The Woman Wearing My Dress

I was supposed to stay in the hospital until Friday.

On Tuesday afternoon, my doctor signed the discharge papers early.

By 6:20 that evening, I was standing inside my own apartment, staring at a dinner table set for two.

There were two wineglasses.

Two plates.

A vase of white roses.

And a woman’s purse on the chair that wasn’t mine.

I almost called out for Brian.

Instead, I heard the elevator stop down the hall.

I smiled despite the ache under my ribs.

I had been in the hospital for nine days after what was supposed to be a routine gallbladder surgery turned into a mess of complications. Brian thought I wouldn’t be home for another three days.

I decided to surprise him.

The balcony door was open a few inches, so I stepped outside and pulled it almost shut behind me.

I planned to wait until he came into the living room.

Then I heard a woman laugh.

Brian unlocked the front door.

He walked in with his arm around her waist.

I stopped breathing.

She was blonde.

About my height.

About my build.

Then she turned toward the light.

My stomach tightened.

She was wearing my navy wrap dress.

Not something similar.

Mine.

I knew because there was a tiny repair near the left shoulder where I had caught it on a cabinet handle the previous Christmas.

The woman had styled her hair almost exactly the way I wore mine.

Even her lipstick was the muted rose shade I used.

Brian kissed her.

Then he touched her cheek and smiled.

“It’s getting scary how close you look.”

She laughed.

“That’s the point.”

My hand went to the railing.

Brian poured wine.

The woman walked around my apartment as if she had lived there for years.

She opened my kitchen drawer without looking.

She knew where the corkscrew was.

Then she stopped in front of a framed photograph of Brian and me.

She picked it up.

“You’ll have to get rid of these.”

Brian took a drink.

“Soon enough.”

She looked at him.

“And after that?”

Brian’s answer came so casually that for several seconds I thought I had misunderstood him.

“After that, you have her name. Her apartment. Everything.”

The glass in his hand touched hers.

A tiny clink.

I stood barefoot on the balcony in my hospital clothes and listened to my husband toast to a life in which I apparently no longer existed.

“She Won’t Be Leaving That Hospital”

The apartment had belonged to my aunt before she died.

She left it to me outright.

It was worth a little over $500,000, and Brian’s name had never been on the deed.

That had bothered him more than he admitted.

Over the previous year, he had suggested selling it at least six times.

Every time, I said no.

Now the woman in my dress walked into our bedroom.

When she returned, she was carrying the small gray document case I kept in the closet.

My birth certificate.

Property records.

Tax documents.

An expired passport.

I gripped the balcony railing harder.

“These are originals?” she asked.

“Most of them.”

“Most?”

Brian sounded irritated.

“Enough.”

She lowered her voice.

“What if she comes home early?”

He gave a short laugh.

“She won’t.”

“Brian.”

“Relax. We have someone inside the hospital.”

She stared at him.

Then he said the sentence I still remember word for word.

“She won’t be leaving that hospital.”

My hand moved automatically toward the incision beneath my shirt.

Nine days.

A fever that appeared without explanation.

Medication that made me sleep for hours.

A nurse I didn’t recognize changing something on my IV before another nurse came in and asked who had authorized it.

At the time, I had assumed hospitals were chaotic.

Standing on that balcony, I wasn’t so sure.

I needed my phone.

It was on the kitchen counter.

My wallet was beside it.

There was no way to reach either without walking directly past Brian.

The neighboring balcony was about four feet away.

I looked down.

Seven stories.

Then I looked through the glass.

The woman was holding my birth certificate.

I climbed over the railing.

Pain tore through my abdomen.

I nearly cried out.

I pressed my forehead against the concrete divider until it passed.

Then I stretched one foot toward the neighboring balcony.

I made it.

The apartment belonged to an older couple who spent most of the year in Florida. Their balcony door was locked, so I crossed again to the fire stairs.

Twenty minutes later, I was outside.

No phone.

No money.

No identification.

Still wearing the clothes the hospital had discharged me in.

And I had one person left whom I believed I could trust.

My mother-in-law.

Linda Made Me Chamomile Tea

Linda Miller had called me her daughter for eleven years.

When my mother died, Linda sat beside me through the funeral.

When I had surgery, she brought soup to the hospital.

Every birthday card she gave me was signed, Love, Mom.

Her townhouse was about two miles away.

I walked most of it.

By the time Linda opened the door, I was shaking.

“Jessica?”

Her face changed.

She pulled me inside.

“Oh my God. What happened?”

I started crying.

I told her Brian had another woman in our apartment.

I told her the woman was wearing my clothes.

I told her what I had heard.

Linda covered her mouth.

“Brian did this?”

I nodded.

She hugged me.

“Sit down. You’re safe here.”

Those words almost broke me.

She took me upstairs to the guest room and brought me a blanket.

Then she made chamomile tea.

I had worked in a neighborhood pharmacy for twelve years before moving into administrative work. I wasn’t a pharmacist, but I had spent enough time around medications to recognize certain smells.

I lifted the mug.

Something underneath the chamomile was wrong.

Chemical.

Slightly bitter.

I looked at Linda.

She smiled.

“Drink it. You need sleep.”

I pretended to take a sip.

“Thank you.”

She touched my hair.

“Of course, honey.”

When she left, I poured the tea into the bathroom sink and got into bed.

Ten minutes later, I heard her talking downstairs.

I stepped into the hallway.

“Yes, she’s here.”

Silence.

Then: