text: The day had started out like so many others before. The sun had come up, the woman had groaned at the sound of her alarm clock, and had pulled the covers back to allow her young, giggling, son to sneak in with his youthful glee and give her enough energy to start the day. After quickly smiling down at her son, she had grabbed some clothes from her laundry bin, telling herself that she definitely needed to organize them later, and walked her chattering son down to breakfast. He was such a sweet boy, she thought, always smiling, always so happy and good natured. She knew that he had all the qualities necessary for a person to live a good life. Her daughter was a different story. As she floated into the kitchen, barely glancing towards her mother, the tone of the room changed immediately. Becoming heavier, more stifled, and more strained. But it was hard to say if anyone had noticed. As the woman poured batter into a skillet, flipping the pancakes in time to her sons youthful chatter, the daughter started to cry. Tears falling down her face slowly and silently, wiped away quickly with a ragged sleeve. But again, it was hard to say if anyone noticed. There was an obvious divide in the room, but one that slipped in easily, so familiarly that those impacted by it had grown numb to noticing it. It was just how things were. It was how things had been for a very long time. The mother quickly shuffled pancakes and toast onto a plate and set it onto the center of the table. She was ravenous, but she did not eat, not until she knew that her beloved son had his fill. The girl silently, her tears leaking from the corner of her eyes, stood up and grabbed herself a plate. Her mother had forgotten again. It was nothing new, and though she was used to it, deep down, it still hurt. She supposed that was why the tears came, though less and less each morning. Wiped away quicker, as she felt herself becoming smaller and smaller, shriveled by her misery and her mothers lack of attention. She choked back a loud sob as the crushing weight of all that she was left alone to feel radiated within her in confusing and painful waves. She was so lost, and so alone. The mother glanced at her daughter for a second, a look of concern briefly darting over her face, eyes crinkling in almost a startled way, before focusing her attention back on her son. The silly little boy was smothering his pancakes with syrup creating a giant sticky mess. The table and floor and his entire body was covered, young boys could be the messiest little creatures! She laughed and grabbed some paper towels and moved to wipe her sons hands clean. Her daughter, with one gulping sob, forcefully darted her eyes in the other direction. Her insides sinking to the messy floor below her. This was the part that she hated the most. She hated the look of love on her mothers face as she moved the towels lovingly, she hated that her mother rarely, if ever, looked at her with the same level of devotion and care, and she hated that she had no idea what to do about it. She hated how this would inevitably break her mother, again and again, day after day, as she realized that... with her hands continuing their sensitive movements, that there was no syrup, there was no mess, there was no little boy. Not anymore. The child who she had loved, who had loved her, and who had filled her home with smiles and laughter was gone. Dead. It had taken just one accident for everything to break apart. And neither the mother or the daughter knew exactly how to rebuild their lives from the shattered pieces. All that they could do was watch. The daughter would watch as her mother drifted further and further away, chasing a ghost that she couldnt let go, and the mother would watch as her daughter became a stranger, detatching from a mother she feared didnt love her. And the mother wouldnt realize that, after the loss of her son, she now feared to love. There would be a moment of recognition in her mothers eyes, and a look of hope, always a look of hope, in the eyes of the daughter. Before her mother would snap back, would decide, that it was easier to focus on what was, then risk the uncertainty of facing what would come from what was left after a loss. The laughter would fill the house again. The sobs would fill the house again. The silence would fill the house again. It would all spin together, circling, disorienting, decaying, and destroying everything it touched. Everything except for the haunting memory of a dead child.