Signed A

I was eight when our parents died. It happened on a rainy Tuesday in October. They said it was quick. A truck, brakes that didn’t catch, metal folding like paper. I don’t remember the sound of the phone call, but I remember Liam’s face—pale, still, like he’d left his body for a moment and wasn’t sure if he wanted to come back. Liam was fifteen then. Still just a kid. But something in him changed that day. He stopped being just my older brother and started being everything else—protector, planner, the one who quietly took on the weight neither of us had asked for. We moved in with our grandmother—our dad’s mom. She lived in a small house with floors that creaked like old bones and a garden that bloomed even when it shouldn’t. She wore perfume every day, even to the corner store, and made tea like it was a remedy for every kind of sadness. She didn’t talk much about the accident, and neither did we. Grief sat between us like thick fog, and somehow we learned to breathe through it. Years passed. Liam got taller. Quieter. Sharper around the edges. I’d sometimes find him at the kitchen table late at night, studying law articles or scribbling notes into some worn-out notebook. I didn’t understand why then. I just thought he liked to know things. When Grandma passed away, Liam had just turned eighteen. He didn’t even hesitate. He walked into that courthouse, filled out every form, sat through every meeting. And just like that, he became my legal guardian. No arguments. No foster care. Just Liam and me, again. And he did it all without ever making it feel like a burden. He worked part-time and still made sure I ate dinner. He left me notes before school—reminders, encouragements, dumb jokes. He worried too much, joked too little, and carried our entire world on his back like it was nothing. And then, one month before my eighteenth birthday, he was gone too. They said it was an accident. But nothing about it felt like one.