I finally went to ask my mom, who asked my dad, who had just returned from dropping Eric at the airport.
"Paul, please tell me you took Ashley with you to drop Eric off?!"
"No, why?" My dad's face paled instantly.
"Oh my God. Paul, we've looked everywhere, we can't find her."
My dad was already moving from room to room in the house checking all the places I had checked. By the time he returned, my dad was crying.
"Diane, call the police. Now."
That was the day my mother turned into something else. She never smiled or cried again.
But I did.
But I never cried as much as I did when when Rocky died, which always made me feel bad and confused.
I remember a big police man talking to me, asking me what I remembered, had I heard anything in the middle of the night. He even asked if I liked having an identical twin sister or if I hated it. That question confused me for many years.
The days turned to a week and still no Ashley. I slept alone in my room, switching from bed to bed, some nights pretending I was Ashley and it was Rachel who was missing.
Lots of men with dogs came and went into the woods behind our house. Reporters were parked outside everyday and overnight. My parents wouldn't let me watch TV. The policemen tore up my bedroom and the rest of the house. I thought they were looking for a goodbye note. I thought Ashley had run away. I was so mad at her.
Months went by and I grew lonely. I was excited when my birthday came. My mom cried from morning to night that day so my dad took me out for pizza. But he was quiet the entire time. My brother fell in love with a local and decided to stay in Japan. Since he was 18, my dad couldn't stop him. My mother missed him and Ashley and drank wine and slept all the time. My father tried to be there to support me but he was suffering in his own way, I think. He upgraded Rocky's wooden cross to proper stone when I asked why Ashley hadn't had a funeral. I think he knew I needed a place to grieve. We all did.
One day he came home with a new dog which I named Naughty Boy. I hated Naughty Boy. He was trying to be Rocky and no dog could ever be Rocky. He eventually ran away. No one looked for him.
Four months after Ashley disappeared my father filled in the pool. I remember sitting in my room (which felt big and cavernous and cold) and watching them drain the pool. It took two days to fill it in with dirt. The pool had been the one last happy thing in my life. And my father had taken it away. He had taken my brother away too. He was the taker of things.
One afternoon, I was flipping through channels on the TV. The remote dropped from my hands when I suddenly saw my face on screen. It was a show called Unsolved Mysteries. My mother walked in then and saw what I was watching. I was afraid I was in trouble but she just gave me a blank look and walked right back out. I turned the TV off.
My parents began to yell at each other when they thought I couldn't hear. Their marriage was strained. There were so many phone calls from witnesses who reported seeing Ashley somewhere. But they were almost always just seeing me. Whenever this turned out to be the case, which was often, my mother would give me an accusing look, like I had purposefully raised her hopes and then kicked the chair out from under her. Every false lead seemed to kill her a little more.
It was around then that I realized why no one liked me anymore. I was like a ghost, an echo of my sister. A pale shadow following around her mysterious disappearance. My parents could barely look at me. I know they think I didn't notice, but I did.
The Dissappearance of Ashley Morgan
Start from the beginning
