Ariel

I can still hear her screams for me. I can still feel the sedative shot in my side that kept

me from saving my little girl. I can still feel them pry her little fingers from my weakening grasp.

I can still feel my head turn to find her being dragged away by a stranger. I can still see her

looking back at me with those little brown eyes, tear streaks down her face.

I hadn’t been out of the house in years. My little girl’s pictures, up to the day she was

taken, were still hanging on all the walls. She had a Minnie Mouse doll she used to play with

every day that was still sitting in my room. The entire house was full of empty Chinese delivery

containers and bags and empty potato chip bags.

One year, I ordered a cake on September 14 th and put 16 candles plus an extra one for

good luck. I lit the candles, sang happy birthday to an empty room, and as I blew out the candles,

I prayed my daughter would come back. A couple years later, there was a fuzzy green uneaten

chocolate cake with 17 molten candles and spoiled banana filling.

I made a cap and gown for my daughter and hung it up in my closet along with the other

teenage clothes I had bought for her. In this closet, there were also her straight A report cards she

never got and a diploma I made for her graduation. In the corner was an unused karaoke machine

along with pop music CD’s that had never been opened.

I turned on the news for the first time in years because my sister told me to. Something

about politicians arguing... blah blah blah... and then... “The body of an 18 year old girl with red

hair and brown eyes and scars and bruises all over was found recently in an abandoned house. If

anybody has any information on who this might be, please let us know.” They showed a picture

of her.

It had been 13 years, but I’d know my little girl anywhere. This was my little girl, but this

was not the same girl I knew. This was a pale, skin and bones, bruised girl. This was a girl who

lost the shine in her eyes, who didn’t smile. This was a girl whose favorite part of the day was

when for a meal, she would get more than a slice of bread. This was a girl whose life had ended

at five.

I looked up and said, “This is not what I meant when I said I wanted my daughter to

come back.” In a rage, I threw away the pop music CD’s, put the unused karaoke machine out on

the lawn, ripped up her diploma and report cards, returned her teenage clothes, burned the cap

and gown, and shoved the green cake in the garbage. For the first time in 13 years, I opened her

room door to put her Minnie Mouse doll on her bookshelf. Walking around the house, I took

down all her pictures one by one and then brought them into her room to put away in her closet.

As I was leaving the room, I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. It was a

pink glittery heart on a half-finished card that read, “Dear Mommy, Happy Mother’s Day.

You’re the bestest mommy in the whole wide world. You tuck me in at night, read me stories

and play dollies with me. I love you. Love, Ariel”

She was gone. She was really gone. That little girl who used to skip around in lacey

dresses, holding Disney dolls was gone. That little girl who used to climb into my bed at 2:30

AM during a thunderstorm was gone. That little girl, the one who made me smile after 39 hours

of labor was gone.

I sold the house and moved into my sister’s house. She was always at my every beck and

call, never once complaining about how needy I was. Sure, I somehow survived because she was

there, but I never really lived, and I never really would. My life was over the day my miniature

life was taken from my grasp. Nothing mattered anymore, and nothing ever would. She was

gone. I was gone.