Franz lifted up the doormat and found the spare house key that had always been there. The lights were off in the house and it was a silent, somber Sunday evening. He wasn't here to have dinner with his family like usual.

He picked up the key and shoved it into the lock, twisted it, and then the evening wasn't so silent anymore as a chorus of meowing rose up on the other side of the door. He was greeted by three hungry kitties as he stepped over the threshold. Old Lemoncake even rose up on his hind legs and pawed at Franz's knee to make it clear that feeding was long overdue.


Franz moved quickly toward the kitchen, turned on the light, and saw that the two bowls that were usually full had long since been emptied. The cats hadn't had any company for over a day, and it was just now he remembered they were here alone. It had been such an exhausting 24 hours for Franz, he was working on only about four hours of sleep because, in all honesty, he couldn't sleep with all that had happened.

He picked up the bowl and the cats gathered around him eagerly. Dolce even grew so bold as to hop up onto the counter and rub her whiskers against his arm before head-bunting it. Franz noticed the bowl was dirty—his mother had never been good about cleaning them, so he wet a sponge and started clearing it of the old food crumbs before setting it back down and refilling it. He did the same with the second bowl and at last, the cats were satisfied as they crowded around their dinner.


The run to the hospital went by slowly though Franz probably had made it in record time. His lungs were on fire, his breathing strained, and his face and sides were still stinging from the beating at the warehouse. But it didn't matter—he pushed himself to get there and ran straight into the emergency room. The desk personnel were startled, seeming to think he was the one who needed medical attention as he nearly collapsed in front of them, because it took him a few seconds as he caught his breath to finally say "Where is Yvette Schoulsburg?"


Franz was staring off into space, he realized, and blinked a few times to see he was actually looking at the countertop. It would be where food was being made about this time if this was a normal Sunday evening. He suddenly picked up Lemoncake, despite his meowling protest, and hugged the yellow cat tightly—just like when he was a boy and upset about something. His mother and Fauna never really hugged him, and he felt too awkward to ask for an embrace. Lemoncake was younger then, and could easily wriggle out of Franz's arms but not this time. Franz pushed his face into Lemoncake's fur and relished the softness of the cat, it was like a pillow and reminded Franz he needed to sleep.

But he just couldn't.

He heard the front door knob rattle and looked up, startled. He hadn't expected anyone else to be here tonight.

He watched as the door opened and his sister walked in with the usual hop in her gait. She saw him and smiled in the way she did when she was about to tease him for something. He had no idea why she looked as if it were just a normal Sunday evening.

"You say we don't have twin-stinct but here we are wearing the same color again. What happened to your eye? Jeez. Have you been fighting again?"

She was referring to the bruise around his eye from last night—it had darkened a bit. She was also referring to the black thermal shirt he was wearing that could be considered to match her black top with white trim. He didn't believe that they had a special connection, if anything, they were the most dysfunctional twins he knew.

She joined him in the kitchen and he let down Lemoncake but he didn't respond to anything that she had said—growing frustrated at her nonchalance—and instead asked, "What are you doing here?"

She leaned against the counter and pet Dolce who had finished eating and jumped on top of it again, "What do you mean? I'm here for dinner. It's Sunday right?"

"Mom, though...."

"Yeah, where is mom? She usually is first to greet me and only because you are a big grump-o-saurus," Fauna looked up and smiled, still with that teasing grin but for once—her brother's face was not fixed into that forever-bored expression...it was crestfallen.


She didn't know.

"Mom is in the hospital."

Fauna looked doubtful and then arched a brow, "That's not a funny joke."

He leveled a frown at her. Since when did he ever make jokes?

Her eyes widened in concern as she realized he was being perfectly serious like usual, "Well is she okay? Why is she in the hospital?"

"The VBT has spread to her pelvis. We've scheduled immediate surgery, otherwise, she could lose her ability to walk permanently."

The doctor was explaining to him how they had found her, collapsed in the bakery. She'd hit her head on something and now there was a thick gauzy bandage over the wound. Seeing his mother so pale and weak lying in that hospital bed made him feel afraid—because he was helpless to do anything to make her better. Sheer strength wasn't enough. He couldn't fight her sickness away, he couldn't bake it away, and he couldn't ignore it like she had tried to—because refusing to acknowledge the issue was what made it worse in the first place.


"She's been sick for awhile now. She has a VBT."

Fauna looked struck with even more disbelief until she realized Franz never lied and always had been annoyingly blunt. Tears welled up into her eyes at the truth. He still wondered how she had been so unaware of what was going on.

Franz awkwardly stepped forward to try and hug his sister. It wasn't a thing they normally did, but he knew that any kind of comfort could help in this situation. She let him and he began to tell her everything he knew about the current condition she was in, which room she was in at which hospital, and when they could see her. Fauna cried even harder and then rubbed at her eyes and choked out, "Why didn't I know in the first place?"



"Sorry, I thought Mom would have told you."

Fauna looked up sharply with a scowl and pushed out of his attempt of an embrace, "Are you kidding? What makes you think she'd tell me anything? She won't even tell us who our own father is!"

Franz made a step back to give Fauna room. She was now emotional and explosive—sending waves of despair outward and he didn't know how to handle it. Tears were still running down her face, smearing her eye makeup and she sniffled before she saw him staring and snapped, "What? Just because you and mom don't ever feel anything doesn't mean I have to too."

She turned her back on him.

He didn't take offense to her insult but she was dead wrong.

Franz did feel—a whole lot. His mother did too but they just didn't make it a point to broadcast it to everyone around them. It wasn't anyone’s business.


After they had wheeled his mother out of the room to surgery, he collapsed onto a chair in the corner of the room and let out a heavy sob. He wanted her to be okay again. The salt of his tears stung the scrape on his face from the fight and he felt an ember of hope left within him—he could still help her—by fighting to get that prize money and continue to get it so she wouldn't have to worry if her insurance would get stingy on the billing, and she wouldn't have to worry about selling her livelihood.

He promised himself then he'd do whatever it took—fight a hundred fights for her if he had to. He ended up falling asleep in the same chair, all his muscles cramped from the hunched position. It wasn't until a nurse came in and gently shook him awake did he realize that he had.

His mother was in recovery but wasn't awake yet. He waited and waited but eventually, his body betrayed him and he had to find some kind of rest. He wrote a note for his mother and left it with a nurse to give to her, and it told her to call him as soon as she was able. With that, he stumbled out of the hospital and took a taxi back to the community college. He didn't even shower, though he was bloody, sweaty, and smelly from the long night—he just crumpled into his bed and tried to sleep. His mind and body were not on the same page however and he kept waking up, wondering if he was still in a dream of sorts and if anything that had happened was really real.

At 5:30 am, when he decided sleep was futile and got out of bed, he nearly called Alanna because he needed to talk, for once in his life he just needed it but his fingers stopped after dialing the first three numbers because he didn't want to bring that sort of solemnity upon their friendship and she was probably asleep anyhow. She knew of the situation, and updating her would just cause her to worry incessantly. She'd already gone to all the trouble of organizing a bake sale for him and his mother, and he couldn't ask more of her—to burden her with this colossal sadness that was encompassing him at the moment.

Finally, around 6:00 am he showered, and then made a bowl of cereal in the community college kitchen where he ate alone. It was a chore to eat, and a struggle to maintain a coherent train of thought.


His thoughts still hadn't settled entirely—jumping back and forth from past to present—and he frowned, trying to recall what he had wanted to say to his sister.

"So what did she tell you last time you were here?" Franz asked, remembering that his mother had called Fauna away to talk to her about something. He supposed it was about her sickness.

"What?"

"Last week, you left your boy toy here in the kitchen because Mom called you into the other room. What did she talk to you about?"

Fauna frowned and narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember and then said, "Oh, she was just interrogating me about Adam. Making sure he wasn't some homeless guy or serial killer. You know how paranoid she gets about my boyfriends."

"So, he's your boyfriend now?" he asked, but it didn't surprise him in any capacity.

"You sound as judgy as Mom," Fauna glared at him for the sarcastic tone.

His sister's history with men was spotty and full of mistakes—it was just logical to be suspicious of any new developments.

"Is that where the necklace came from?"

She plucked at the intricate chain with jewels around her neck. He'd never seen her wear it before. It looked expensive, too much that she could bother to afford. "Yes, okay? Adam gave it to me, he said it was an expensive family heirloom that belonged to his grandmother. He really loves me."

Franz held in a scoff only because she was sensitive and he didn't want to make her cry even more than she already had that night. She was naïve if she thought expensive gifts equated to love. He knew that much from the books he read—ones that happened to have a romantic plot involved anyhow.

Lemoncake was done eating and rubbing against Franz's ankles with some deep purrs of satisfaction. Franz must have been standing too long without speaking so Fauna moved the conversation forward. She was always good at doing that.

"I can make dinner if you clear off the table," she said as she opened the refrigerator door and scanned for ingredients.

"I'm not hungry," Franz replied even though his stomach was twisting in painful knots in want of sustenance. His mind didn't feel like eating, he had no appetite. Did he even have time to eat? He still planned on going to Armscor to fight again and he needed to catch a bus downtown. He couldn't leave her here by herself though.

"Well, I am and your stomach is making grumbly noises so I'm making dinner," she said with a bit of force and it meant he could argue but he wouldn't dissuade her from making food. She had a carton of milk in one hand and as soon as she fished out a block of cheddar cheese, he knew what she intended to make. Good, mac and cheese was a quick dish.

Fauna moved throughout the kitchen putting a pot of water on the stove to boil and started shredding the cheese. She must have been using their grandmother's recipe because she also had taken out a bottle of sriracha from the cabinet which gave the dish a flavorful kick.

Franz ambled into the dining room to see a familiar sight of bills and papers his mother must have been going through before she left for work the day before. He starting picking them up, wondering where he should put all of it. He didn't want to mess any of it up, because it looked important.

He began looking through the bills, just to make sure none were due immediately while his mother was incapacitated. Medical bills, medical bills, medical bills 90 days past due—plumbobs why was it so expensive?

He stuck the past-due one on top and then started looking through the papers. Payroll for the bakers, there was even a stub with his cut which he would probably just refuse so his mother could use the extra money as needed. Then...he came across something different. A regular-sized sheet of paper that carried the Cosgrove Collective's logo across the top.


He scanned the text, feeling his brow getting lower and lower as he read down the page where finally it displayed:


So, Shelby Barnett had pulled herself together after all, and given his mother the last piece of paperwork that finalized the sale. He could tell his mother didn't want to sign it because of the way she kept putting her pen down and removing it off the signature line, leaving little dots of ink before her name. Her hand was forced the cost of living too expensive to keep her precious bakery.

Franz clenched his teeth together and without a second thought crumpled the paper up in his one hand.

He glanced at Fauna who was adding noodles to her boiling water with her back turned on him; she wasn't paying attention to anything he was doing at the moment. As far as she knew he was cleaning the table and in a sense he still was. He walked through the kitchen and put the pile of bills and papers onto one of the counters, out of the way of where food was made, and kept walking until he stood in front of the trash bin.

He looked at the piece of crumpled paper in his palm with disdain before stepping on the bin release, causing the top to open, and dropped it inside.