When I woke, the house felt wrong. Too quiet. No ball. No humming.
“Grandma?” I called.
She rushed in, hair mussed, face tight. “Where’s Ella?” I asked.
“She’s probably outside,” she said. “You stay in bed, all right?” Her voice shook.
I heard the back door open. “Ella!” Grandma called.
No answer.
“Ella, you get in here right now!” Her voice climbed. Then footsteps—fast, frantic.
I got out of bed. The hallway felt cold. By the time I reached the front room, neighbors were at the door. Mr. Frank knelt in front of me. “Have you seen your sister, sweetheart?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Did she talk to strangers?”
Then the police arrived—blue jackets, wet boots, radios crackling. They asked questions I couldn’t answer. “What was she wearing?” “Where did she like to play?” “Did she talk to strangers?”
They found her ball.
Behind our house stretched a strip of woods. People called it “the forest,” though it was just trees and shadows. That night, flashlights bobbed through the trunks. Men shouted her name into the rain.
They found her ball. That was the only clear fact I was ever given.
The search went on for days, weeks. Time blurred. Everyone whispered, but no one explained.
I remember Grandma crying at the sink, whispering, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.
I asked my mother once, “When is Ella coming home?”
She was drying dishes. Her hands stopped. “She’s not,” she said.
“Why?”
My father cut in. “Enough,” he snapped. “Dorothy, go to your room.”
Later, they sat me down in the living room. My father stared at the floor. My mother stared at her hands. “The police found Ella,” she said.
“Where?”
“In the forest,” she whispered. “She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” I asked.
My father rubbed his forehead. “She died,” he said. “Ella died. That’s all you need to know.”
I didn’t see a body. I don’t remember a funeral. No small casket. No grave.
One day I had a twin. The next, I was alone.
Her toys disappeared. Our matching clothes vanished. Her name stopped existing in our house.
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