
Two days later, I came home early and found her standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
Her shirt was pulled down off one shoulder.
She was tracing the outline of the lily-shaped mark with her finger.
She did not notice me.
The look on her face was not confusion.
It was recognition.
I stepped back before she saw me.
That night, Milo refused to sleep in our room.
He lay outside the guest room instead, watching the hallway.
I barely slept.
My mind kept trying to find normal explanations.
Maybe she is stressed or exhausted.
Or maybe she has an undiagnosed medical issue.
Or some kind of memory problem.
But every explanation of why my wife was acting differently failed.
The birthmark became my biggest concern.
The next morning, Alma left to buy groceries.
The moment her car turned out of the driveway, I went upstairs and opened her laptop.
The password had changed.
I tried our anniversary. It was wrong.
Her mother's birthday was wrong, too.
Milo's name was also rejected.
Then I decided to try her birthday.
I almost didn't because one day, when we were setting up a joint social media account, I wanted to put her birthday as the password.
She refused and told me that it would be a "ridiculously obvious password."
Still, I tried it, and to my surprise, the screen unlocked.
There was almost nothing on the desktop.
No work folders, vacation photos, or even the cover photo of Milo that she normally had.
There was only one folder with a small lily icon.
I clicked it, and a video window opened.
At first, I thought it was recorded footage.
Then the image shifted.
It was a live feed.
A woman sat on the couch in a dim basement room.
She was facing down and twiddling her fingers.
She lifted her head, and I stopped breathing.
I was looking at Alma or someone who looked like Alma.
She stared toward the camera without seeing me, and I could see that she definitely had my wife's face.
If that is my wife, then who was the woman who looked just like her, currently living with me?
