One year ago today, Amanda Berry fell off the face of the earth and her mother landed in hell.

Louwanna Miller hasn’t heard her daughter’s voice in a year. Hasn’t seen her face in 365 days. Hasn’t slept a single night without worrying, without wondering, Where is she?

Horror stories flash through her mind: Amanda dead and buried. Amanda drugged and kept as a sex slave. Amanda crying out for help and no one hears.

Each day, living gets harder. Louwanna is afraid to leave home and miss a call. Afraid to answer the phone and hear one more rumor that Amanda has been seen pregnant, prostituting herself or prancing happily around in Florida.

All lies. Lies that wear her out.

Louwanna leaves the door of Amanda’s room open to give her hope. She put Amanda’s Christmas presents inside. She stacks her mail there, as if any day Amanda could walk in the door.

As the months passed, the posters faded, the yellow ribbons fell down, the media lost interest. No one seemed to care about Amanda — until another girl disappeared two weeks ago.

Gina DeJesus, 14, vanished five blocks from where Amanda disappeared. Suddenly Amanda was back in the news.

Fresh yellow ribbons cling to the chain-link fence around Amanda’s house. New posters of Amanda smile from utility poles near the Burger King where she worked. A fund has been set up at FirstMerit banks. A prayer rally is set for 5 p.m. Sunday at West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue.

That’s where Amanda was last seen, leaving work at 7:45 p.m. in her Burger King uniform. Amanda told her sister she had a ride home. Then she vanished.

Louwanna believes she’d have more answers if the police and FBI hadn’t initially assumed Amanda ran away. If they’d searched her room more thoroughly, if they’d interviewed her friends sooner, if they’d used special phone equipment to trace cell phone calls.

Louwanna doesn’t believe “Mandy” ran away.

“No possible way,” Louwanna says. “She was a home-girl. ”

Amanda disappeared without the $100 she put on her dresser to buy birthday clothes and do her nails. She disappeared wearing her Burger King uniform. Disappeared the day before her 17th birthday party. Disappeared without taking her phone charger. Disappeared without a word to the two nieces she loved, girls now 4 and 5 who keep asking, “Who took her? Why?”

Somebody knows.

About a week and a half after she vanished, one TV station showed Amanda’s face on the 10 p.m. news. Minutes later, the phone rang at Louwanna’s.

A man said he had Amanda and that she was OK. When Louwanna begged to speak to her, he hung up. He called back two minutes later and said Amanda was his wife, that she’d be home soon. Louwanna cried and asked to speak to her.

“Please let me hear her voice,” she pleaded.

He hung up. The FBI called it a prank. Then, seven months later, the FBI told her the calls were made from Amanda’s cell phone.

Somebody knows.

Amanda turns 18 tomorrow.

Or she died at 16.

Louwanna needs to know.

“If she’s dead out there, can somebody out there tell me?” Louwanna said, weeping. “I’m living in hell.”

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:

rbrett@plaind.com, 216-999-6328