When Joel told his mother he was leaving, Evelyn thought it was just another one of his dramatic moods.

“Mom, I’m serious,” he said that afternoon, standing in the doorway of her living room. “I need to go away. I need to figure out who I am without… well, without everything here.”

Evelyn sat on the couch, dressed as she often was-stylish even at fifty-four. That day she wore a cream blouse beneath a neat little bolero jacket and a cream miniskirt, her legs wrapped in suntan pantyhose. Her blond bob was freshly styled, and the thin-rimmed glasses perched neatly on her nose.

“You’re not running away, are you?” she asked gently.

Joel laughed nervously. “No. I just need space. Time to find myself.”

They had always been close-closer than most mothers and sons. They saw each other several times a week and talked on the phone every day. Sometimes twice.

Evelyn looked at him for a long moment, studying the son she adored.

“Well,” she finally said, smoothing her skirt, “I suppose every young man needs to figure himself out.”

Joel nodded.

He hugged her tightly before leaving.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll come back when I know who I am.”

Then he was gone.

---

At first Evelyn expected a call.

Then a message.

A postcard.

Anything.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.

Nine months passed without a single word.

By the sixth month she had stopped dialing his number every evening. By the eighth month she had stopped expecting him to suddenly appear at the door.

Still, every time a car stopped outside her house, she glanced toward the window.

---

One sunny afternoon, nine months after Joel had left, a car pulled into her driveway.

Evelyn looked through the curtains.

An Uber.

She frowned slightly.

The back door opened.

A woman stepped out.

Evelyn watched absently at first, assuming the driver had dropped someone off at the wrong address. But then the woman turned toward the house.

And Evelyn froze.

The woman looked exactly like her.

The same blond bob haircut.

The same thin-rimmed glasses.

The same posture.

Even the same outfit.

A cream blouse beneath a bolero jacket.

A cream miniskirt.

Suntan pantyhose.

Evelyn slowly stood as the woman approached the door.

The bell rang.

With a mixture of confusion and unease, Evelyn opened it.

The woman smiled warmly.

“Hi, Mom.”

Evelyn’s heart skipped.

The voice.

It sounded like hers.

Same pitch.