The receptionist had expected a routine appointment.

Instead, the office door swung open and a young man in a muted lavender dress hurried inside with the nervous urgency of someone arriving at the emergency room after discovering smoke in the kitchen. His beige ballet flats clicked anxiously against the tile floor as he clutched his purse against his side.

“Oh thank goodness,” he said breathlessly. “Doctor, you have to help me. My son is behaving very strangely.”

Dr. Feldman looked up from his clipboard.

The patient standing before him could not have been older than eighteen or nineteen. He had delicate features, an asymmetrical bob framing his face in sleek dark waves, and makeup applied with practiced restraint. Soft pink lipstick. Subtle mascara. Carefully shaped brows. His gold hoop earrings swayed each time he moved his head.

But the energy he carried belonged to an entirely different person.

He fussed with the hem of his lace-trimmed dress as he sat down, crossing his legs with tense precision.

“Mrs. Jennifer Hutton,” he introduced himself.

The doctor paused only briefly before writing the name down.

“And your age?”

“Forty-three.”

Dr. Feldman’s pen slowed.

The young man leaned forward urgently. “It’s my son, Chet. He’s acting just like me. He’s dressing like a middle-aged woman when he should be dressing and acting like an eighteen-year-old man.”

“I see,” the doctor said carefully.

Jennifer continued frantically. “He’s wearing pantyhose, makeup, jewelry-he even copied my hairstyle. He talks like me. Worries like me. He spends twenty minutes deciding which moisturizer to use. Yesterday he called the pharmacy to complain about a coupon expiration!”

His pink nails fluttered dramatically in the air.

“I mean honestly, what eighteen-year-old boy does that?”

Dr. Feldman opened his mouth to answer, but a knock interrupted him.

The office door opened.

A woman stepped inside.

She appeared to be somewhere in her early forties, with the same asymmetrical bob haircut, the same muted lavender dress with lace trim, the same suntan-toned pantyhose, the same beige ballet flats with bows. Even the jewelry matched: gold hoops, delicate necklace, slim bracelet.

For a brief moment, the doctor thought he was seeing double through some bizarre trick of perspective.

Then he looked closer.

The resemblance between them was obvious-same eyes, same nose, same mouth-but they did not actually look alike.

Jennifer looked unmistakably like a teenage boy attempting to embody a mature suburban mother.

The newcomer looked unmistakably like a middle-aged woman.

The woman sighed the second she entered.

“Mom,” she said tiredly, “you didn’t need to make a doctor’s appointment over this.”

Dr. Feldman blinked.

Jennifer pointed dramatically. “See? SEE?”

The woman folded her arms. “She’s overreacting.”

Dr. Feldman slowly turned toward her. “And you are?”

“Chet Hutton.”

“And your age?”

“Eighteen.”

The doctor stared.

Chet shrugged casually and sat down beside Jennifer, crossing her legs in an almost identical manner.

“I know how this looks,” Chet admitted. “But I just like dressing like this.”

Jennifer gasped in wounded disbelief.

Chet continued, “I bought these clothes with my own money. Mom shouldn’t freak out like this.”

The doctor gave her a long look.

There was no trace of irony in Chet’s face.

No confusion, either.

Unlike Jennifer’s frantic certainty, Chet seemed perfectly calm about the entire situation.

Dr. Feldman looked back and forth between them.

The son looked like the mother.

The mother looked like the son.