Women, What’s Something Worse Than Cheating That You Discovered About Your Partner?

The Duplicate Apartment

I was supposed to be at work when I saw my husband Tom get into his car at 2:00 in the afternoon. He’d called in sick that morning with a stomach bug, but here he was walking just fine to his car with a duffel bag.

We’d been married for 3 years and lived in our suburban house for two. Tom worked in accounting and never took sick days unless he was really dying. Something felt wrong, so I decided to follow him.

I kept three cars between us as he drove across town. He wasn’t heading to the doctor or the pharmacy. After 20 minutes, he pulled into an apartment complex I’d never seen before.

Canyon Ridge Apartments near the University District. He parked and grabbed his bag like he’d done this a hundred times before.

My chest felt tight as I watched him unlock apartment 67 with his own key, not knocking or waiting for someone to answer. His own key on his key ring right next to our house key.

I sat in my car for 5 minutes trying to breathe normally. There had to be an explanation that wasn’t him cheating on me.

I waited until he’d been inside for 15 minutes before I got out of my car. The door wasn’t fully closed. Tom must have been in a hurry and didn’t pull it tight. I pushed the door slowly and stepped into the apartment.

The first thing I saw was our couch. The exact same gray sectional we’d bought last year from Costco. Same throw pillows. Same blanket my mom had crocheted for us draped over the back.

Everything was the same. Our TV stand, our bookshelf. The apartment layout was identical to our house’s first floor, just compressed into less space. Even our family photos were hanging on the walls.

Tom, I called out.

The footsteps stopped. I heard him say something, but not to me. He was talking in a higher voice, like he was imitating someone.

Then his regular voice responded. A whole conversation between Tom and someone who wasn’t there.

I walked toward the bedroom, and that’s when I saw the dining room table. It was set for five people, five plates with food on them, a high chair at one end with baby food in a bowl, a booster seat with dinosaur nuggets cut up small.

Tom came out of the bedroom and froze when he saw me. But what made me step backward wasn’t his surprised face. It was the wig he was wearing. a long blonde wig styled exactly like my hair.

He was wearing one of my dresses, too. The blue one I’d worn to his office party last month.

Becky, I can explain.

That’s when I noticed the other wigs on the couch. A small black one that looked like a little boy’s haircut. A brown one with pigtails. A gray one styled like Tom’s mother wore her hair. A bald cap with liver spots drawn on like his father’s head.

Tom, what is this?

He sat down hard on our duplicate couch, still wearing my dress and wig. He looked small and broken in a way I’d never seen before.

I wanted to practice being a family, the kind we talked about having. Two kids, maybe three. My parents visiting for Sunday dinner.

There was a dog bed in the corner. Food and water bowls with Max written on them. No actual dog, but all the stuff for one.

We can still have that family, I said carefully.

No, we can’t.

The fertility tests were hard, but we have options.

He shook his head and pulled off the blonde wig. His own hair was thin underneath, thinner than I’d noticed before.

It’s not about fertility, Becky.

Then what?

He stood up and walked to the hallway closet. Inside were more wigs, more costumes, a pregnancy belly that strapped on, baby clothes in different sizes, Halloween costumes for children aged 2 through 10.

I planned their whole lives.

Emma would be seven now if we’d gotten pregnant when we first started trying. James would be five. The baby would be 18 months. He knew their names, their ages, their birthdays. That never happened.

How long have you been coming here?

6 months since the diagnosis.

What diagnosis?

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Tom’s hands started shaking and he sat down hard on the couch, still wearing my blue dress. He pulled at the blonde wig until it came off and dropped it on the floor between us. His real hair underneath looked thinner than I remembered.

He pressed his palms against his knees like he was trying to stop them from trembling. I couldn’t move from where I stood by the dining table with its five place settings.

The baby food in the high chair was starting to separate and the dinosaur nuggets on the booster seat looked cold and dry.

Tom opened his mouth twice before any words came out. He told me he had Huntington’s disease. The name meant nothing to me at first.

It sounded like something from a history textbook, but the way he said it made my legs feel weak. I walked over to the duplicate couch and sat down on the opposite end from him because I needed to sit, but I couldn’t be close to him right then.

I told him he needed to explain everything right now or I was walking out that door and I meant it.

Tom nodded and his hands were still shaking when he started talking. He said he’d noticed problems with his coordination about a year ago. Small things like dropping his coffee cup or having trouble with buttons on his shirts.

Then his mood started changing in ways that scared him. He’d get angry over nothing or feel sad for no reason he could name. He researched his symptoms online and kept finding the same disease name, Huntington’s.

He made an appointment with a specialist 6 months ago and the neurologist ran tests. The genetic test came back positive. Tom had been living with this diagnosis for half a year while I had no idea anything was wrong.

I asked him why he didn’t tell me right away, why he let me think everything was fine while he was dealing with this alone. Tom said he needed time to process what it meant for our future.

His voice got quieter when he explained that Huntington’s is genetic. Any children we had would have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease from him.

50%. Like flipping a coin to decide if our kid would get sick and die young.

He said the apartment became his way of experiencing the family life he believed we could never have now.

I stared at him sitting there in my dress and I didn’t recognize my own husband.