The clone watched her leave and then went right back to his crossword. In the silence, Jeremiah looked at him and tried to recollect the exact moment he’d realized something in his marriage had changed. Diana’s added hours at work had been noticeable, of course, but the first inklings of her infidelity had been subtle, quiet things. Something in her tone of voice, or her eyes, maybe. The way she started filling up long silences with pointless banter and conversations that led nowhere. He’d been staring at her one night as she sat in front of her mirror, combing her hair with a private, unexpected smile on her face. When she noticed him there, she put down her comb and left the room without a word. He had the distinct impression that he had intruded on something. That was the moment, he realized now, that she knew he knew. After that, they’d settled into a quiet, defeated sort of acknowledgment of the thing, without anger and without any words at all. It had become something they skirted around and averted, as though avoiding it might spare them some awful truth ten times worse. It was then, Jeremiah supposed, that he had stopped all attempts at intimacy with her, even small ones—reaching for her hand or brushing stray hair from her face. Eventually, that lack of physical contact began to feel normal. And that was the real charade, he thought, almost worse than the cheating itself. The knowing and not facing it. They were both guilty of that. And so, too, now was the clone. And in some way that he couldn’t fathom, that aspect bothered Jeremiah more than anything else. Had he been harboring some latent hope that his clone would be stronger than he was? Did he think his double would have the guts to face things? To fix things? To do what Jeremiah himself couldn’t do himself? He’d come closer than Jeremiah had, but he still hadn’t said anything.

Jeremiah didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the clone’s Sunday morning. His double flipped through the pages of the newspaper at the kitchen table and then left in his car to do a few errands, the cameras losing sight of him each time he parked and got out, and picking him up again when he got back in. Jeremiah felt like a silent passenger waiting in the car. He was relieved when the monitor switched off just before the clone turned into his driveway to pull into the garage.

“It’s decently after noontime,” Jeremiah said almost the instant the monitor switched off. “I could use a beer.”

“We’ll do the questions first,” Brent said. “Then yes, I want a beer.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” Jeremiah said. “No, no and no. The clone didn’t do anything surprising, I wouldn’t have done anything differently and Diana certainly didn’t show any signs she wasn’t talking to me. Done. Get us a beer.”

Chapter 14

Days 85-87

“How long have you been married, Jeremiah?” Brent asked a few days later over bland braised chicken.