I had just come home from work, kicked off my heels, and was pouring a glass of juice when my 5-year-old daughter Lily tugged my sleeve and said:
“Mommy, do you want to meet your clone?”
I laughed. “My what?”
“Your clone. She comes over when you’re at work. Daddy says she’s here so I won’t miss you too much.”
Something about the way she said it made my skin prickle.
My husband Jason had been on parental leave for the last six months. After I got a promotion, we agreed I’d work full-time while he stayed home with Lily.
But lately… something felt off. Lily had started saying strange things.
When I asked Jason about the “clone,” he just said, “Lily’s got a wild imagination.”
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling.
Then, one day, I asked Lily when “clone” exactly she was coming.
Lily answered. “She comes right before my nap time.”
Me: “And what does she do with daddy, dear?”
Lily: “They go in a bedroom and shut the door. But I peeked once. Daddy was sitting and crying. She hugged him. Then she said something in a different language.”
I didn’t sleep that night. So, I secretly set it up Lily’s old nanny camera in our bedroom.
When I was supposed to be at work, I turned it on. And here’s when my heart froze because there entered a woman. But that face… that face was unmistakably my own.
I packed my laptop away quickly and drove home. I had to know the truth.
When her five-year-old daughter starts talking about a mysterious “clone,” Emily tries to laugh it off… until a hidden camera and a soft voice speaking in another language reveal a secret buried since birth. This is a haunting, heartfelt story about motherhood, identity, and the family we never knew we were missing.
