Growing up, I was always encouraged to be myself. I was taught that every person is different, and that our uniqueness is a great gift. This firm sense of self served me well as I embarked upon a career as a real estate agent, home renovator, and TV personality. But my whole identity was challenged the morning I woke up and there were two of me.  

That day changed the way I think about everything.

When I woke up and saw the man lying in bed next to me, I could have been staring at a reflection of myself. His hair was meticulously coiffed and his teeth artificially whitened, but something was a little off. Maybe there was a certain hollowness about the eyes. I screamed in surprise and asked who he was. Then, to my shock, the man responded in what sounded like my own voice and called me brother.

At first I thought it was just a dream brought on by the stress of having too many renovations on my calendar. But when I reached out to touch his face, he gave me a high-five and yelled, “Let’s go make some magic and finish this rehab!”

As we installed wainscoting that day, I started to realize just how similar we really were. This look-alike followed me around Home Depot like a shadow, and when we reached for the same box of panel board nails, we both let out the same forced laugh in perfect unison. It was totally surreal. I remember seeing his face playfully peek through a hole I had hammered into the drywall and thinking, for a half-second, that it was a mirror.

When I called my mother, I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Is there another me? The question made her as confused as I was, but not for the reason I expected. She claimed he had always been with me. That was impossible, though—I’d never met this man before in my life! She insisted I turn on the tele-
vision and look for myself.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. For years I’d hosted the HGTV series Property Brother, but on my screen now was a show called Property Brothers. As in plural. It was the same logo and everything, but with an “s” at the end. There we were, my doppelgänger and I, side-by-side as we transformed fixer-uppers into dream homes. In episode after episode, we could be seen pulling pranks, ribbing each other, working to ensure each renovation was on time and on budget. Any viewer would assume, falsely, that these two men shared a deep bond.

Pretty soon I’m seeing me and my clone on billboards, on social media, in ads during hockey games. I watched the Daytime Emmys, and someone who was an absolute dead ringer for me was walking Zooey Deschanel down the red the carpet. I couldn’t escape it. Wherever I went, people asked me about my “twin.”

I was left with no choice but to confront this man who claimed to be my brother and called himself Jonathan. I walked into the kitchen where he was picking out tiles for a new backsplash, grabbed a putty knife, and held it to his throat. “Where did you come from?” I yelled. With a wry smile on his face, he calmly instructed me to “take a deep breath” and “trust the process.”

In my ensuing madness, I considered ending Jonathan’s life. We were working on a couple’s forever home, one with beautiful hardwood floors that no one would dream of tearing up to search for a body. The time was right to strike. Yet when I got him alone in our trailer, Jonathan stopped me cold with a dire warning: “If you kill me, you kill yourself.”

Since then, I’ve tried to make my peace with the knowledge that there are two of me in this world. It’s still startling to see his—our—face turning the corner of a hallway in a refurbished condo, but we’ve had fun sharing our wardrobes of slim-fit oxford shirts and well-pressed flannel button-downs. On occasion, I even answer to “Jonathan.” But each morning I wake fearing there could be a third Property Brother out there. The whole experience has left me with one question I just can’t seem to shake: 

Who am I?