The day started like any other. I was juggling grocery bags, a baby on my hip, and four kids tumbling out of the car like a pack of wild animals. My toddler whined for crackers, my five-year-old dragged his backpack across the driveway, and I tried to keep it all together as chaos erupted around me. I had no idea that within minutes, my entire world would be turned upside down.
We had been living in my childhood home for two months, ever since my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack. The house was filled with memories—my mom’s laughter echoing in the kitchen, the smell of pancakes on Saturday mornings—until cancer took her from us twelve years ago. My husband, Harry, and I had decided not to sell. Moving back felt like the right thing to do, even if it meant facing the ghosts of my past.
As I bent down to grab the last bag from the trunk, my eight-year-old daughter, Nicole, came running back outside, her face pale.
“Mom! The storm shelter door is open!” she shouted.
My stomach dropped. That shelter had been locked for months, sealed tight with a key that only Harry and I possessed. Something was very wrong.
“Stay inside and lock the door!” I ordered, dropping the groceries where they fell, apples rolling across the driveway. My legs shook as I walked toward the backyard.
The storm shelter gaped open like a dark, yawning mouth in the earth. Every instinct screamed at me to grab my kids and run, but then I heard it—a voice drifting up from below. A woman’s voice.
“Hello?” I called, my own voice trembling.
Footsteps echoed on the concrete stairs. A figure emerged into the sunlight, and what I saw made my blood run cold.
It was me.
Or at least, someone who looked exactly like me.
The woman had my face, my eyes, even the same stubborn dimple in her chin. The only difference was her hair, soft and wavy where mine was tied back in a messy ponytail.
I stumbled back, breathless. “Who the hell are you?”
She smiled faintly. “You must be Lauren. My name is Jessica. Please don’t call the police. Your husband knows about me—he gave me the keys.”
My head spun. Harry? My husband was supposed to be at work. None of this made sense.
Jessica reached into her bag and handed me an envelope. My father’s familiar handwriting covered the front, and my knees almost buckled.
“He wrote to me before he died,” she said softly. “Lauren… I’m your twin.”
The world tilted. I had grown up believing I was an only child. Now a stranger with my face was telling me my entire life was built on a lie…
