Page 73 of Lieutenant

Late on day three, a life raft is located with eighteen survivors. My brief flash of hope is cruelly extinguished when I learn Susa’s not among the survivors. It was from the forward port-side exit, and none of the survivors recall seeing Connie, Mike, or Susa. Also, four more bodies are discovered.

Not them.

Day four, two more bodies—not them.

Day five, two of the slides are located, one with the body of a flight attendant still on it. She’d used strips of fabric ripped from her skirt to tie her left wrist to the slide.

The other slide is empty.

Day six, two more bodies.

Followed by a body a day—still not them—being recovered until day nine.

Day nine, a second life raft is located by an Australian naval vessel. The life raft is overturned and empty.

Day ten, the seas finally settle enough they can get an ROV down to the wreckage, where more bodies are spotted inside.

Including Mike’s.

I ask officials to let me break the news to Mike and Connie’s two sons, who have made their way to Manila with help from Benchley. The men had gone to bed for the night when Mike’s identity is confirmed by me. I recognize his clothes and watch from family pictures I’ve seen over the past couple of days. It looks like he died in the crash, or in whatever caused the crash, because he’s still belted in his seat.

There is no sign of Connie or Susa.

Day eleven begins the start of recovery operations to retrieve the black box and cockpit recorder, as well as the bodies. It’s decided they’ll try to float the plane, sothatclusterfuck happens.

Two divers die when an airbag shifts and pins them under a wing, but I don’t get a say in this. Other family members, including Mike’s sons, want them to float the wreckage and recover the rest of the bodies and personal effects, instead of using ROVs or just trying to ID them and leave them.

I…getit. I do.

Along with other family members of unaccounted for passengers, I fade back and stay quiet, hoping for resolution.

I try to talk to Owen at least twice a day, his morning and my evening, and vice-versa, through video chat. I talk and text with Dray several times a day to get reports.

Dray should get a fucking raise for what he’s dealing with.

If I was chief of staff for any other governor, Dray would also be getting a promotion, to my job, but I can’t abandon my boy.

I won’t.

As long as Owen is in office, I will be there with him.

But as we cross the two-week mark and there is no sign of Connie’s or Susa’s bodies…

I’m a realist.

I’m almost completely out of patience and self-control.

And my heart is…

My heart, which I thought had been completely destroyed in Germany…

That heart, which returned when I met Owen, which only healed more with Susa’s love…

That heart, which I thought was full and complete?

That heart is completely broken.

Chapter Twenty-Two