When my mother died, I didn’t just lose a parent . I inherited a life I hadn’t planned for, and two ten year old hearts that suddenly depended on mine. Six months earlier I was a twenty five year old structural engineer with spreadsheets, deadlines, and a future neatly arranged, a weding on the horizon and a Maui honeymoon half paid. Jenna had started talking about baby names and nursery paint like the world was steady beneath our feet, and she’d tease that I worked too much while handing me another vitamin bottle. The stress felt normal, the kind you accept when you believe you’re building something that will last. Then Naomi was killed in a car accident while buying birthday candles for Lily and Maya, and everything familiar vanished in a single phone call.I went from brother to guardian, from designer of foundations to becoming one. The wedding plans stalled, the registry was canceled, and I moved back into my mother’s house the same night, leaving behind my apartment and the illusion that adulthood arrives finished. Our father had disappeared years ago when he learned Mom was pregnant with twins, so there was no safety net, just the three of us standing in the aftermath of loss. I was drowning quietly. Jenna, somehow, appeared to float. She moved in two weeks after the funeral, packed lunches, learned braids, and found lullabies online, making caretaking look effortless. When Maya wrote Jenna’s name as an emergency contact, Jenna cried and said she’d always wanted little sisters, and I mistook that tenderness for grace instead of a role perfectly played.

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