818

The one thing that really fucking sucked was that she missed her children, and it defeated the purpose of getting an actual break. Though this break was warranted and needed. She had begun to slip into a deep dark hole. She was losing herself, slowly becoming an emotionless robot that was on autopilot for her kids and husband.

She tried giving herself grace, but she was sinking deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of depression while mouthing 20mg antidepressants and forgetting about her struggles during her appointments with her therapist.

At first it had been nice.

She had explored the small apartment of her Other in the eerie but peaceful quiet, putting the story together of what could have been. A thirty-two-year-old successful fibers artist with her own business, no kids, and her last serious relationship was over a year ago. She lived in the city in an expensive high rise luxury apartment with floor to ceiling windows and a beautiful skyline view. She had paused staring at the painting in progress that was propped on an easel by the large sliding door.

The setup spoke to her.

She longed to paint and dip an array of paintbrushes into hues of thick acrylic paint. She had longed to soak canvases with the beautiful vibrant sunset clouded skies she witnessed with her husband and children in the evenings in their backyard.

But there just wasn’t ever any time.

In that moment through her sleep deprived state her hands fought from uncapping and squeezing those tubes of acrylic paint scattered on the utility cart parked beside the easel and slather the paint over her skin. It was like the onset of trance; she had the urge to lose herself. She imagined smooth, cold paint lathered on her skin like lotion, the pigments blending forming stark colors over her deep brown skin and underneath her fingernails until the colors became muddy and warm and then she would finally feel something.

This was all what could have been. What was in a parallel dimension she had bled into.

She tore herself away from the daze of her Other’s painting station and quickly found the bedroom and buried herself into soft greige sheets. Her body, bearing the burdens of being a mother relaxed promptly and once she closed her eyes she promptly passed out from exhaustion.

*

What she had so long longed for was to not be woken up by a child hungry for milk several times a night, or her oldest child slipping into bed in the middle of the night and thrashing around in her sleep, or her husband waking her up by getting ready for work in the mornings. She wanted to wake up on her own. And for so long she believed she would feel eternally tired because she was always needed and wanted.

She finally got her wish.

She woke up refreshed, but every second, minute, and hour that passed after, her relief dwindled, and guilt became stronger.

Twelve hours. It was just for half a day.

But she was beginning to miss her kids horribly. And her husband too. Though somewhere out there at that moment in time in that world her husband existed, but her children did not and the realization terrified her.

What if her Other never came back to switch? No, she gave out a crazed laugh.

“Mommy’s being silly,” she whispered to herself. No one would subject themselves to the chaotic, yet monotonous life of a lonely stay at home mother and the weaponized incompetence of an oblivious husband. Though her Other was the one to suggest their switch to give her much needed time to herself.

Still thoughts prodded at her head, and she tried to fight down that sick feeling of doom with a toasted bread slice slathered in hazelnut spread and banana slices. But she caught herself after one bite realizing it was her oldest child’s favorite snack, and a lump formed in her throat.

4:09

She didn’t know what the hell to do with the rest of her free time.

•

The children could tell almost immediately.

She had the face of their mother, but she was not their mother. Technically she was their mother in another timeline where she did not yet have children. Still there was no connection to them as she did not give birth to them, though she felt a fondness for them both.

The twelve-month-old was the first one to notice as she gave him a straw toddler cup of thawed breast milk. He was displeased, yet drank the ounces while eying her curiously. She did not smell like his mother, nor was she capable of producing milk.

Then the three-year-old caught on with her wide dark brown eyes.

“You’re not my mommy.”

But because she appeared to be the Mother, the girl did not say much after.

It had taken her by surprise, but the child was right. She was just a temporary fill in.

The Husband wasn’t as keen as the children.

The children spent all their time with their mother after all. The Mother was the default parent. A stay a home mother without a village, but she was the children’s everything. The Mother knew everything about them- which was information she tried to remember what was relayed to her in the Grey Space. Though she tried to pretend she was their Mother, she could not understand the twelve-month-old’s mannerisms and array of noises, and struggled to understand the three-year-old at times. She was a temporary replacement without care experience. She didn’t understand children and babies and had a hard time deciphering it all. It was overwhelming, but she tried.

The Mother was counting on her, and she wanted to make her proud.

“You okay?” The husband had asked after dinner, particularly at her small outburst at being upset at all the food the children refused to eat as she picked up strewn food from the kitchen floor. He had noted she had never cooked that kind of meal before, and that she looked a bit different.

“I’m just having an off day,” she quickly replied with a hesitant smile. She wondered if he knew. If he could tell she wasn’t his Wife.

The Husband gave a questioning look, his thick lips opened and closed before thinning out into a grin and fingers scratched at his shoulder length locs then walked off. She gave out a breath, scared she had been caught, but then remembered that while she was a temporary replacement she appeared to be the Wife and Mother.

*

It was when she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself, that she realized she was slowly being sucked into an abyss of nothingness.

Who the hell was staring back at her?

Her thick, coily hair was always slicked back into a puff ponytail those days. She no longer filled in her brows or bothered with makeup. Her toenails sported chipped polish. She struggled with finding outfits to wear to suit her changed body. It was easier to grab a pair of yoga pants and one of her husband’s casual shirts printed with anime characters and move on for the day.

She didn’t care anymore, and she liked to think that her indifference of what other people thought was just to her maturing and transitioning into her thirties, but she lost herself along the way. It also didn’t help that her second pregnancy changed her body once again, and this time the soft belly she was left with was puffier and permanent.

She no longer felt attractive despite her husband commenting that she looked good every now and then. Her libido was pretty much at a negative. Her main focus was to make sure her kids were fed and clothed and entertained because they were her everything. Then came the other side of her unpaid full time job of cooking and constantly cleaning up food the kids wasted and cleaning, and cleaning, and endlessly cleaning a damn house that never stayed neat for longer than a few hours. It was banal and soul sucking, thankless work, but her sacrifice was so that they wouldn’t have to pay for childcare. She was privileged in that sense that her husband paid all the bills, but her work was often overlooked, and she was never happy with it. Her job never ended until she closed her eyes and slept for two hours or so at a time and restarted once the sun rose.

And unfortunately, it all came with the expense of neglecting herself.

•

The Mother loved her children dearly but was convinced she was not at all a great mother, which was sad. She spoke of stories of her kids that melted her heart, of the hard times and good times and times where she felt so much love for her children that she wanted to die. She was incredibly thankful and appreciative of her husband, but he didn’t fully understand her role and the strong connection to their children, nor grasped how hard it all was on her mentally.

It was because the Mother didn’t want to be a burden to her husband. She embraced the suck and rolled with it.

The Other looked around the single family home located in a suburb on the outskirts of the city. It looked lived in. Toys were strewn around here and there, and there were faded crayon scribbles on the walls in areas, but overall, it was nice and neat. The children’s rooms were coordinated with care, the main bedroom too, and it felt warm and homely. She listened to the children’s squeals as they played together and could understand the mother’s unconditional love for them as their dark curly heads bobbed and they danced to the tune of musical toys. While she wasn’t certain about the Husband as they were strangers, she knew he too loved his wife in his own way as he was excited that there was a new episode of a show for them to watch together.

It was just when one bore too much and failed to properly communicate that they were struggling was when things could go wrong. Perhaps resentment formed, and with such a minute glimpse into the Mother’s world, she understood how easy it was to get lost and forget. She after all had struggled that whole day keeping up with demands and routine of the children.

She eyed the green numbers on the stove display from the kitchen. It was almost time.

Perhaps maybe they would do this again in the future.

*

The Mother swallowed back her guilt and chaotic thoughts. She struggled to reframe her fear of never seeing her children again as it would be her worst nightmare.

Without them, she had nothing to live for.

She grabbed a blank canvas and replaced the Other’s painting in progress on the easel. The funny thing was that she hated painting, but there was a hunger inside of her to express and be creative. She had pushed that all aside with the birth of her children, but even that had her questioning her passion for art. Whether she was ever passionate as a creative and took it seriously. She hesitated whenever she walked past her bins of packed art materials at home, though she longed to sift through them and get lost in her own world.

It was easy to paint with the kids, but her three-year-old was always finished with her abstract creations by the time she finally sat down and came up with an idea. Then came the cleanup, which took longer than setting everything up.

Her brushstrokes were shaky as tried her best to capture evening view. That evening sunset clouds were exceptional. Thick bands of clouds ranging from gray blues and deep pinks and bright golds spread against the sky. Her grasp of color theory was still sharp, but she was fearful of the result. Still, she tried and persuaded herself that it was okay, and that trying was good enough.

She layered blobs of colors trying to create what she saw before her, working quickly in plein-air, losing herself to time and quieting down her mind.

*•

Both baths filled slowly. Both hearts raced with every rise of the water line and single digit change of the clock.

*

Soon she would be back.

She would hug her children and absorb as much detail of their little faces and bodies as she could, and she would kiss her husband and cuddle him because for once she wasn’t overstimulated and touched out.

When the water was a good height in the tub she unrobed and sat down in it.

Her exhaustion was what led her there in the first place to the Grey Space, a connection between worlds and timelines. It was where she had met her “doppelgänger”. They regarded each other with curiosity. They learned about each other’s life, and her Other made the mention about switching.

“Whenever you need some rest, I’ll be there.”

They had the choice of where to go back, and after a test confirmed they were connected by the strange space and time they agreed on a date and time. There was a strange tug at her core as a signal for them to meet, and they had figured out the best time to do so. At bath time in the evenings so she could have an excuse to get a few minutes away.

The first time had been an accident. Nothing intentional. They had both somehow found a void connected between mirrored actions.

It was then at that moment she realized the nature of their meeting as she calmed her breathing, that her Other was not happy either.

Her Other was lonely.

She lowered herself down, down, down until her face was submerged underwater and the stark white ceiling of the bathroom became blurry.

*•

“Let’s do this again?” she shyly asked while facing her mirror.

Her twin nodded, “Maybe until we’re finally happy?”

“Yes.” She thought to the near future where both kids could communicate clearly and had learned to control their big feelings. The future where her distance with her husband was repaired and they both shared a bed together without their children in between them. The future where everything was finally all in place. Though deep down she feared she maybe still wouldn’t be happy and that there would always be something else.

“Sounds like a plan.”

They hugged before passing each other to go to their properly assigned worlds, leaving the Grey Space behind.

*

She was launched back into her world with force, eyes wide, vision blurry. Her hands grasped at the edge of the tub as she sat up and gasped for breath, her thick hair soaked as she wiped her face and squeezed water from her hair.

A familiar floral shower curtain was to her right, and her husband’s body wash was stationed at the corner of the shower shelf to her left.

A sigh of relief.

The corners of her mouth twitched as she broke out into a grin and heart leapt. She was back.

She checked the time on her cell phone that was at the far end of the tub.

8:18pm