One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin, #2)

by Lisa Gardner

Above me, the sky is a shade of rich blue I associate with postcards and other people’s lives.

For me, the question isn’t why have I dedicated my life to this? The question is why hasn’t everyone? So many of our children, who deserve to come home. Loved ones who need to know what happened to their family member. Communities forever haunted by what might have happened, paired with what could’ve been.

I don’t speak. In this day and age, we all talk too much and hear too little. Listening has become a forgotten art that the world is sorely missing.

What do you remember most—the moments your parents genuinely tried, or all the times they definitely failed? I’ve never figured out that answer.

Sitting here now, I focus on the good. That this moment is beautiful and perfect, and I’m wise enough now to appreciate all the moments that came before it, even the less beautiful and less perfect ones, as they led me here.

Plans give you a list of tasks to keep you from drowning in your own fear. Plans give you a feeling of control, even if it’s just an illusion at the time.

Why do I do what I do? Because at the end of the day, the people left behind matter as much as the ones who are missing. We mourn the ones we’ve lost, but we agonize over the pieces of ourselves they took with them. The identities we’ll never have again. The emotions we’re certain we’ll never feel again. The sense of our own selves, becoming undone and disappearing just as completely and suddenly as those who vanished.

I’m like a schizophrenic introvert. Does such a thing exist?

Survival of the fittest, my ass. It’s adaptability that’s key.