Father's Day

The person—who is not my wife—hands me my coffee and smiles. 

“Happy Father’s Day,” it says. “Since Daisy’s not old enough to celebrate it, I thought I’d do it for her.”

I do not drink the coffee. I put it on the counter. 

There are many things one could do in this situation. Grab the not-wife and demand to know where my wife is. Phone the police. Scoop up Daisy and leave the house. I do none of these things. Some instinct tells me: Don’t let it know you’ve realised it’s not her. 

“Honey,” the not-wife says, “is everything alright?” 

“Fine,” I say, “Happy Father’s Day.” I grin and pick up the coffee, blow on it. I appraise the mug, which says #1 Dad on it. My wife wouldn’t give such a tacky gift. 

The not-wife grins back. Hopefully I’ve fooled it. It gives me a kiss on the cheek and I just manage to suppress a flinch. Then it leaves the house, car keys in hand, winking, telling me, We’ll celebrate properly later.

I phone in sick to work. Daisy is alright, sleeping in her crib. Safe for now. 

You think I don’t know my wife? You think I don’t know the moss green of her eyes, the way her cheeks crinkle when she laughs, the way she moves in space, softly but never meekly, like care and patience are the greatest strength? You think I wouldn’t recognise if something, even something which could so mimic her face, replaced her?

I’d fallen asleep next to her. At some point in the night, she was taken and the not-wife slithered in beside me, laced a hand around my waist. I woke to a stranger in her place, and worse, a stranger, a thing, in a sick pantomime of her. Her eyes were too bright, her voice too honied. It slunk across the kitchen, coffee in hand, insincere smile plastered on its face. Where has it taken her?

I sit in the nursery, watching Daisy. I could call the police. But they might not believe me. They don’t know my wife like I do; of course they don’t. The facade this thing’s put on may be good enough to fool them. 

I wait in the house all day, pacing, thinking, checking on Daisy, checking the photos on the mantlepiece, watching old videos of me and my wife. Our wedding day, her in her black bridal dress, a single rose pinned to her breast. Our third or fourth date, New Year’s Eve, and she’s kissing my cheek while I stare, red-eyed and grinning, into the camera. Her saying, Shh, shh, look at it in a video she took of a fawn while we were hiking. We got close and then too close; the fawn bolted, she laughed and I knew I was in love. The more I see of her, the more I ache for her and the more sharply the wrongness of the not-wife comes to me. 

When the not-wife returns, I am waiting on the stairs. It jumps when it sees me, hand to its chest.

“You scared me!” it says. 

“Where is she?”

“What,” it looks confused, then worried, “Do you mean Daisy? Is something wr—”

“Where’s my wife?”

It doesn’t laugh. It stares at me. “What do you me—”

I lunge at it. I mean to pin it to the ground, to demand it to tell me, demand it stop wearing her face. But it hits the window sill by the door and there’s a crack and it’s on the ground and there’s a red shadow widening on the carpet. The not-wife doesn’t even twitch.  

I rush upstairs. I have to get Daisy, have to work out some way of finding my wife. She can’t be dead. She must be alive, somewhere. 

When I enter the nursery, it is too quiet and too cold. The window is open and I did not open it. In the crib, there is a thing, sleeping or pretending to sleep. That thing is not my daughter.