“Mom, please,” I said. “I need to know what really happened to Ella.”
She froze.
“What good would that do?” she whispered. “You have a life now. Why dig up that pain?”
“Because I’m still in it,” I said. “I don’t even know where she’s buried.”
She flinched.
“Please don’t ask me again,” she said. “I can’t talk about this.”
So I didn’t.
Life carried me forward.
I finished school. I got married. I had children. I changed my name. I paid bills.
I became a mother.
Then a grandmother.
On the outside, my life was full.
But inside, there was always a quiet space shaped like Ella.
Sometimes, I would set the table and catch myself placing two plates.
Sometimes, I’d wake up in the night, certain I had heard a little girl call my name.
Sometimes, I’d look in the mirror and think, This is what Ella might look like now.
My parents died without ever telling me anything more.
Two funerals. Two graves.
Their secrets went with them.
For years, I told myself that was the end of it.
A missing child. A vague story about a body being found. Silence.
Then one day, everything changed.
My granddaughter got accepted into a college in another state.
“Grandma, you have to come visit,” she said. “You’ll love it here.”
“I’ll come,” I promised. “Someone has to keep you out of trouble.”
For illustrative purposes only
A few months later, I flew out to see her. We spent the day setting up her dorm, arguing about towels and storage bins.
The next morning, she had class.
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