- He glanced at the top, then looked back at the cardboard boy.
- His expression changed.
- “Where did you get this?”
- “It belonged to him,” Emma answered.
- William examined the paper again.
-
I recognized the handwriting.
- Suddenly, I understood why Emma had been searching through her brother’s belongings three nights earlier.
- “That’s a private letter,” William said quietly.
- “It was written to him. I think that makes it his.”
- The gym fell silent.
- William looked toward me.
-
“Melinda, did you know about this?”
- I stood, but Emma answered first.
- “Mom knew I was bringing him. She didn’t know about the letter.”
- “Emma, perhaps we should discuss this privately.”
- “I tried discussing it privately.”
- William said nothing.
- Emma faced the microphone.
-
“His name was Felix. And he wasn’t my boyfriend.”
- She paused.
- “He was my twin brother.”
- A murmur spread through the gym.
- “Wait, Felix?” someone whispered.
- Emma continued.
- “He was supposed to graduate with us today. But he died two years ago.”
-
The girl recording lowered her phone.
- My daughter rested one hand on the cardboard shoulder.
- “Some of you remember him. Some probably don’t. But he went here. He sat in these classrooms. He did the same homework we did.”
- I stared at Felix’s smiling face.
- The photograph had been taken shortly before his final hospitalization. His hair was thinner and his cheeks pale, but he was grinning because Emma had said something ridiculous.
-
I remembered that afternoon perfectly.
- Felix was born with a heart condition. For years, we managed medication, appointments, and hospital stays while trying to give both children an ordinary childhood.
- During sophomore year, his health deteriorated.
- He missed weeks of school, sometimes months. Teachers sent assignments home, and Emma carried his completed work back.
- Even exhausted, he insisted on keeping up.
-
“I can’t let Emma beat me at everything,” he’d joke.
- She usually answered, “Too late.”
- They’d competed since kindergarten.
- Who could run faster. Who could finish books first. Who earned better grades.
- Eventually, who would cross the graduation stage first.
- Felix insisted that being born seven minutes earlier entitled him to go first.
-
Emma argued alphabetical order would settle it.
- Neither admitted they simply wanted to walk together.
- After a difficult hospital appointment, Felix once asked Emma to bring him the school’s graduation information.
- He spread the pages across his blanket.
- “Think they’ll let me walk with a chair if I’m too tired?”
- “Obviously,” Emma answered.
-
“And if they don’t?”
- “I’ll push you across myself.”
- Felix laughed.
- “Then make sure you don’t crash me into the principal.”
- I’d laughed with them.
- I couldn’t have imagined how desperately I’d someday wish that conversation had become reality.
- Felix died six months later.
-
He was 16.
- For weeks, Emma barely spoke.
- She attended school, completed assignments, and helped around the house. But I frequently found her sitting on Felix’s bedroom floor, surrounded by belongings she couldn’t put away.
- Sometimes she searched through his notebooks.
- Sometimes she simply sat.
- I tried not to rush her grief.
-
I was struggling with mine.
