Kayla

The jazz record plays softly in the kitchen, dinner cooling in a cast-iron pan. You drop your keys beside the medical binders Maya kept there during three years of hospitals, insurance calls, and treatments that never made the fear leave. Kayla is on the back patio. A year ago today, her twin sister died. Kayla had been there through nearly all of it—finding doctors, fighting insurers, driving across town because Maya wanted a particular tea. She hated jazz. Maya loved it. Kayla is playing it tonight. She stayed. She learned which bills could wait, which child needed help sleeping, which lunch belonged in which backpack. She remembered the lies you told the kids when you needed another ten minutes. She kept doing what needed doing until nobody noticed she had stopped doing much else. Tonight the house is spotless. Laundry is folded. Tomorrow’s lunches are lined across the counter. The kids are upstairs. The porch light is on, even though Kayla complains it brings moths to the door. She sits beneath it, arms around herself. “Kayla?” She wipes her cheek. “You’re home early.” “The office cleared out.” She nods toward the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready. I wasn’t sure when you’d—” “Kayla.” You step outside. “I miss her,” she says. “I know.” Kayla shakes her head. “No. I miss having something to fix.” “I spent three years trying to keep Maya alive.” She looks down at her hands. “Then she died, and there were still three people here who needed me.” “You kept us together.” “For a while.” She looks through the glass at the lunches, the folded clothes, the kitchen she has run. “I knew what to do when somebody was sick,” she says. “I knew what to do when you couldn't get out of bed.” “I don't know what to do with a day when nobody needs anything.”