he walked through their house gently running her fingertips over their possessions. The silver picture frame with all their smiling faces, the dried roses that, from a distance, seemed in bloom -- their scent always reminded her of Madeira. She took a moment to breathe them in.She kept on down the long hall her fingers glancing off framed prints, inkings, badly crayoned portraits done by her children and bad oil paintings done by her friends. These were the things she treasured. They reminded her of family and friends and what made her who she was. Stretching her arms wide the pads of her forefingers caressed the sharp edges of twin mirrors. Hot tears ran silent down her face. Drawing back from the walls she wiped them from her eyes and it was as if she had never cried at all.
There, just past the facing mirrors was her room. Their room. She loved this room. She loved everything about it. She loved the thick heavy drapes that hung there in winter. Soon she would change them to lighter linen versions. She loved those too. She loved the diverse wood furniture with its dark cherry mahogany finish. She loved the wide iron four-poster bed and the bare chandelier that held mosquito netting in summer. She loved the posts draped with velvet or muslin in winter. She loved the children that sat on her lap and smiled or cried or laughed or slept while she sat in the slide rocker next to the French doors. She loved the phone conversations she had here. She loved the books that rested in their shelves across the room from her there. Her gaze turned back to their bed. It was covered in rich reds and blues laced with a bright silver. Soon, soon she would change the spread to reflect the changing weather and with it her changing mood. Yes, she loved that bed. She’d wanted it for more years than she could remember. She loved that bed and the man that slept in it.
Standing she made her way across the smooth carpet draped hardwood picking up the articles that decorated their room in turn. They were all where they should be. Nothing had changed. Even her daughter’s toy car lay where she’d dropped it on her father’s side of the bed. She and her brother had been racing their toys across the starry expanse when she’d shooed them off to school. Now it sat wheels up ready for her father to step on when he came home that night. There on the dresser was his comb. He hadn’t cleaned it out for the past few days, he was usually so meticulous about such things but then again the past few days had also been busy ones.
It didn’t change things. She was convinced, there was a stranger in her house.
She couldn’t be sure when it happened, when the switch had occurred. She couldn’t even be sure when she’d realized that something was wrong at all. Maybe it was when the children sat sullen at the kitchen table for breakfast last Friday. The sister and brother, while not always the best of friends, were rarely quiet. If they weren’t laughing at some joke the other had told they were laughing at something the other had done. There was no such thing as peaceful mornings in her house, especially not on Friday, a fact she was quite proud of. Especially not when their father was with them yet she’d found the three people she loved most quiet and withdrawn making a late entrance to breakfast that morning.
Yes, that had been the first sign. No, no not the first sign but the first time she was aware of the changes going on in their household.
Then there had been Sunday: a storm had driven the entire family into the iron and mahogany room. The deep scarlet muslin drapes had been arranged so that they were shielded from the wild light show outside the French doors. Beth and Jonny had clung to their mother waiting . . .waiting . . .waiting . . .until they fell asleep waiting. Their father never told them the scary story that would frighten the deafening thunder outside. There were no shrieks of fear and giggled nervous laughter to chase the nightmares away. And there were nightmares that stormy night for the first time since older sister Beth had swept her four year old brother into their room. Twice in turn she had been wakened by her children’s whimpers of fear. Four times that night she comforted needless tears. Four times as she calmed them she looked over at the man she loved oblivious to the children he loved and their pain. Four times she watched him sleep like the dead.
“Beth and Jonny had nightmares last night,” she’d reported calmly waiting for his reaction.
“Oh,” he answered without looking up from his shoes and socks. “Are they all right?” he asked but there was no true concern in his voice.
Usually he was the one who came back from their rooms playing Daddy the Consoler. Usually she was the one who heard about their night time turmoil first thing. “Just thought you might want to know,” she said leaning on the door frame, her arms crossed in front of her.
He looked up but at the mirror on the wall beside her instead of his wife. “You handled it right?”
“Yes.” The satin of her nightgown whispered across her bare legs as she shifted slightly. If he noticed the suspicion in her voice it didn’t show.
“Well then that takes care of it, right?” It was phrased as a question but was really a final statement. Cased closed, in his mind the matter was done with. He stood and adjusted his tie.
It was rare that he was dressed before her. There bedroom in the morning was usually the touchdown site of a whirlwind with the two of them crashing and careening about trying to alternately get themselves dressed and make sure the children were getting ready too. One would occupy the mirror while the other saw that the children were well and truly awake. They would switch giving over the mirror and taking over the children. But then sometimes one or the other woke early and had the leisure of dressing like a more sane person. The other would tend to Beth and Jonny. Then eventually he or she would be leaning on the door frame watching the other watch themselves in the mirror. S/He would walk over to their spouse and fix something s/he had failed to notice, give s/him a kiss on the cheek that spoke volumes of their love for each other and go back to helping the children.
Those days were always the best. They were the calmest, the ones filled with good surprises and of care and hope and love.
She felt no compunction to fulfill their ritual. She should be over there right now, batting his hands away from the neckpiece to fix it herself. Instead she stood against the door frame and simply watched him. If he was disturbed by this he gave no sign.
“Mommy!” She pivoted and walked down the hall. By the time she made it back he was gone. She took a step out the French windows. His car was gone. He’d left without goodbye.
Sitting at the kitchen table alone after the children were gone she reviewed the past month in agonizing detail. They rarely touched anymore and when he did they were indifferent embraces. They were cold impersonal things that bordered on cruelty. She remembered the way Beth had avoided her father. The two were usually bosom buddies. She hadn’t seen them hug in weeks. She hadn’t hugged him in weeks.
Yes there was a stranger in her house.
She’d been contemplated for the better part of the week how to confront him. Part of her still hadn’t been sure but walking through the quiet house on this gray afternoon . . .she was knew. Again she was glad her children were attending a sleep over. She didn’t know if she could manage this with them home. Reaching back she plucked a small oval object from her night stand. In her small hands were the two of them in Madeira, Spain. Somehow he’d managed to get the print sepiaed giving it an aged look it didn’t have. Their foreheads touched but while he only had eyes for her she had turned her head slightly to smell the wildly blooming roses in her hand. The roses that bloomed eternal on the hall table; it was her favorite.
He’d looked just like that this morning. It appeared to be the same man in the picture but . . .she couldn’t be sure anymore.
She could feel the tight knot forming in her throat that always meant tears were threatening. If only she could hold out for a little while longer, then he would be home. Only a little bit longer, only a little bit, if she could only hold back the tears till he stepped through the door. So she waited.
There was no, “Honey I’m home,” not that they were the type. They were more a “Anyone here?” kind of couple but there hadn’t been any after work greetings for a long time. No wonderings of how either was feeling except for the most perfunctory of questions. Theirs had become a most quiet marriage. Very wrong indeed. But there was the slam of the door. There was the heavy sound of his shoes on the stairs and the loud thump as he walked down the hall. He walked through the open door of their bedroom and threw his briefcase onto the bed.
“Who are you?” she asked without preamble.
He turned surprised. It seemed like the first true emotion he’d displayed in weeks. “What?”
“Who, in heaven’s name, are you because you aren’t my husband.” She stood. Perhaps she’d waited too long for this.
“What are you talking about Wi--”
“You can’t be my husband. He wouldn’t treat me like this -- like a trophy to be admired, barely. When he touches me my skin doesn’t crawl. When he looks at me I don't want to look away. Who . . .are . . .you?” she asked slowly, angrily.
“I’m the man you married Willow,” he answered calmly if not a little confused.
“Oh really because the man I married loves me. The man I married loves and adores his children and they love and adore him. The man I married has a relationship with his daughter that I sometimes envy. Maybe you haven’t noticed but you barely say two words to me anymore. Johnny and Beth avoid you like a vampire and when was the last time I saw you and Beth sharing a conspiratorial whisper? When was the last time I caught the two of you doing something silly and whimsical and just being friends? Who are you? If the walls could talk they would have nothing to tell.”
“I’ve been busy with work, Willow. I’m sorry I haven’t had time for you and the children--”
“And the man I married doesn’t call his children ‘The Children!’”
“-- but things will get better. You just have to bear with me.”
Willow stood anger pulling her like ebb and flow tides. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get,” she said very slowly and with deliberate care, “out of my house and away from my children. I don’t know who in the Hellmouth you are but you are not Oz.”
He approached her with the same bland, icy calm he’d approached everything over the past month. “Yeah, baby, I am.”
Willow slapped him. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
For a long moment the air sung with the sound of flesh on flesh. It seemed to ring in Willow’s ears the way that porcelain bowl had, once when she was a little girl, when she’d dropped it. Slowly, as if caught in a honey bubble, Oz touched his offended cheek. An angry hand shaped welt was beginning to form. The shock in his eyes was the first emotion he’d displayed in . . .
“Oz would have known better,” she hissed. She could feel her proverbial hackles raise. “Get out.”
“No.”
“Fine!” Willow edged her way around him. Oz caught and yanked on her hand. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked baring too many teeth.
She looked at him aghast. “What do you think this will prove?! Nothing. Let me go.”
“No.”
She struggled against him but Oz only held on tighter until the feeling in her hands began to go. “Damn you, let me go!” she ground out finally resorting to bending her hand and sinking her manicured nails into the tender flesh of his inner wrist. With a short gasp he let released her. Willow took no chances and ran out the room; ran down the stairs; ran out the house.
This wasn’t how she planned it. She wasn’t supposed to be the one leaving. She wasn’t supposed to ask him to leave. She was going to confront him and they were going to talk and everything would be better and she’d go downstairs to breakfast with three happy loving people not three strangers. It had all gone wrong.
And she was running.
Willow didn’t know where she was going, didn’t even know why she’d kept running after escaping Oz. Escaping Oz? She couldn’t ever remember a time when she’d wanted to leave, let alone escape. Everything was so wrong and so she slowed. It was foolish for her to be out so late alone in Sunnydale but she was better prepared than most. As darkness settled itself more fully about the town the air turned brisk. She’d run out in just her wrapper and while she was decently dressed it hardly guarded against the chill. Unwilling to go back until one of them had regained their senses she had to be content with pulling it closer to her thin form.
She had to talk to someone but who? This wasn’t a Hellmouth situation, there were no demons involved, wasn’t a vampire for miles and if there was a spell cast she would have known it. Or could it be her? Was it possible that she was the impostor? Was it that she wanted more and Oz was unchanged? Was the world okay and she the one insane? The thoughts stopped her cold. Something was wrong and she was going to see it fixed . . .even if that meant fixing herself.
God, she had to talk to someone, she thought with the fervency of a prayer.
Buffy? Buffy! Walking alone through a deserted main street. It was like a dream. Her friend was crossing her path . . .her would be path. The pale blonde tresses were longer than Willow remember but her face, oh her face, was younger than she remembered too. It must be a trick of distance and cold and fatigue and fear. Here is it is, here it is . . .
“Buffy?”
The blonde stopped and turned surprising her hence unseen companion suddenly out of sync with the aged Slayer. One step ahead Willow realizes she is not alone and is ready to wave her friend off.
“Willow?” There are the lines of age. There is the slight limp in her step. There is herself. “Buffy?” she asks again more lost than when she discovered all was wrong with her world. She was walking with Buffy? But she was standing down the street looking at herself walking with Buffy or was she standing with Buffy watching herself down the street?
The Slayer looked from one bobbed redhead to the other. If not for their attire they were mirrors of each other in gesture, in demeanor, in fear. They seemed not to know whether to turn away or connect. “Who are you?” Only Buffy could hear her words but her clone seemed to mouth them in a whisper. She reached for Willow’s hand. It wasn’t there. “Willow!” she called after the redheads on a collision course.
All she could think as she ran to Buffy (to her double) was it her fault. It was her, it was her, it was her (My husband wouldn’t. . . ), it was her (The man I married. . . ), it was her (When he touches me. . .) it was her (He wouldn’t treat me. . .), it was her (When he looks at me. . .). It wasn’t Oz, it wasn’t the children it wasn’t even the Hellmouth she was the one who was wrong, out of place, the dreadful anomaly. Was Buffy even really her friend? No she was this other Willow’s friend, the Willow that ran to her with such pain and fear. Was she trying to destroy her, the evil doppelganger, because she’d ruined her life? How couldn’t she have known that she was the one who was wrong? How couldn’t she have known? How couldn’t she have known? How coul--
Buffy was momentarily blinded by the light.
Before Willow realized what she was doing she’d nearly run headlong into . . .herself. There had been an awful collision -- her head was ringing -- yet she was sure it wasn’t herself she’d run into. Palms flat on the pavement she looked left and right to find the street deserted. A hand appeared in her field of vision. The thing she’d collided with.
“Oz?”
e-mail the author~make your own fun