The Paris Daughter

by Kristin Harmel

But we would do our best to mend the broken pieces. We would put one foot in front of the other until we learned to walk again. And then we would go where the road took us.

“The universe always leads you to exactly where you’re meant to be, for though it may be endless, there is a place in it for each and every one of us.”

What must it be like to be a child, to put aside the memories that were difficult, and to walk into the light of the future unencumbered?

“I think,” he said slowly, “that sometimes, the roads we don’t know we’re walking are the ones that lead us to exactly where we’re meant to be.”

But in the end, no matter how many days we spend living the lives we are told are ours, it turns out that we are only ever ourselves.