Nine Years Ago

Grams is dead.

I’m fourteen years old, Joy is only nine, and no one is left. We’re alone. Orphans in every sense of the word.

I prayed so hard for Grams to survive her fight against breast cancer. I begged God every night, promised I’d do anything, everything if He’d let her live.

She died anyway.

And Joy won’t stop crying. She cried herself to sleep at the neighbor’s house last night when we got the news from one of Grams’ friends. I cried too, but only after she was asleep. While her little body shook and shuddered, promise after promise spilled from my lips. That I’d always be here for her. I’d never leave her. That we’d have each other. That our entire family is now looking down on us, watching over us from heaven with the angels.

Even if I didn’t believe the words, I said it for her. Nothing cheered her up. The light in her eyes died and shows no sign of ever returning.

But we have our matching lockets now.

Something to connect us to our past.

Something to keep us going.

* * *

Three days after Grams died, everything changes.

My heart sinks when he shows up.

Joy’s father. Momma’s ex-husband.

I didn’t get to know him well before they separated. He traveled a lot for work, but when he was around, Momma was happy. He was kind too, and never mistreated me or looked at me any differently, considering I wasn’t his child. When he left, Momma said it was for the best. Joy was a year old at the time so she doesn’t know him at all.

He has a new wife and two younger children. A good career. A home. He tells Mrs. Billings and social services that Joy is better off living with him because she’s his daughter.

They agree.

To his credit, he makes the same case for me, stating that Momma wouldn’t want Joy and me to be split apart, which is the reason he allowed Grams to have custody of us both when Momma passed.

The social services representative doesn’t agree.

Joy’s dad stays in town for three weeks fighting the system for me. But no one can put their life on hold forever for someone who isn’t blood while their entire family is in limbo almost three thousand miles away on the other side of the country.

He takes Joy and promises to keep fighting for me.

A month passes. Then six. I give up after a year. But I never give up on Joy. We exchange letters and emails and speak on the phone every chance we get.

* * *

Five Years Ago

Everything goes silent.

The day after Joy’s thirteenth birthday.

Their phone number changes.

Joy’s letters stop coming.

My emails are bounced back.

I found out a week later that Joy’s father has been transferred to somewhere in Europe by his company, and he took the family with him.

Everyone except for Joy.

An officer from the local police department contacts me to let me know that she ran away the night before the rest of the family flew out. With Joy’s dad and step-mother in another country, all the cops have to go by is a phone call to report her missing. They interview her friends at school, which is no help at all, then they reach out to me.

At eighteen years of age, I’m Joy’s only living adult relative. The cops ask me to keep on the lookout in case she shows up or tries to contact me.

I do.

Every day. Every night. I comb the local bus stations every chance I got, hoping she shows up. I reach out to all her friends on social media and email her teachers at school all the time. Every Saturday, I cook her favorite dish. Macaroni and hot dogs. No, it’s not gourmet food, but she loved it whenever Grams would prepare it for us. I’d make a big batch, keep one serving on the warmer, and put the rest into six bowls which I’d freeze.

Just in case she showed up.

Every week, I play with the recipe to make it taste better. It becomes a habit. My thing. I love the kitchen because it was Grams’ favorite room in the house.

But no amount of cooking and no amount of wishing has brought Joy back to me.

I’m so close to losing my mind. It gets worse as the days pass. And weeks turn to months. The police phone me to inform me that they have no reason to believe something terrible has happened to her. That teenage runaways are close to impossible to find if they stay off the grid. It’s a cold case, they say. She could be a Jane Doe.

On the one-year anniversary of her disappearance, the police tell me that her file is officially a cold case file. They gave up.

I start to lose hope. I stop cooking her favorite dish every week. To stop my heart from breaking into a million pieces that no one can ever put back together again, I force myself to prepare a meal for her one more time. When it’s done, I write her a letter and will myself to move on.

Maybe I’m wrong to give up.

I’m still shattered.

My sister may still be out there.