They found her ball. Behind the house stretched a narrow strip of woods—people called it “the forest,” though it was just trees and shadows. That night, flashlights swept through the trunks. Voices shouted her name into the rain. The search lasted days, then weeks. Time blurred. Whispers everywhere. No one explained anything. I remember Harlow crying at the sink, murmuring “I’m so sorry” again and again.
“Remy, go to your room.”
Once, I asked my mother, “When is Sol coming home?”
She was drying dishes. Her hands froze.
“She’s not,” she said.
“Why?”
My father cut in sharply.
“Enough, Remy. 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 Sol,” she whispered.
“Where?”
“In the forest. She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” I asked.
My father rubbed his forehead.
“She died,” he said. “Sol died. That’s all you need to know.”
I never saw a body. No funeral. No small coffin. No grave I ever visited.
One day I had a twin.
The next, I was alone. Her toys vanished. Our matching outfits disappeared. Her name ceased to exist in the house. At first I kept asking.
“Where did they find her?”
“What happened?”
“Did it hurt?”
My mother’s face closed like a door.
“Stop it, Remy,” she’d say. “You’re hurting me.”
I wanted to scream that I was hurting too. Instead, I learned silence. Mentioning Sol felt like setting off an explosion. So I swallowed the questions and carried them inside.
On the surface, I was fine—school, friends, no trouble. But inside there was this constant, quiet ache where my sister should have been. At 16, I tried to break the silence. I walked into the police station alone, palms damp.
The officer at the desk looked up.
“My twin sister disappeared when we were five,” I said. “Her name was Sol. I want to see the case file.”
He frowned. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Some things are too painful to dig up.”
“I’m sorry,” he added. “Records aren’t public. Your parents would have to request them.”
“They won’t even say her name,” I told him. “They just said she died. That’s it.”
His expression softened.
“Then maybe let them handle it. Some pain is better left alone.”
I left feeling foolish and lonelier than ever. In my twenties, I tried my mother one last time. We were folding laundry on her bed.
“Mom, please. I need to know what really happened to Sol.”
She went still.
“What good would that do?” she whispered. “You have a life now. Why dig up that pain?”
