The intercom crackled as Captain Ryan Mitchell announced their arrival in Seattle. Routine flight, routine landing – until Ryan spotted the lone passenger refusing to disembark. As he approached, Ryan’s breath caught in his throat. The man was his mirror image.
“Jason?” Ryan whispered, recognizing the twin brother he hadn’t seen since child services separated them at age seven. Jason’s eyes burned with anger. “Mom’s dying wish was to see you again,” he said coldly.
The taxi ride to their childhood neighborhood revealed painful truths. While Ryan grew up privileged after his adoption, Jason and their mother lived in poverty. “She searched for you for years,” Jason accused. “But you never looked back.”
Their mother’s frail hands trembled as she touched Ryan’s face for the first time in decades. When Ryan mentioned his upcoming transfer to Tokyo, Jason stormed out. “You haven’t changed at all!”
But Ryan had. Three days later, he surprised them by moving into the house across the street. “I’m done running from my family,” he declared. Ryan helped renovate Jason’s crumbling home while Jason finally proposed to his longtime girlfriend, freed from being their mother’s sole caregiver.
As their mother’s health improved, so did the brothers’ relationship. Weekly family dinners became sacred, healing old wounds one meal at a time. Sometimes, Ryan would catch Jason smiling as they reminisced – the ghost of the inseparable twins they once were.
