I’ve lost count of how many days it’s been.
Three? Three hundred? It feels like eternity.
How did you let this happen?
“Missing: Dania Siregar, aged ten. Last seen-”
My mother turns off the television. I continue to mouth the headline. I’ve learnt it off by heart by now. Most of the information I already knew. The name, the age, where she was last seen.
Who last saw her.
How did you let this happen?
My family remembers every detail-I remember nothing. My big sister can tell you what clothes she was wearing (a floral dress with a white cardigan, apparently). Mama can recall every meal she had. Baba could recite their very last conversation.
Me? Nothing.
Sometimes, when I haven’t seen the news in a while, I forget what her face looks like. Did she have brown eyes? Blue? What colour was her skin? Which parent did she resemble most?
I think she was funny. Annoying, most of the time, but I think she made me laugh a lot.
I haven’t laughed since then.
Yeah, she was loud. Sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes just talking. Mostly talking. Generally I’d put my music on, drowning her and her tiring anecdotes out.
Maybe she’s drowning.
I want to hear her voice. I’ve forgotten it. I’ve forgotten my own voice too.
When it had happened, I screamed. I screamed and cried and yelled and cursed and pleaded and begged.
But then I didn’t.
After a while, when I realised it wasn’t bringing her back, I stopped.
Talking became hard, I stopped.
It all fell apart after that. He would scream and shout and sometimes hit Mama, she would cry and break down. My big sister would try to stop them.
I would watch.
Then he’d leave, banging the door. Sometimes he’d come back. She would wail and my big sister would cry and swear.
I would watch.
“Help me, Hannah.”
“Dania, where are you?”
“You told me to go away.”
“Dani – I’m sorry, I didn’t realise…”
She stared at me, clutching the organs they’d found in the hospital that day, holding them to the gaping hole in her front. Trying to push them back in.
“It’s too late, Hannah.”
She started to cry.
“Shut up.”
