I was only five when my twin sister Ella disappeared. That day is etched in my memory not as vivid images, but as fragments of sensations: a hot forehead, the weight of the blanket, and my grandmother’s hand stroking my hair as I fell asleep.
My parents were at work, and we were staying with my grandmother. I was sick, so I was lying in my room, while Ella, lively and restless, ran out into the yard with her favourite red ball.
When the yard suddenly became too quiet
Some time passed. Grandma went out on the porch and called Ella home — not in an irritated way, but kindly, like you would call a child to dinner. But there was no response. Only a strange silence.
Our house was next to a forest. That’s where the adults rushed when it became clear that Ella was not responding and was not coming back.
Later, they found her red ball. And nothing else that could explain what had happened.
I remember how the adults whispered.
How tension settled in the house, as if the air had become denser.
How I, without fully understanding, felt that something irreparable had happened.
The answers I was not given
The police searched for a long time — for months. And then one day, my parents were told that Ella was gone. I was too young to understand the meaning of the word ‘death,’ but I understood the loss immediately: half of my world had disappeared.
Ella and I weren’t just alike. We shared everything — toys, secrets, jokes. We even managed to try on Mum’s dresses when no one was looking. And the most amazing thing was that we never fought. Not a single loud ‘don’t touch that,’ not a single grudge that we couldn’t forget in a minute.
I asked questions over and over again: where they found her, what happened, when it happened. But Mum cut me off every time. Not rudely — more with weary pain. She said that some wounds should not be disturbed and that I didn’t need to know the details.
Over time, I learned to swallow my curiosity — but along with it, I swallowed a part of my own memory.
I don’t remember the funeral. I don’t remember the farewell. It’s as if the story broke off mid-sentence, leaving an empty space inside.
Life went on — and yet not quite.
Years turned into decades. Sixty-eight years passed. I grew up, got married, raised children, and waited for grandchildren. From the outside, my life was full: a home, family holidays, worries, joys, the usual chores.
But Ella remained close — not in conversation, but in the quiet corners of my mind. Sometimes she came in dreams, sometimes in the form of a sudden feeling that someone was about to call me in that voice that was so similar to mine.
Recently, my granddaughter enrolled in college in another state, and I flew out to visit her. One day, while she was in class, I decided to walk around the neighbourhood and stopped at a small café. It smelled of fresh coffee and warm pastries, and everything looked cosy and homely.
I stood in line, looking at the shop window.
I listened to the muffled hum of conversation.
And I tried to just enjoy the peaceful morning.
The voice that stopped time
And then I heard a voice behind the counter. My voice.
Not ‘similar’ or ‘reminiscent’ — it was mine, with the same intonation, the same soft emphasis on words. I felt as if I had been nailed to the floor.
The woman took her drink and turned around. At that moment, my heart sank somewhere deep inside me: the same eyes, the same cheekbones, the same silver strands in her hair. And again — that same voice that made everything inside me tremble.
It felt as if a mirror had suddenly come to life and stepped towards me.
My legs weakened, and my head couldn’t come up with a single logical explanation. But it was impossible to pretend that I hadn’t noticed anything. I reached out and barely touched her shoulder — lightly, almost weightlessly, as if I were afraid of scaring the vision away.
She turned around.
And the expression on her face was the same as mine: pure shock, genuine and profound.
My throat tightened, and I exhaled a name I hadn’t spoken aloud in so many years:
‘My God… Ella?’
Sometimes life takes a turn where everything seemed to have ended long ago. And even if the mind resists, the heart recognises its own — by the look, by the voice, by the silence between words. At that moment, I realised: the past may not disappear, it may wait for its moment to finally be heard.
