Later, my parents sat me down.
They told me the police had found Ella.
They told me she had died.
My mother said the words softly.
“She’s gone, Dorothy.”
I didn’t understand how I was supposed to accept that.
I wanted details.
Where was she?
Could I see her?
Where would we bury her?
Could I say goodbye?
But no one would answer my questions.
Instead, Ella’s belongings disappeared.
Her toys were packed away.
Our matching clothes were put out of sight.
Her name became something nobody wanted to say.
As a child, I interpreted that silence as a rule.
I learned that talking about Ella made people uncomfortable.
So I stopped.
But I never forgot her.
Growing Up With an Empty Place
The strange thing about grief is that it doesn’t always disappear.
Sometimes it simply changes shape.
As a little girl, I missed Ella because she was gone.
As a teenager, I wondered what she might have been like.
As a young woman, I wondered whether she would have chosen the same career I did.
As I grew older, I began wondering what she would have looked like.
Would she have had the same smile?
Would her hair have turned gray in the same way?
Would she have children?
Would she have grandchildren?
I sometimes looked in the mirror and wondered whether she would have looked exactly like me at the same age.
There was always a strange feeling that half of my childhood had been erased.
When I was sixteen, I finally tried to find answers myself.
I went to the local police station.
I asked about my sister’s case.
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