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. 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. 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 rem...
I went into the bar that night expecting nothing more than a quiet drink and an early exit. Instead, a lost wallet on the floor near my chair led me into a conversation that would dismantle everything I believed about my past. I was not supposed to be there long. That was the deal I made with myself as I slid onto a stool near the back of the bar. One drink, a little silence, then home. I was having the kind of night where you want your thoughts to soften at the edges. The bartender, a broad-shouldered man with gray hair and a calm face, nodded at me. "Same as usual?" he asked. "Just a beer," I said. "Something light." He poured it without another question. That was one of the reasons I liked the place. No interest in my life and no small talk I had to perform. I drank slowly, staring at the muted TV over the bar that played highlights from some game I did not care about. A couple argued quietly in a booth. A group of friends laughed too loudly near the po...