The magic ultrasound wand slopped through the jelly on Emma’s stomach. “The hell d’you put in the bean dip??” Emma flung at me from the exam table.
“Beans!” I screamed accurately.
“Please don’t upset her,” Dr. Lukavic pleaded, trying to get an image on-screen.
Ted was now our neighbor just down the hospital hallway with a nasty case of botulism. Personally, I didn’t think the exorcism we witnessed was botulism.
Emma changed the topic to another grievance, “And why didn’t you do anything when he was hitting on me?”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to,” I said without an eyelid flutter.
“Of course, I wanted you to!”
On the ultrasound monitor, it one of my daughters had pole position in the womb. She reclined in front of her twin, hogging the screen to herself. She’d probably be an actress or a TikTok-er. She gazed through the screen at her fool of a father, delivering a pre-emptive dose of disappointment that would be regularly revisited throughout life. Just then, her twin’s face appeared behind.
A half-smile at her lips.
I rocketed to my feet and clattered into an expensive medical device.
“What’s wrong with you?” Emma wondered, reading Lukavic’s mind.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?” Our daughter floated peacefully in the amniotic fluid. No smiles, half or otherwise.
“You’ve been acting very strange.”
“What do you want me to act like, Emma?”
“A father maybe!”
“I don’t even know if the babies are mi—!”
I tried to swallow the words but it was too late. Dr. Lukavic gasped. Like, audibly gasped. Of course I didn’t mean it like Emma took it—like how it precisely sounded—I knew she’d never have an affair on purpose. But like, the guy looked an awful lot like me. Emma’s response was inevitable.
“Don’t come home tonight.” She was out of there as quickly as possible, and I didn’t try to stop her.
Dr. Lukavic broke into an unwanted story. “I had a patient once, everything was normal. A bit of gestational diabetes but nothing we couldn’t manage. Around the sixteenth week of pregnancy, she started talking about visits from her sister. She refused to have an appointment unless her sister was present. Wanted me to grant the sister access to her medical records. But there was no sister. She never had one. She became convinced her long lost twin had come into her life to welcome the baby together. She also was convinced her husband wasn’t the father, despite the paternity tests. We treated her for pregnancy psychosis, but things got worse. Excessive stress induced labor at eighteen weeks. She lost the baby.” Dr. Lukavic placed a hand on my shoulder. “The Doppelganger isn’t real, James, but its effects can be.”
As I swung on my coat to leave, my hand bumped against an object in the pocket. By the time I realized I was withdrawing the severed finger, it was too late. Pro tip: when your wife’s gyno is doubting your diminishing sanity, pulling a decaying human finger from your pocket does little to allay concern. With nothing left to lose, I placed it in his gloved hand and actually uttered the words, “CSI this shit.”
I stood in the doorway of Ted’s hospital room, watching his dumb face sleep. Beeping monitors and hissing machines played Beethoven’s 5^(th) Hospital Symphony. Just because I didn’t cause his predicament didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it.
The room suddenly grew cold. My breath became visible. The hairs pricked on the back of my neck. I heard the crackle of ice crystals spiderwebbing across the window. I felt the presence of someone—or something—behind me.
“Are you family?” a nurse questioned from the doorway.
“No I’m uh…” I stammered, looking down, horrified to see a pillow clutched in my white-knuckled fingers above Ted’s face. “A friend,” I managed.
“A family member will need to sign for his discharge tomorrow.” I secretly wondered if they’d call him an Uber. I heard the disappearing clack of footsteps and slid the pillow underneath Ted’s head. His iPhone sat in an Imagine Dragons case on the bedside table. I raised it to his face and unlocked the screen. I flicked to his Uber app, changed his password, and was out before I even knew the plan. I figured I had until his discharge tomorrow before he realized I was in his account.
I had 24-hours to find the Doppelganger.
It was 2:37am, and there was no sign of the Doppelganger. I’d been Ubering on Ted’s account for fourteen hours straight, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t taking time to enjoy the small things. “Thank you for riding with Ted,” I said to my pax, placing a hand on his thigh. He scurried out of my car, and in record time – ding!
REVIEW RECEIVED: 1 Star
Suck it, Ted.
A new ping came in. $3.53 fare. 2.3 mile trip. Pickup 0.9 miles away.
Accept. Both times the Doppelganger had landed in my Uber were under different user accounts, so I couldn’t be selective. I had to cycle through as many rides as possible in the next ten hours to find him and ask my question.
A young professional slipped into my car sipping a boba tea. I never understood boba. It tasted okay, but the balls, man. Every time I adjusted to the sweetness of each sip, a ball would whack me square in the lips. Mmm this is actually pretty yummy—BALL!—pretty yumm—BALL!—prett—BALL! BALL! BALL! BALL! BALL—
Emma hadn’t answered my calls since the ultrasound heard round the world. I apologized over voicemail and text message. What I said was inexcusable. It’s just that the twins were coming, and I had no way of making money and this Doppelganger thing, Ted’s cheap wine, his stupid fucking commentary, “You know what I’d take if I was him?” The way he touched Emma’s belly! Pretended to speak to my babies! My babies—!
Ding!
REVIEW RECEIVED: 1 Star
It was from the boba ball girl. I didn’t remember even dropping her off.
bzzz bzzz. A text from Emma! I opened to a picture of a paternity test confirming my fatherhood with the searing note:
Now do you believe me?
I wanted to tell her I was a stupid dumdum, and I never considered she’d cheat! I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go! Just wait, I was gonna be the best father to those two precious girls! As a physical response to the category 4 neurological hurricane brewing in my brain, I suddenly slammed the CR-V to a halt in the middle of the road. When I looked up, I couldn’t believe where I’d driven.
The faded lettering above the glass double doors read FOREST ACRES SENIOR LIVING. I can’t say I walked there, because I didn’t. My feet carried me against my will. And yes, the CR-V sat unoccupied in the middle of the road.
I stood in the doorway, regarding the prune of a man staring out the window from his wheelchair. My voice managed to crack in a single syllable.
“Da—d.”
The old man craned his head around, and we were face-to-face for the first time in decades. His eyes sat deep in his skull like cavernous craters. His powerful jawline stretched wrinkled skin like steel girders. He had a good head of hair for his age, even if it looked like steel wool.
“Do I have a brother, Dad?” The question was in itself absurd, but so were our circumstances. My father needled the depths of my soul through constricted eyes, as if holding the moral high ground. Laughter exploded from his chest with such force I thought it might tear through.
“Remember our last trip, Dad?” I could tell he did. “The night we came home from Disney World, Mom made me chicken pot pie. Her makeup was smudged under her eye. I told her about the trip. What we ate and the rides we rode. Epcot. You had a broken nose. Someone had jumped you outside a business meeting but didn’t take anything. ‘Could’ve been worse,’ you said. By that point, I was old enough to know our trips weren’t about father-son bonding. It wasn’t enough for you to sneak around on Mom, you had to include me. We ate, and we lied, and I didn’t tell Mom about the smudge under her eye. I didn’t want her to know I knew she’d been crying.”
It was unlikely he’d remember this conversation, but if he did, I wanted it to be the following, “Next time I saw her, she was on her stomach hanging from a doorknob. You had to research how to do something like that.”
All Mom ever wanted was for someone to ask about the smudge under her eye, and I never did.
I broke eye-contact before he could see the tears welling. I was at the doorway when he finally spoke. “There’s no brother. I didn’t want another after you. My. Perfect. Boy.”
Fuck you for making me complicit. Except I was a coward. “See ya round, Dad,” is what I said.
As I Frogered traffic toward my car in the middle of the street, I took an incoming call. Dr. Lukavic declared without context, “Nothing.”
“Huh?”
Lukavic stammered, “I ran the DNA of the—uh—well the digit—there was nothing there. The DNA was blank.”
“Like you couldn’t get a good sample?”
“No.”
HOOONNNNNNKKKKKKKKKKKK. A driver took exception to me standing in the road.
Dr. Lukavic’s tone soured, “The sample contains DNA structure. The double helix are present. They’re just… empty. Like whoever the finger belongs to has no DNA. Like they’re not…” He didn’t finish the sentence, and he didn’t have to. “Human” was the word he left out.
When I slid into the CR-V and adjusted my rearview mirror, there he was in my backseat. Like a second-generation VHS copy that lost its humanity in the dub. And those eyes, those black fucking eyes. I wanted to ask if he was responsible for Margot with a “T.” If he poisoned Ted. If he was the father of my twins, tricking Emma into conceiving with someone that looked just like me. And what was he doing in my car? In my life?
You invited me in.
Suddenly I was back in Orlando, trailing Dad under cover of night. The Salty Fish Bar. I didn’t enter; I was only twelve and didn’t want him to know I was following. He thought I was back at the hotel. I spied through the window as he greeted a middle-aged brunette and kissed her full upon the mouth. I grit my teeth and felt a terrible rumble rising in my head…
You always invite me in.
Memories flashed my brain—
Margot with a “T” exited my car…her one-star rating dinged my phone…the rumbling in my head grew louder…
The Doppelganger held up his right hand, spreading three fingers and a thumb. A stump where his pointer finger once was. One down—
…a spitball hit me in the face and rolled to Mr. Maliborski’s feet…I got a detention, same as the bully who fired it…Maliborski’s tires slashed that night…they didn’t believe I didn’t do it and I was expelled…the rumbling grew still louder…
CRUICK! The Doppelganger broke his middle finger in half—
…crouching behind a car watching Dad exit The Salty Fish…arm around his companion… rumbling growing louder and louder…my temples pounded…my brain screamed…couldn’t take much more—FWUMPP!—a fist connected with Dad’s face…a mysterious man stood above my father…who was he…where did he come from…I was intoxicated with justice as the figure swung at my father again—CRACK!—and shattered his nose…
CRUICK! The Doppelganger snapped his right ring finger—
Only his pinky remained, standing tall above the other mangled fingers. Who did this last finger represent? Who did the Doppelganger want me to hurt?
My cell buzzed me from dreadful thoughts. Emma! I quickly answered, “Honey?”
“It’s time!”
“What do you mean?”
“The babies–!”
“But it’s too soon!”
“THE BABIES…!!”
“Emma? Emma!” but she was gone.
The Doppleganger began to bend his pinky sideways—crrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—the terrible stretch of bone—iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—until the bone snapped—ICK!
No. Not Emma.
She uses you.
But I love Emma!
She has wronged you.
I would NEVER hurt her.
She pursues her dream.
While you abandon yours.
Emma must pay.
The doors locked. The gas pedal depressed. The CR-V blazed down the road. I tugged at the wheel and stomped on the brakes, but I couldn’t gain control. As we threaded traffic, images of Emma began to race. Twelve-year-old Emma smiling at the boy with the statistics answers. Me at the altar, gazing upon the woman inexplicably walking down the aisle toward me. Emma revealing her pregnancy to a man that looked like me but wasn’t me. None of them were. The twelve-year old in statistics. He now looked like the Doppelganger. The man marrying my precious Emma. Doppelganger. My precious daughters…
We fishtailed across lanes of traffic and straightened out, hospital in our sights. I wasn’t in control. I never was. I’d gone along with my father’s sins, picked apart my mother molecule by molecule. I’d allowed pax to emasculate me countless times a day. And now I was sacrificing my ambition so that Emma could purse hers! I was a passenger in my own life! All I’ve sacrificed for Emma! I didn’t even know if my babies were even mine!
I am your courage.
The Doppelganger was right. It was time to stand up for myself.
We raced at the hospital entrance. The speedometer needled 75…80…85…No! I could never hurt Emma! I loved her and the babies! I’d do anything to protect them!
I unbuckled my seatbelt, looked him in the eyes, and said something I’m proud of to this day—
“You ain’t shit, DoppelFucker.”
I yanked the wheel with all my strength, the CR-V veered off the path and—WHAMM!—into a tree, rocketing the Doppelganger and I through the windshield—CRISHH! We skidded across the pavement, and the world went dark.
I figured a brush with death would teem with philosophical epiphanies and earth-tilting-off-its-axis revelations. But as I dangled in the in-between, all I heard was a joke Ted told once.
What do you call a Billie Eilish Doppelganger?……………Billie Eilish-~ish~.
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
beep beep. beep beep. beep beep…
My eyelids cracked. Though I’d tried my best for the alternative, I was alive. I turned my head to the heaving beeps and hisses of machines wired into me. Turning my head hurt. Noted. I leaned upright with great effort, dragging IV lines forward. So did sitting. I was alone in a hospital bed. I slid to the floor, pleasantly surprised my legs didn’t give out. Each slap of tile against my skin hit like fire. Walking was excruciating. Super to know! I peered out the window. As the sun’s flares diminished and my eyesight adjusted, blurred objects came into view. A car…an SUV…a tow truck dragging it away from a tree. A CR-V. My CR-V! There was an accident, I think? Emma had gone into labor! It was all coming back. Though seeing my car as an accordion made me wonder about the status of my face, a more important thought overtook me – it was the same day as the accident! Maybe I hadn’t missed my daughters’ birth!
I raced down the hospital hallway like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas day, past doctors regarding me with a mixture of pity and horror. I resisted a Brazilian nurse with an off-putting amount of blood on her scrubs trying to physically drag me back to my room. It must’ve been a sight to get a Jerry Maguire line from someone who looked like Frankenstein or Frankenstein’s monster or whatever, but here we were.
“I’m looking for my wife.”
“Emma Wiggins?”
I nodded, and she led me down the hallway. The glares of passersby assured me my face was a Jackson Pollack. The only thing that mattered was Emma and the babies. The nurse stopped in the doorway of a room. “She’s a trooper. Was a close one,” she offered with a dollop of judgement. I noticed a ladybug skittering across the threshold, and marveled at the universe. It gave Emma a guardian when I couldn’t be there.
squitch! The nurse’s foot exploded the ladybug.
“In my country, it’s bad luck for a ladybug to visit a pregnant lady,” she declared. Looking upon the firework of green pus, I resisted the urge to tell her in my country ladybugs are considered sweet creatures. As I looked closer, however, I noticed something else. Something unsettling.
The ladybug had two heads.
I edged toward Emma’s bed as if approaching a ghost. Tubes ran into her nose. Her rosy face belied a struggle I wasn’t around for. Her eyes opened with a flutter. I refused to cry. I wasn’t entitled to tears. I searched her face for signs of hatred, or worse, indifference.
“I failed you—failed our babies. I missed their birth. I’m so so—”
Emma’s hand touched mine. She was an angel. “Promise me,” she said in a strained voice more powerful than the sweetest song. “You’ll never—mention—the Doppelganger— again.”
“I promise,” I said, desperately wanting it to be true…