Ella (Part 1)

Ella was beautiful. Ella was fast. Ella was gone. Ella was never coming back.

If you asked someone—anyone, really, maybe even a random person you caught a glimpse of in Kohl’s with half-priced Christmas tree ornaments or a cable-knit sweater with a V-neck that you could tell was meant to show off the crevice of a cleavage, and grabbed them by the arm, asked them the question you always hoped that they would answer differently—about Ella Dillard, a look would wash over their face. The gaze that their eyes emanated would soften, melt with sympathy, and their lips would part without a word for a moment, and then they would say Ella was . . . Ella was a nice girl. Ella was a pretty girl. Ella was a missing girl. And then maybe they would notice the slope of my nose, the color of my eyes, the shape of my lips, and realize that Ella Dillard wasn’t just a missing girl to me, not just a nice girl, not just a pretty girl.

That she was a girl who left something—someone—behind with the slope of her nose, the color of her eyes, and the shape of her lips to always remind her of someone who was never coming home. Her Christmas stocking, red and white, was getting dusty and smelled like old wood from so many years trapped in the attic, and there were unopened gifts hidden in the closet underneath the hems of winter coats and tucked behind the worn boots my father wore to trudge through the snow or the mittens tossed aside, flung from frozen fingers, and her favorite cereal was still in the cupboard, having expired three years ago, but my mother would’ve never let anyone eat it anyway.