“Mom, why do you never take the big piece of chicken?” he asked, his fork hovering over his plate.
“Because I want you to grow taller than me,” I replied, smiling and taking another bite of rice and broccoli.
“By half an inch,” Noah added, rolling his eyes.
Liam was our spark, bold and outspoken, always the first to challenge a rule that did not make sense to him. Noah was quieter, more deliberate. He listened before he spoke and had a way of holding us all together with the gentlest words.
We made our own rhythms as a little family. Friday nights were movie nights, complete with popcorn in mismatched bowls. Pancakes were our tradition on big test days, a quiet way of saying, “I believe in you.” No one left the house without a hug, even when they claimed they were too old for it.
When my sons were accepted into a state dual-enrollment program that allowed high school juniors to earn college credits, I sat in my car after orientation and cried until my vision blurred.
We had done it.
All the late shifts. The secondhand clothes. The carefully counted dollars, the lunches packed from whatever was on sale. It had led to this: my boys on a college campus, taking real college classes.
I thought we had finally turned a corner.
Then came the Tuesday that split our lives into “before” and “after.”
I walked inside expecting the usual sounds. Music drifting from Noah’s room. The beep of the microwave as Liam reheated leftovers. The murmur of their voices.
Instead, there was silence. Thick and strange.
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