While My Husband Was at Work, the Twin We Never Knew About Came Home Pretending to Be Him #5

The knock came at 2:07 p.m.

I remember the time because I was scrubbing the kitchen backsplash, elbow-deep in lemon-scented foam, and wondering if Hayden would remember to pick up oat milk on his way home. He usually did. And brought croissants home with him, too.

But he wasn’t supposed to be home for another three hours.

I wiped my hands, still damp, and padded to the door. When I opened it, he was standing there. Hayden, gray hoodie, work lanyard still hanging from his neck.

“Why are you home so early?” I asked, my stomach fluttered with surprise. “Is everything okay?”

My husband didn’t kiss me. He just stepped inside, eyes flicking around me like he was trying to place the space.

“I wasn’t feeling well, my boss let me go.”

I closed the door behind him, slowly. Something in my chest shifted. Not quite alarm… just… off. But he hadn’t kissed me hello. He hadn’t called me ‘sweetheart’ or ‘moonpie’ or any of the names he usually did.

He just moved down the hallway like someone seeing it for the first time.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

I followed him to our bedroom. The sheets I had just smoothed were already wrinkled from him rummaging through the drawers. He opened his nightstand. Then the dresser. Then the closet. He didn’t stop to look at me.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

He paused, like he’d only just remembered I was there.

“Something for work.”

“That specific?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, just… give me a sec, babe.”

My husband had never called me that before. Not “babe.”

Hayden called me “Mar,” or sometimes “Mouse” when he was feeling sweet. Never babe.

I crossed my arms, watching him. Our cat, Waffles, crept into the doorway. She adored Hayden. She always slept curled against his legs every night. But today, she stopped short. Her tail fluffed up. She hissed.

“We still have that thing?” he asked, glancing at her.

My blood chilled. Hayden would never speak about her like that. In fact, I would bet my life on the fact that Hayden would love Waffles more than any child we’d have.

“Hayden,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “Are you sure you’re okay? Should we go to a doctor? I’ll drive. Or would you like some medication and soup?”

He stood up fully then. He smiled like someone trying to remember how.

“Didn’t you move our family stash? I can’t find it… I need it for work.”

That didn’t even make sense.

“Our… what?” I gasped.

“The stash. You know… the emergency cash we keep?”

“We don’t keep cash in the house, honey,” I said slowly.

“Yes, we do. I’m so sure you said it was in the bedroom,” his eyes narrowed.

I had absolutely no idea what he was on about. But I needed to play along. I needed to buy myself some time.

“No, honey,” I said, my voice low, slowly backing toward the door. “We moved it… remember? After the break-ins down the road, we moved it to the basement…”

For the first time, he looked… satisfied.

“Show me,” he said.

I led him back downstairs, heartbeat thudding behind my ribs. I opened the basement door, flipped the light on, and stepped aside.

“Just there, in the vanity under the stairs. Go on, I’ll be with you soon. I just want a drink of water.”

He paused, then nodded slowly. Then, he passed me, took the first two steps…

And I slammed the door shut behind him. I turned the lock. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Then I ran.

I stood on the porch and called Hayden. The real one.

He picked up after just one ring.

“Mar? Everything okay?” he asked.

“There’s a man in the basement pretending to be you,” I said. “Please come home. Now!”

Silence.

“I’m coming. Marissa, don’t go into the basement. Just make sure the door is locked. Try and jam it from the outside. Call the police. Stay outside.”

I did exactly as he said, trying to secure the basement door with an umbrella handle. Then, I went back outside to sit on the porch and wait for my husband. Waffles was nowhere to be seen.

Twenty minutes later, Hayden pulled up, breathless and pale. Waffles bolted out of the house from her hiding place, winding around his legs, tail flicking like a flag of loyalty to her dad.

“What happened?” he gasped.

I told my husband everything, not realizing the way my hands shook as I spoke.

We stood in the hallway, listening to the basement. Silence. Whatever fake-Hayden was doing, he sure was being silent about it.

The police arrived ten minutes after that. The man came up quietly, hands raised, no struggle at all.

He looked just like my husband. Like someone had copied Hayden’s face but got the soul part wrong. Same brown eyes, but colder. Same mouth, but it never smiled right.

Grant. That was his name. We learned it after.

Grant said that Hayden had been drinking alone in a bar two months ago. That they’d locked eyes from across the room. They’d talked. Swapped birthdays. Realized they were born on the same day, in the same city. Grant followed him for weeks. Learned our routines.

He told the cops everything. No fight, no resistance. Just a slow, broken voice.

“I grew up in group home,” he said. “I never had a family. I never had a home.”

The story unraveled in pieces. The hospital. The adoption records. Twins separated at birth. A clerical error. An entire life missed.

“I never knew all of that,” Hayden whispered. He sat right next to me, jaw clenched.

I watched Grant, he looked like a ghost. Or maybe I was the ghost, watching someone else’s life through my eyes.

Later, after the police left and Grant was gone, the silence in the living room pressed down like a second ceiling. Hayden sat on the edge of the couch, hands hanging between his knees. He decided not to press charges, but Grant was gone with the police, they were going to drop him off at the place he was staying.

I stood by the window, arms folded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “You met someone who looked exactly like you. Same birthday. Same city. And you didn’t think I should know?”

“I didn’t think it was real,” he said. “I thought the guy was full of shit. People say all kinds of stuff at bars.”

“Hayden! He looks exactly like you! Not to mention that he showed up in our house… There was a stranger in our bedroom. Asking about money. Walking around like he owned the place. He called me ‘babe.'”

Hayden looked up.

“Even Waffles knew something was wrong. She hissed at him, Hayden. She’s never hissed at anyone other than the delivery guys.”

He opened his mouth, but I kept going.

“I was scared, okay? For a full ten minutes, I thought I was losing my mind. He looked exactly like you, but he wasn’t you. He was… hollow. And I was alone in this house with him.”

Hayden dropped his head into his hands.

“I’m sorry, Mar,” he said. “I should’ve said something… I just…”

“What?” I demanded. Gone was the worried wife. Gone was the scared Marissa.

Now, I was just angry.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “That someone out there lived the same life as me, minus all the good parts. That I got you, and a home, and a job… and he got… nothing. He got none of this. He just bounced around the system. It made me feel sick.”

His voice broke a little, and it cracked something open in me, too.

“I didn’t want to say it out loud,” he whispered. “Because the second I did, it became real. And I didn’t know what to do with that.”

I didn’t answer. I just walked over and sat beside him. We stared straight ahead, not touching.

“Next time,” I said finally. “If there’s ever anything that feels even remotely dangerous, or weird, or even just off… you tell me.”

“I will,” he said. “I swear. I promise.”

“And for the record,” I muttered. “You’re never allowed to call me ‘babe.'”

A tiny laugh escaped him.

“Noted.”

Even after all of that, my husband had kept in contact with Grant. There was something in his voice I hadn’t heard before when he spoke about his brother. Something cracked.

The next week, Hayden offered Grant a job at the warehouse where he worked.

“We need packers and people to take stock, Mouse,” he said. “That way he’ll earn an income, you know?”

“But he’s not staying with us,” I told my husband, as I made salsa. “This isn’t some long-lost reunion movie.”

“I know,” Hayden said. “But he’s still my brother. And we have no parents. That means I’m responsible for him, Marissa.”

“Yes, but I’m still recovering from the incident, Hayden. Give me a second to catch my breath.”

My husband nodded.

“I don’t expect you to forgive him,” my husband said. “But I’m not going to pretend that he doesn’t exist.”

A few days later, we invited Grant to dinner.

I cooked more than necessary, roast lamb with lemon and rosemary, mashed potatoes, a beet and walnut salad, and a loaf of sourdough I’d started two days before.

It was excessive.

But I think I just needed the chaos of it, the clatter of pans and the slow roast smell, to fill the silence I was afraid might hang too heavily once he arrived.

Grant showed up ten minutes early.

Waffles perched on the counter like a judgmental witness, watching him without blinking. She didn’t hiss this time, but she didn’t move toward him either.

He wore clean clothes. Still Hayden’s face, but with different posture, slouched shoulders, and a guarded sort of stillness.

“This smells good,” he said.

“I hope you like rosemary,” I replied, smiling. “Take a seat.”

We ate mostly in silence. Grant picked at his food like someone who wasn’t used to having so much of it. Hayden asked a few questions about how things were going at the warehouse. Grant answered with one-liners.

Tense. Flat. Still, something in him shifted as the wine bottle emptied.

Midway through dessert, a chocolate torte, he cleared his throat.

“I know you didn’t have to do this. Either of you.”

I didn’t respond. I focused on the cherry ice cream in front of me.

“You’re not alone anymore,” Hayden said. “That matters. That counts for something. I’ll help you find an apartment soon.”

Grant’s eyes flicked toward me.

“You cooked like someone who wanted me to feel welcome… thank you.”

I smiled and nodded. What else was I going to do? I needed some time to wrap my head around all the sudden changes in our lives.

Later, after he left and the dishes were done, I stood at the window again. Hayden wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“I know it’s messy,” he said.

“It’s real,” I said.

Weeks passed. Hayden checked in on Grant occasionally. A text. A ride to work. Grant never came near the house again.

Sometimes, when Hayden’s asleep, I still scroll through the security footage. I watch that version of him, the one who walked in like him. The one who had somehow gotten a lanyard from Hayden’s work…

It was all so… strange. But I trusted my husband. And I knew that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

And sometimes, I remember Grant’s face across the dinner table, when he realized that he wasn’t alone in this world.

Mostly, though, I watch Waffles curl up on Hayden’s feet and breathe easy.

She still knows the difference. And so do I.