When I was five, my twin sister walked into the trees behind our house and never came back. The police told my parents her body was found, but I never saw a grave, never saw a coffin. Just decades of silence and a feeling that the story wasn't really over.
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I'm Dorothy, 73, and my life has always had a missing piece shaped like a little girl named Ella.
Ella was my twin. We were five when she disappeared.
Ella was in the corner with her red ball.
We weren't just "born on the same day" twins. We were share-a-bed, share-a-brain twins. If she cried, I cried. If I laughed, she laughed louder. She was the brave one. I followed.
The day she vanished, our parents were at work, and we were staying with our grandmother.
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I was sick. Feverish, throat on fire. Grandma sat on the edge of my bed with a cool washcloth.
"Just rest, baby," she said. "Ella will play quietly."
Ella was in the corner with her red ball, bouncing it against the wall, humming. I remember the soft thump, the sound of rain starting outside.
When I woke up, the house was wrong.
Then nothing.
I fell asleep.
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When I woke up, the house was wrong.
Too quiet.
No ball. No humming.
"Grandma?" I called.
No answer.
She rushed in, hair mussed, face tight.
"Where's Ella?" I asked.
"She's probably outside," she said. "You stay in bed, all right?"
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Her voice shook.
I heard the back door open.
"Ella!" Grandma called.
Then the police came.
No answer.
"Ella, you get in here right now!"
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