by Emma H., grade 9

She sees him. 

He waits in the back of the room until everyone else is gone. Until it is just her and her thoughts. He is a part of her thoughts. He’s not really there with her. He can’t be. But he picks her up. Sets her on the couch. Makes sure she knows she’s not alone.

That’s what sons do. 

When his twin sister wanders down the stairs, he sends her back up to bed. She sees him, but is too tired to thank him. She is too high up there To rid the pain from her system. She doesn’t realize that he can’t really be there. She doesn’t want to realize. She makes her way up to her room with him in tow. 

He tucks her into the bed covered in teddy bears and stuffed animals won from county fairs and arcade games. Sets the glass of water on her nightstand. Makes sure she knows she’s not alone. 

That’s what brothers do. 

The house is quiet. The boy is sure his father is already asleep.  And that he’ll shoot up out of bed, calling out his son’s name and breaking down further with every deep wail. Trying not to wake up the rest of the house. His wife is on the couch again. His daughter has gotten into bed.

His son waits in the back of the room, before stepping forward and wrapping his dad up in his arms. He tells him to go back to sleep. That he’s right here with him. That there’s no need to call out for him anymore. 

They share a final hug. Making Dad forget that he isn’t actually there. The son sets his father’s mind at ease.

That’s what sons do. 

The next morning the house is more silent than it was in the night. No one says a word as they dress all in black, Neither woman bothers with makeup. Dad drives. Mom in the passenger seat. Daughter in the back. Her brother holds her hand as she falls apart. You would never guess that she is the older twin. 

When the daughter looks at her mother, Staring blank and numb out the window of the car, all she sees is a twisted mirror of herself. Her mother is all that she may become. She is all her mother could have been. They can’t stand to look at each other for more than a second. They see too much of themselves.

The mother hasn’t cried. Her daughter hasn’t stopped crying. Both somehow end up numb. 

But that twisted mirror turns to a crystal clear one as the daughter looks into the casket that holds her twin. 

Her brother. 

They share the same honey blonde hair, The same sky blue eyes, And the same face. 
It is just as painful as staring into the twisted mirror. All she sees is herself. 

This could have been her funeral. Should have been her funeral. 

The daughter thinks that one day she will have a child and name him after her brother. She does not want a daughter. She does not want to view the twisted mirror from the other side. 

The realization comes upon her that she will never have nieces and nephews to love. Or to hand down her many teddy bears to. Or to care for the way her brother always cared for her. The brother staring up at her with closed eyes inside the casket. Her little brother by four minutes. 

She is more than a few minutes older than him now. 

The mother and father watch from the first pew. They don’t hold each other’s hands. They don’t hug. Don’t speak. There is space in between them. They don’t want to touch. 

It’s their son’s job to make sure his mother goes to sleep on the couch, And that his father doesn’t spiral himself into a heart attack. But he is the reason they are falling apart in the first place.  

There was no one there when the mother was forced into bed on the couch for her own good. No one was there to walk the daughter up to bed. The father woke up screaming the name of the boy who hadn’t slept in their house in five days. 

Dad had seen his son. The son he taught how to pitch in the backyard. The son who taught him how to work the HDMI and his new laptop. 

They all saw him. 

The daughter saw the brother who nagged her about the top bunk and the bigger closet in their bedroom. The brother who took the last of the orange juice in the morning and threatened to beat up any boys that bothered her. 

But the mother, she saw him most of all. She saw the boy she had held in the hospital last. The boy she swore would never be second in line just because he was the second child. 

And he wasn’t. 

He sat first in line as the light turned green. As he pulled forward. As the intoxicated man didn’t stop at the red light. As they collided in the intersection. As his car slammed into the telephone pole. He had been first in line until the very end. 

The daughter stumbles back to the pew with her parents and fills the awkward spot between them.  She is brittle and shaking and refuses to look at anyone. A shell of someone she usually is. She is missing the other half of her.  She is fading. 

For the first time in five days the parents’ eyes connect and something passes between them. They remember April 20th. They brought two twins home in separate carriers. A pink-topped bundle in one, a blue in the other. Completely identical besides their different colored beanies. Dad carries both with nervous carefulness as his wife waddles out of the hospital. He slows his pace to stay with her. 

They both wish to stay there forever.