Approximately eight years ago, on the second of April 2008, my family experienced a tragedy.
Back then, the nine of us lived together under one roof in a suburban Melbourne house. There was Grandpa, Grandma, Dad, Mum, my older sister Sally, my two younger sisters, and my brother.
We were the typical Chinese family. We respected our elders, came home on time for dinner, helped out with the family business when we could, kept face and studied hard.
The day before Sally disappeared, she, my boyfriend, my brother and I played tennis together. Afterwards we went home as usual, had dinner together as usual, then locked ourselves in our rooms as usual.
The next day, I went to work and everyone else did the same. That same morning, I received a call and was told Sally hadn’t shown up at work. Initially I shrugged it off, assuming she was just with her boyfriend.
However, as the day progressed it was clear Sally was nowhere to be found. She had disappeared.
What happened after that was a blur. The family was frantic; everyone was emotional, there were tears, anger, silence and pain. Desperation of all things consumed us all. We were desperate for answers.
We spent hours driving around in the hopes of finding Sally in a park, on the street, at her favourite places. We phoned businesses to let people know she was missing. We ransacked her room to find any indication of where she might have gone. We accessed her Facebook account and contacted all her friends. We hired a private investigator. We turned to fortune tellers and psychics and went to temples to pray.