The Man Wearing My Bathrobe

I came home to Columbus sixty-two days earlier than planned.

The overseas consulting contract that had taken me to Singapore had ended without warning. My client lost funding, apologized, and put me on the next available flight back to Ohio.

I expected to spend my first evening sleeping in my own bed.

Instead, my neighbor grabbed my arm before I could reach my apartment.

“Daniel, thank goodness you’re back.”

Harold, who had lived across the hall for almost fifteen years, looked exhausted.

Dark circles hung beneath his eyes.

“Whoever’s staying in your place has to stop the screaming.”

I frowned.

“What are you talking about?”

Mrs. Lopez stepped out of her apartment before Harold could answer.

She folded her arms.

“The gentleman living in your apartment. Nice enough during the day. Says hello. Waters the plants outside your door. Signs for packages. But every night…”

She hesitated.

“…every night, we hear someone screaming.”

I laughed once.

Not because it was funny.

Because nothing she said made any sense.

“Nobody has keys except me.”

Harold exchanged a worried look with Mrs. Lopez.

“Then maybe you’d better open that door.”

I pulled my keys from my pocket.

My hands suddenly felt heavier than they should have.

When the lock clicked open, I smelled fresh coffee before I saw anything else.

Not stale air.

Not an empty apartment.

Fresh coffee.

Someone had been home.

A Life That Wasn’t Mine

The lights were on.

Soft jazz drifted from the living room.

A ceramic mug sat on my coffee table with steam still rising from it.

There was a folded blanket on my couch.

Fresh laundry rested neatly inside the basket I usually kept beside the hallway closet.

Someone had cooked breakfast.

The faint smell of bacon still lingered in the kitchen.

I stood completely still.

Every object belonged to me.

Every detail belonged to someone else.

Then I noticed something that made my stomach tighten.

The family photographs were gone.

For twenty years, framed pictures had covered one wall of my living room.

Emily as a little girl riding her first bicycle.

My parents celebrating their fiftieth anniversary.

Christmas mornings.

Church picnics.

Camping trips.

Every frame had disappeared.

Only clean rectangles remained where sunlight hadn’t touched the paint.

I whispered to myself.

“Who would take pictures and leave everything else?”

A floorboard creaked upstairs.

Footsteps.

Slow.

Unhurried.

A man in his late forties walked down wearing my navy bathrobe.

He stopped halfway across the room.

He looked at me quietly.

Not surprised.

Almost disappointed.

“You’re home early.”

I stared at him.

“Who are you?”

He glanced around the apartment.

Then back at me.

“I could ask you the same question.”

For several seconds neither of us moved.

Finally he sighed.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen for another eight weeks.”

Those words hit me harder than seeing him inside my apartment.

Not supposed to happen.

As though someone had planned my absence.

“What did you just say?”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“Forget I said that.”

“No.”

I stepped closer.

“Tell me exactly what you meant.”

The Stranger Refused to Leave

He walked into the kitchen instead of answering.

He poured himself another cup of coffee.

My coffee.

Then he placed a second mug on the counter.

“Would you like some?”

I almost laughed.

“You’re standing in my apartment wearing my robe, and you’re offering me coffee?”

He nodded.

“It’s Colombian. You always buy the same brand.”

That sentence froze me.

How would he know that?

I hadn’t said another word.

He looked at my face and finally seemed to realize how frightening this looked.

He set the mug down.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“This isn’t how I wanted us to meet.”

Us.

Not you.

Us.

I reached for my phone.

“I’m calling the police.”

He didn’t stop me.

He didn’t move toward me.

Instead, he quietly said something that made my finger freeze over the screen.

“Please don’t.”

“Give me one reason.”

His voice became almost painfully calm.

“Because I didn’t come here to steal from you.”

I looked around.

The television was still there.

My laptop.

My books.

The artwork.

Nothing appeared missing.

Only the photographs.

I pointed toward the empty wall.

“Then why those?”

He looked at the blank spaces.

For the first time, real emotion crossed his face.

“I couldn’t look at them anymore.”

The Truth Begins to Surface

I should have thrown him out.

Instead, curiosity held me there.

Nothing about this man matched a criminal.

Everything inside the apartment had been cleaned.

Bills waiting in the mailbox had been organized by date.

The dying fern by the window looked healthier than it had in years.

Even my old Bible sat dust-free on the bookshelf exactly where I had left it.

Only the photographs had vanished.

I lowered my phone.

“Start talking.”