I replaced my autistic brother's cat five years ago and he still has no idea.

My younger brother is non-verbal and has severe sensory processing disorder. When he was ten, our parents adopted an older black shorthair cat named Barnaby. That cat was his entire universe. Whenever my brother had violent meltdowns, Barnaby was the only living thing that could calm his nervous system down. In the winter of 2019 while my brother was at a specialized three-week sensory camp, Barnaby suddenly passed away in his sleep from heart failure. My mother was hysterical. She knew that returning home to an empty room would trigger an irrevesible emotional spiral for my brother. i drove across three counties and visited six different animal shelters in forty-eight hours until I found an identical three-year-old black cat with the exact same notched left ear. I brought him home, rubbed his fur in Barnaby's old blankets, and placed him on my brother's bed. When my brother came home, he paused for three seconds, buried his face in the cat's fur, and started purring back at him. It's been five years now. The new cat sleeps on his chest every single night without fail. I feel a sick knot of guilt in my chest every time I watch them together, but I will carry this lie to my grave.