CHAPTER 11

At first, nobody was worried.

The mall wasn't particularly far from their house, and Maria occasionally stopped to look at things along the way. Flora assumed her daughter had been delayed by a queue or had met someone she knew.

By noon, she had begun checking the time.

At one o'clock, she sent Clara to the sitting room to see whether Maria had returned.

At two, she started pacing between the kitchen and the front door.

"Where is that girl?" Flora muttered, glancing at the clock again. "She should have been back hours ago."

Clara sat on the sofa, her attention divided between the television and the road outside.

"Maybe the mall is crowded, Mum."

"For milk and eggs?"

Clara had no answer.

Flora picked up her phone and called Maria's number.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Eventually, the call ended without an answer.

Flora frowned and tried again.

This time, the call went unanswered once more.

"She's probably talking to someone," Clara offered, although a strange feeling had begun to settle in her stomach.

Maria had never been the kind of person to ignore their mother for hours without an explanation.

Not unless something was wrong.

By late afternoon, Flora could no longer hide her anxiety.

She called several relatives and asked whether Maria had visited them. Nobody had seen her.

She contacted a few of Maria's friends, but their answers only made matters worse.

No one knew where she was.

Clara had stopped watching television altogether.

She sat near the window, staring at the road, waiting for the familiar figure of her sister to appear.

Every passing footstep made her lift her head.

Every distant voice made her turn toward the door.

But Maria never came.

As evening approached, Flora's fear finally overcame her reluctance to believe that anything serious had happened.

She grabbed her handbag and called for Clara.

"We're going to the police station."

Clara stood immediately.

"Why?"

"Because your sister has been missing for hours, and nobody knows where she is."

The word missing struck Clara with unexpected force.

Maria was late.

She wasn't missing.

She couldn't be.

They had plans.

They were supposed to watch a film together.

She had promised to tell Clara what was troubling her when she returned.

Maria wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.

She wouldn't.

Clara followed her mother out of the house, clutching her phone and praying that they would find Maria waiting somewhere, ready to explain everything.

But as they made their way to the police station, a terrible question began forming in Clara's mind.

What if Maria wasn't coming back?

---

At the police station, Flora struggled to keep her voice steady as she explained what had happened.

"My daughter left home this morning to buy groceries. She was supposed to return within an hour, but she hasn't come back. I've called everyone I know, and nobody has seen her."

The officer behind the desk asked for Maria's full name, age, a description of what she had been wearing, and the time she had left home.

Flora answered every question as accurately as she could.

Clara sat beside her, listening as the officer wrote everything down.

"Did she have any problems at home?" the officer asked.

Flora hesitated.

"What do you mean?"

"Had she been arguing with anyone? Was she planning to leave home? Had she mentioned going anywhere else?"

"No," Flora answered quickly. "She's a good girl. She wouldn't just disappear."

Clara lowered her eyes.

She remembered Maria's nervousness that morning. The broken dishes. The way she had flinched when their mother raised her voice. The strange request for Clara to promise that she would take care of herself.

Should she tell the officer?

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

What could those things possibly mean?

Maria had been acting strangely, yes, but Clara had no reason to believe she was planning to leave.

And even if she had wanted to, why would she disappear without telling her?

After recording the report, the police assured Flora that they would investigate.

They took Maria's photograph and circulated information about her disappearance. Officers visited the mall, questioned shopkeepers, spoke to people who had been around the area that day, and searched locations where someone matching her description might have been seen.

They checked whether anyone had reported finding a young woman matching Maria's description.

They followed every lead they could find.

But none of them led to Maria.

At the mall, a few shopkeepers remembered seeing several young women that day, but nobody could confidently identify Maria.

One person thought they might have seen her near the entrance.

Another claimed a girl resembling her had been standing beside the road.

Neither account could be verified.

There was no reliable witness who could say where Maria had gone after leaving home.

No confirmed sighting.

No useful evidence explaining what had happened.

As the days turned into weeks, the police continued their investigation.

Flora returned to the station repeatedly, hoping for an update. Each time she arrived, she carried the same desperate question.

"Have you found my daughter?"

Each time, the answer remained the same.

Not yet.

Clara stopped sleeping properly.

She would lie in bed, staring at the empty space beside her, remembering how Maria used to complain about her stealing the blanket.

Sometimes, she reached across the mattress before remembering that her sister wasn't there.

Other nights, she dreamed Maria had returned.

In those dreams, Maria would walk through the bedroom door, smile, and climb into bed as though she had never been gone.

Then Clara would wake up.

And the room would be empty.

As the investigation dragged on, the police examined new information and revisited earlier leads. They spoke to people who knew Maria and tried to establish whether she had been planning to leave home.

Nothing produced a definite answer.

Months passed.

Then more months.

Eventually, the investigation reached a dead end.

The officers had exhausted the available leads, and there was no new evidence to justify further immediate investigative action. Without reliable information about Maria's whereabouts, the case could not progress.

Flora refused to accept it.

"How can you close the case when my daughter is still missing?" she demanded during one of her visits to the station.

The officer across the desk looked uncomfortable.

"Madam, I understand your frustration. We have followed the leads available to us, but we haven't been able to establish what happened to her. If new information comes to light, the case can be reviewed."

"So I'm supposed to go home and do nothing?"

"No. If you receive any new information or remember anything that might help us, please contact us immediately."

Flora stared at him, searching his face for a promise he couldn't give.

Then she stood and walked out.

She never truly stopped looking for Maria, even when everyone around her began urging her to accept that there might never be an answer.

Officially, the investigation had been closed pending new information.

But for Flora, it was never a closed chapter.

It was a question that followed her everywhere.

For Clara, it was worse.

She had lost her sister without knowing whether Maria was alive, whether she was safe, or whether she had spent her final moments wishing she could come home.

The uncertainty became a part of Clara's life.

Eventually, she learned to stop asking questions aloud.

She returned to school. She continued growing up. She learned to smile when people expected her to smile and to change the subject whenever someone mentioned Maria.

But she never stopped missing her.

And she never forgot the promise she had made that Saturday morning.

She had promised to take care of herself.

She hadn't promised to stop looking for her sister.