Three Years in a Coma. A Stand-In Stole My Life.

I was in a coma for three years after the car accident.

When I finally woke, my family cried with relief.

Their attentiveness was almost too perfect. Beneath the devotion, something felt wrong.

There were men's clothes in the house that didn't fit me.

Baby items I didn't recognize kept appearing in my mother-in-law Susan's shopping cart.

My father-in-law David got a congratulatory text from a friend about “a newborn.”

And Serena, my wife, was always working late.

The night Serena left for another “business trip,” I followed her.