The scent of burnt pancakes used to be a sign of a clumsy, happy morning in our household. Now, looking back, it was the first crack in the foundation of our lives. My name is Anna, and I have a twin brother named Daniel. When we were eighteen, we weren’t worried about mortgage payments or pediatric appointments. We were worried about college dorms and whether our mother’s “flu” was ever going to go away.
The Tuesday the world ended started with those pancakes. Mom apologized for the char, promising to do better tomorrow. But by Friday, “tomorrow” had been replaced by a clinical, beige-walled reality. The doctor used words that sounded like death sentences: aggressive stage four cancer. Daniel’s hand was a vice on my knee. My father, the man who was supposed to be our rock, was staring at his glowing phone screen, already mentally checking out of a life that had suddenly become too heavy for him to carry.
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