”Sorry to bother you. I found your number on Google. I am looking for Alice. She is 20 minutes late to our appointment. She tutors my son. This is not like her and I am worried.” This was the message I received from a number I did not recognize a week before Thanksgiving in 2019.
Sadly, it was not a practical joke nor a scam. Alice’s missing person case is still open today. It’s tragic. I do not wish anyone to go through what we went through and are still experiencing every day. It’s a hole in the fabric of my family’s life that can’t be patched up.
Alice was dainty, quiet, smart and sensitive. She took everything to heart. She picked up collecting emotional stamps from copying my mother. Between the two of them there was a lot of blame being thrown around the house. The disharmony echoed in the hallway, so I closed my door. I was lost to my sister twenty years ago.
This is a dark story. I have no intention of shining light on this experience. If this is too much for you, please skip to the next story.
I went on to college, moving out of my parents’ house. I hardly saw Alice when I visited home on the weekends. My last best memory with her was making cinnamon banana walnut bread together. We laughed when we squashed the over-ripened banana in our hands. We joked about how gross it felt and how much it looked like poop. I came home less frequently once I met Ryan, now husband. I was a self-absorbed 21-year-old. Part of me felt not responsible for her since she was closer to my other siblings. Out of sight, out of mind.
Alice became more and more closed in. She was the only kid left living with my parents. She had a mini-fridge in her bedroom, a credit card, and a hand-me-down Mercedes which meant she did not even have to interact with my folks much at all. My parents decided to move back to Taiwan during Alice's last year of college. She was furious. She felt abandoned. My parents asked Ryan and I to move back home to keep her company. At that time we were commuting from San Francisco to Palo Alto to work. Moving home could save us time and money. It seemed like a no-brainer decision.
We moved back home with two cats. Alice did not like them. She swore my cats had fleas and they were giving her allergic reactions. She proved it by showing us her scratched up legs. Ryan and the cats and I stayed in the same bedroom but never got any bites nor saw any fleas. This led to an argument. I did not like to be blamed for things where I was not at fault. Alice would not back down. Then the argument turned into silent treatment. At one point, I wanted the situation to end, so I wrote her a letter of apology. She said it was too little too late. Ryan and I moved out. After that incident, she never spoke to me again or returned my text. I gave up.
We saw each other at my grandfather's funeral, but we made efforts to not make any direct eye contact. Needless to say there were no words exchanged. The last time I saw her was at my brother’s wedding. She acted as if I was not there. I did not know how to bridge the gap, when she did not want to make the connection. Her emotional stamps were far more valuable to her than to make amends with me.
If I could turn back time, I would check in with her while I was in college. I would invite her to visit. I would say sorry earlier and it would not matter who was at fault.
My family spent too much money on lawyers, and private detectives to find her. What we discovered was that Alice had secretly moved, got married, and then disappeared in Taiwan while visiting with her husband (let’s call him H). H did not want to join forces to look for her. He claimed she ran away because she suffered from depression, and had suicidal tendencies. He hired a lawyer claiming he did not want to be misconstrued, and within 2 months he packed up all her belongings at a nearby public storage and replaced her with another woman. It turned out that H had two prior marriages; the first wife did not survive from cancer, the second wife died in her sleep.
It was the weirdest thing to be inside that storage space, looking at Alice’s belongings stacked inside a variety of boxes. Her Ikea furniture was grouped together by cellophane wrapping. Is this what we all are reduced to once we no longer exist in this space and time? Boxes? There was her hairbrush sitting with the furniture. I felt sick to be in that room. I thought I was going to throw up. Alice’s “things” were neatly, professionally packed up, stored away inside a dark room.
For the past two years, every single family text was about the investigation. My head and my heart felt like they could no longer be contained inside my body, they were about to explode. We finally held a funeral for her with no casket or ashes, since there were no remains to be found. The funeral was really for us, the ones that remained who needed closure.
There are days I feel extremely guilty when I am surrounded by love. I feel sad Alice is not here to experience it. Through this painful experience, I learned the ability to forgive is an act of being kind to yourself. I dreamed that she visited me and she was happy. Any time when I walk into a dark room, I feel her presence, like she wants to connect and to be discovered. I know my mind is playing a trick on me. I truly hope she is at peace. Wherever you are Alice, we love you.