The sun was streaming through the curtains, promising a beautiful Saturday. I rolled over, stretching, ready to cuddle up against Mark’s familiar, scratchy cheek.
I opened my eyes. And then I opened my mouth.
“AAAAHHH!”
I woke up and screamed because there was a strange man in my bed.
The man jolted awake, eyes wide with terror.
“AAAAHHH!” He screamed back.
I scrambled backward, grabbing the lamp as a weapon. “Who are you? Where is Mark? What have you done with my husband?”
The intruder held up his hands. “Sarah! It’s me! It’s Mark!”
I squinted. The voice was Mark’s. The pajamas were Mark’s. But the face? The face was a terrifying, smooth landscape of pale skin I hadn’t seen since the Obama administration.
It was my husband.
“Mark?” I whispered, horrified. “What… happened to your face?”
He rubbed his jaw self-consciously. “I got bored. I thought I’d try a new look.”
He had shaved his beard off entirely for the first time in 10 years while I was asleep.
I stared at him. Without the beard, his mouth looked too small. His neck looked too long. He looked like a giant, overgrown toddler who had stolen my husband’s voice. It was unnatural. It was disturbing.
“I can’t look at you,” I said, covering my eyes. “It’s like seeing a turtle without its shell.”
“It’s just hair, Sarah!” he pleaded. “It’ll grow back!”
“Exactly,” I said, pointing to the door. “And until it does, you are banished.”
I made him sleep in the guest room until the stubble grew back.
He tried to argue. He tried to tell me I was being dramatic. But I stood my ground. I couldn’t sleep next to that stranger. I didn’t know that chin. I didn’t respect that chin.
His chin looked “untrustworthy,” I told him, slamming the door.
So now, I sleep alone in the master bedroom, waiting for the five o’clock shadow to return and restore my husband’s identity, while the smooth-faced impostor sleeps down the hall, learning the hard way that some secrets are better left covered.