Apple of My Eye

CW: Mental health, grief

They were born six minutes apart. Jacob first. Then Michael. Identical in every way. Same dark eyes. Same crooked smile. Same laugh that made their mother cry with joy. Perfect. Healthy. Whole. For eight years, they were inseparable. Finished each other's sentences. Felt each other's pain. Wore matching clothes, not because their mother made them, but because they wanted to. Two halves of the same soul, their father used to say. Then the heart murmurs appeared.

Jacob collapsed first. During soccer practice. Just dropped. The coaches called an ambulance. Genetic cardiomyopathy. Progressive. The heart muscle weakening. Thickening. Unable to pump blood efficiently. Could die suddenly at any moment.

"What about Michael?" their mother asked.

"We should test him. Given they're identical twins."

Michael had it too. Same defect. Same progression. Same prognosis. Both of them. Dying. Months. Maybe years if they were lucky. Nobody knew. Only one treatment: heart transplant.

They were put on the transplant list together. Same blood type. Same size. Same UNOS status. Critical need. Their parents clung to hope. Maybe two hearts would become available. Maybe both boys would be saved. The doctors didn't say it out loud, but their faces said enough, hearts don't come in pairs.

Eleven months passed. The boys got weaker. Thinner. The medication kept them stable, but barely. They couldn't run anymore. Could barely walk up stairs. They stayed together. Always. When one had a bad day, the other sat with him. Held his hand. Told him stories.

"When we get better," Jacob said once, "we're going to climb mountains."

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "The biggest ones."

Their mother listened from the doorway. Cried silently. She knew what the doctors had told them privately, both boys wouldn't make it. Even if two hearts became available, the timing would have to be perfect. Impossibly perfect. One heart would come. And they would have to choose.

The call came at 3 AM on a Tuesday.

The mother answered. Listened. Went pale.

"We'll be there in twenty minutes."

She woke her husband. Told him.

One heart. Available now. Perfect match for both boys.

They had to decide.

The hospital was cold. Fluorescent lights. Antiseptic smell. Machines beeping in distant rooms. The doctor met them in the hallway. Clinical. Professional.

"Both children qualify. Both need it urgently. The donor heart is healthy. Strong. Either twin would have an excellent chance of survival."

"But only one," the father said.

"Yes. Only one."

"How do we..." The mother couldn't finish. Started crying.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said. "There's no protocol for this. No medical criteria that differentiates between them. The ethics board can decide for you, but I'd rather you decide."

"How?" The father's voice broke. "How do we choose which son lives? Which one dies?"

The doctor had no answer.

"We need a decision within the hour," he said quietly. "After that, the heart goes to the next patient on the list."

A nurse approached. Gentle. Kind.

"There's a chapel. Down the hall. It's private."

She handed the father a bible.

They walked there in silence. The father's hand gripped his wife's so hard it hurt.

The chapel was small. Empty. Wooden pews. A simple cross on the wall. Dim lighting.

The door closed behind them.

The nurse at the nearby station heard them.

At first: quiet murmuring. Praying.

Then crying. Both of them. Raw. Broken.

Then the father's voice. Louder. Angry.

"How can You ask this of us? How is this Your plan?"

Silence.

More crying.

Then the mother. Barely audible.

"We can't. I can't choose. I can't."

"We have to."

"How? Jacob is... and Michael is... they're both..."

Her voice dissolved into sobs.

“Please God show us a sign, we can’t do this, please show us a sign.”

“We need something from you, we will never ask for anything.”

“God, show us a sign.”

“Please…a sign…”

Father opened the bible.

No sounds of prayer, crying.

Silence.

The chapel door opened.

The parents emerged. Faces hollow. Eyes empty. They'd aged a decade in an hour. A doctor approached.

"We've decided," the father said. Voice flat. Dead.

He gave them a name.

The surgery took nine hours.

Jacob was wheeled into the operating room. Michael stayed in a private room down the hall. A nurse sat with him. Turned on cartoons. Brought him juice he didn't drink.

"Where's Jacob?" Michael kept asking.

"He's getting some tests," the nurse said. Smiling too brightly.

Michael knew. He didn't say it. But he knew.

The surgery was successful. The new heart beat strong. Jacob's body accepted it. No complications.

He woke up two days later.

"Where's Michael?" First words out of his mouth.

His mother held his hand. Couldn't speak.

"Where is he?"

His father told him. Gentle. Breaking.

Michael had died the night before. At home. In his sleep. His heart had finally given out.

They buried Michael on a Saturday. Small funeral. Family only.

Jacob sat in a wheelchair. Too weak to stand. Staring at the casket.

"Why me?" he whispered to his father. "Why did you choose me?"

His father looked at him. Eyes red. Haunted.

"The doctors helped us. Medical reasons. Things you wouldn't understand."

It was a lie.

But it was the only answer he could give.

Jacob carried it.

The guilt. The question. The weight of being chosen.

He went to therapy. For years. Talked about survivor's guilt. About wondering why he deserved to live when his twin didn't.

"Your parents made an impossible choice," the therapist said. "There was no right answer. They did the best they could."

But Jacob needed to know. What made him the choice?

Was he kinder? Smarter? Did he smile more? Say "I love you" more often?

What did Michael lack that he had?

He asked his mother once more. Years later. He was sixteen.

"Please. I need to know. Why me?"

She started crying. Left the room.

He never asked again.

He grew up. Graduated high school. College. Got a degree in social work. Helped people. Tried to earn his survival.

Met a woman. Told her everything on their third date. About Michael. About the guilt.

"You can't carry this forever," she said.

"I don't know how to put it down."

They got married. Had two children. A daughter. Then a son.

He named the boy Michael.

His father died when Jacob was thirty-eight.

Heart attack. Sudden. At his desk at work.

His mother called. Sobbing.

"He's gone. Your father's gone."

Jacob flew home. Held his mother. Planned the funeral.

His mother followed two years later. Cancer. Liver. Fast.

She held Jacob's hand at the end.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

But she was gone.

Jacob inherited the house. The house he grew up in. Where Michael had lived. Died. He couldn't sell it. Not yet. He took time off work. Spent weeks going through everything. Packing. Sorting. Deciding what to keep. His mother's things were easier. Clothes. Jewelry. Photos. His father's office was harder.

The desk. Heavy oak. Where his father had worked every night. Paid bills. Filed taxes. Jacob started with the top drawers. Papers. Documents. Old checkbooks. Middle drawers. More of the same. Bottom drawer. Left side. Locked.

Jacob stared at it. In thirty-eight years, he'd never seen this drawer open. He pulled. Locked tight. He searched for a key. Went through the desk. The office. His father's bedroom.

Nothing.

He came back to the drawer.

Whatever was inside, his father had hidden it. Protected it.

Or protected Jacob from it.

Jacob got a screwdriver. Wedged it into the seam. Pried.

The lock broke. The drawer opened.

Inside, a bible.

His father's bible. Worn leather. Gold-edged pages.

Jacob pulled it out. Heavy. Well-used.

He opened it.

Something fell out.

Metallic sound. Hitting the hardwood floor.

Rolling.

Jacob looked down.

He picked it up.

Writing on it. Faded marker. Barely visible.

He held it up to the light.

Old. Edges smooth. Worn.

A quarter.

One side: Jacob.

His name.

In his father's handwriting.

He turned it over.

Other side: Michael.

The edges were worn smooth.

Not from age, but from guilt.

From fingers rubbing it.

Over and over.

Year after year.

Forty years.

In the chapel.

That night.

When they couldn't choose.

When love for both sons was equal and infinite and impossible to measure.

They flipped a coin.

Michael or Jacob.

Jacob sank to the floor.

There was no reason.

No medical judgment.

No divine intervention.

Just a coin flip.