Searching for Charlotte

In our three-bedroom house in Florida, our seven-year-old daughter Gracie waited for breakfast. The sliding glass door glowed in the reflection of the sun, casting her in silhouette as she sat at the table. Gracie was small for her age but acted much older, cleaning her room and even tossing our clothes in the washer in an attempt to do the laundry. She squeezed one eye shut and watched us in the kitchen through the hole of her bagel. “Can we go see Lauren today, Dad?” she asked me. “She’s the best babysitter ever. She’s funny and makes me laugh.”

Lauren—who lived in Delray Beach, just outside Boynton Beach, where we lived—had delightful chemistry with our daughter. She stayed with Gracie mostly on weekends so my wife, Janette, could work longer hours at Delray Medical Center. We had not seen her for the last two weeks because she had been sick with the flu.

I looked at Janette, who was at the stove. “Maybe we can stop there on my way to work,” Janette said, keeping her voice low so Gracie wouldn’t hear us over the sizzling sound of the frying pan. She threw a little piece of bacon in my mouth, then licked her fingers as I tried to decide.

* * *

Two little plastic containers sat on Gracie’s lap in the backseat of our SUV. She had insisted we bring breakfast for Lauren. “Did you have a babysitter when you were little, Mom?”

“Of course I did, honey,” Janette said, thumbing on her BlackBerry.

“What was her name?” Gracie asked.

Janette frowned. “You know, I can’t remember.”

“I had one,” I said. “Her name was Charlotte. I think I was six or seven.” But I couldn’t recall anything else except that Charlotte was a high school student. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I tried to remember Charlotte—what she was like, her whereabouts. Our families had been friendly; I must have heard at some point what became of her and what she did now for a living. But I could recall nothing.

“We’re doing the right thing,” Gracie said, clapping her hands.

“But of course we are, dear,” Janette said.

* * *

“Dad, what was your favorite cartoon when you were a kid?” Gracie asked when we got back home from Lauren’s house. Dry mango leaves crunched under her feet as she clasped my hand, moving like she was jumping rope.

            “I don’t really remember,” I said. One more thing I wished I could remember. This made me start thinking about Charlotte again: What might her favorite cartoons have been? It was hard enough to remember how much she used to play with me, let alone her most-liked cartoons—assuming she had ever mentioned them to me at all. What was her last name, anyway? Charlotte Walter, maybe? I cast my memory back to our nearest neighbors—the Walters, the Moloneys, the Jean-Pierres, and the Oliviers—then eliminated the possibilities. I recollected my parents taking Charlotte home a few times after babysitting, which they wouldn’t have done if she had lived on our street.

Lauren’s continued illness presented me with excuses to procrastinate. I put off picking up the dry cleaning and buying the lawnmower I needed from Home Depot. In theory, I was staying home to keep an eye on Gracie; but in truth I was glad to have the chance to do some research online, looking for Charlotte. I walked into the house through the garage, heading for my laptop, and felt a pang of guilt. I had promised Janette that I would “clear out all the junk” and so forth, but as I looked around the garage, my mind began to free-associate, trying to dredge up a surname.

Did Charlotte’s last name start with a B? My eyes fell on a buzzsaw: Burke? Buckley? The blade made me think of Blake, or Blair. No. A box of old books: Boone? Bowden? A wicker basket across Gracie’s bicycle: Baxter? Bickford? I shook my head. None of them were right.

My desire to track Charlotte down grew stronger. What if she lived much closer than I thought? Maybe she lived in Orlando or Jacksonville, in a big red brick house. I imagined all sorts of possible lives for her. She might be a school principal or maybe a veterinarian in some small town in the Midwest. Or was she a high school dropout working odd jobs? I should have been thinking only about best-case scenarios, but I didn’t want to be disappointed when I found her. What Lauren and her grandmother might have made of our visit that morning only floated in my mind for a few seconds before my thoughts reverted back to Charlotte—someone whose face I couldn’t even recall, not even enough to describe a stare or smile. It was like craving a special dish I had not eaten in years, and I wouldn’t rest until I had it.

* * *

Back in the kitchen, the pleasant vanilla smell still hung in the air. Wash the dishes later, said the voice in my head as I glanced at the stainless-steel sink. What if Charlotte’s last name began with an S, like my first name—Sammy? Sink made me think of Silver, or Sinclair. Salt shaker: Sampson? Santana? Spatula: Springer? Spillman?

The ringing phone roused me from my thoughts. It was my dad, with his usual Saturday-afternoon call. I worked at a small financial firm, so he knew I wouldn’t be at work dealing with any clients. Besides, it was a chance for him to chat with Gracie.

We talked for a while—he had his usual questions and concerns about dealing with his diabetes—and then I abruptly asked, “Dad, do you remember the babysitter I had as a kid? Charlotte?”

“That came out of the blue,” he said. “What about her?”

“You remember Charlotte, though? Whatever happened to her?”

“I don’t entirely know,” he said. His breathing grew a little heavy, as if he had just climbed up from the cellar. It was as though he thought something awful happened to me as a child. “Is something troubling you, Sam? Did Charlotte hurt you?”

I was taken aback. “Hurt me?”

“You know,” he said, his voice echoing as I walked down the hallway with the phone to my ear, Gracie’s baby pictures looking back at me. “Hit you when you two were alone. Left you in the dark while playing hide-and-seek.” He faltered. “You hear all kinds of stories of things that people only remember years later, God forbid.”

I stood halfway down the hallway, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

* * *

A week later. Another weekend—a sunny Saturday with a rare, lovely breeze straight from the Treasure Coast. From the kitchen, I could hear my daughter squeal and scream in joy at her new ability to peel and cut perfect mango slices, just like Lauren.

At sixteen, Lauren was a rather tall teenager whose glasses did nothing to hide her baby face. She and Gracie crouched barefoot on the cool mosaic tiles. “Would you even remember me after high school, Grace?” she asked. They made funny faces and burst with laughter as they collapsed on their backs, scrunching up their cheeks until their dimples became invisible. I was glad to see Lauren again—not just because Gracie adored her, but because her presence would give me more time to track down Charlotte.

I left the two of them at around noon and headed out to pick up the dry cleaning. The windows were down, and the sound of Massive Attack should have put me in a better mood; but my thoughts were still restless. At least I had one thing to go on—my father’s fabulous memory had retrieved a surname: Charlotte Hunt.

The name seemed like a bad omen. The word Hunt echoed in my head like I was searching for a rare medieval silver coin. Maybe the feeling would be different if my father had told me Charlotte’s last name was Hilton, Hamilton, or just Hill. “Hunt” seemed to promise a long search, with a remote chance of success. Even though Lauren had agreed to help me, I had a nagging feeling I would be unlucky tracking down my babysitter.

I had already spent too many evenings this week surfing the web, searching for Charlotte Hunt. So far, nothing significant had surfaced on the internet under her name, though there seemed to be thousands of blind alleys. But I persisted: I needed to know what she was up to in life.

Janette didn’t understand, and she didn’t approve. She had told me as much two nights ago, when I had crawled into bed at three o’clock in the morning. “Just so you know, I don’t like this,” she said. “I’m not enjoying any of it.” Perhaps she was afraid I was going through a midlife crisis—one of those phases where the husband becomes bored and depressed, quits his job, and convinces his family to hit the road in a giant RV in search of adventure—or worse, leaves his family to run off with his high-school sweetheart.

But it wasn’t like that. I couldn’t explain it to her—I couldn’t quite explain it to myself, either—but I just needed to know. It was as if by seeing how Charlotte’s life had turned out, only then could I properly assess my own. And if there was another reason beneath the surface, then I wasn’t aware of it.

Returning from the dry cleaning, I wandered into the kitchen. Lauren was cleaning up; everything looked spotless except for a piece of yellow mango peel that resembled one of Gracie’s plastic hair clips on the floor. “Hi, Mr. Moore,” she said. “Gracie’s watching a movie. And I think I might have something on that internet search.” She wiggled her tongue between her teeth, trying to loosen some mango fibers stuck there. “Are you on Facebook?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I do have MySpace, though. You think Charlotte might be on Facebook?”

Lauren only smiled. Her perfect line of teeth gleamed in the bright daylight from the kitchen window. “I think I found her, Mr. Moore.”

* * *

In fact, Lauren had found four Charlotte Hunts, but had eliminated three straight away: one was an Asian lady in her thirties, while the other two were in their twenties. By my rough estimate, Charlotte would now be in her mid-forties. Lauren and I huddled over my computer in the living room. I pulled a chair beside her so we could both see. My excitement was mounting.

Lauren pulled up the likely Facebook profile. There was only a single photograph—a headshot of a brunette with oval cheeks that seemed a bit too tired and hollow. The dreamy glare of her brown eyes could have been the result of an intense camera flash, but I couldn’t tell.

“I never knew you were from New Orleans,” Lauren said.

“Baton Rouge.”

“Right. You’re probably the first person I met who’s from Louisiana.”

Our laughter brought Gracie out of her room with her instant camera. “Hey, kiddo!” I said. “Who wants pizza for lunch?”

Gracie and Lauren both gave their enthusiastic assent, and within minutes I had placed an order for delivery—and was creating a Facebook account. Soon, I was able to view Charlotte’s profile. No workplaces to show. Tulane University, class of 1982; Baton Rouge Magnet High School, class of 1979. Born February 19, 1961. Forty-six years old as of the current year, 2007. Hometown: Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Current residence: Miami, Oklahoma.

How had Charlotte wound up in Oklahoma, I wondered. I scrolled through her public posts. The most recent was dated June 3 of the previous year: Happy Red Earth Festival! Another dated May 28, 2006: Go Barry Bonds—715th home run! Sorry, Babe Ruth LOL. The next, from February 10, 2006: Final ep. of Arrested Development tonight! And then nothing but life events.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “She hasn’t posted in thirteen months.”

“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” Lauren said, smiling for Gracie’s instant camera. “Maybe she’s just not very active. A lot of people use Facebook just to keep track of other people but don’t post much themselves.”

I nodded, then hit the friend request. Next, I opened Facebook Messenger: Hi Charlotte, do you remember me? I’m Sammy Moore.

* * *

A month passed. I had yet to hear back; the friend request was still pending, and my curiosity was still smoldering. I knew there was a Miami in Missouri, but not Oklahoma. In the absence of any new information, I did some Googling on Miami, Oklahoma. This Miami was in Ottawa County, founded in 1891 after being purchased from local Native tribes. As of 2007, it was home to about 13,000 people.

I was still speaking regularly with my father. However, I tried not to pester him about my search because I didn’t want him to worry. One Saturday, he volunteered that the Hunts—Charlotte’s family—were still living in Baton Rouge. “I can’t say I’ve run into any of them lately,” he said, and I left it at that.

Gracie started third grade at the beginning of the fall, and I was promoted from senior analyst to manager. With a little extra money coming in and a little paid time off accrued, I decided we should take a family trip to spend Thanksgiving with my dad back in Louisiana. Janette was against it—she had planned for us to visit her family instead—but I argued that she owed me this; I had not done anything or gone anywhere significant to celebrate my promotion. We will visit her family next year, I promised. And besides, Gracie had been begging to go visit her grandfather ever since she could talk on the phone. She was too young to recall the last time she had seen him in the flesh.

And so, on the morning before Thanksgiving dinner, we sat in our pajamas on the back porch, sipping lukewarm coffee and hot tea, laughing at how similar the sixty-degree weather around this time of year was to Florida. The porch overlooked a small garden that kept my dad busy. Now seventy, he enjoyed the routine of weeding and hoeing, especially since my mother’s passing a few years ago. Two narrow brick sidewalks cut through the garden, which was dotted with tomatoes and strawberries.

My father slurped the last of his tea. “We should get moving,” he said. “Today is your lucky day, son. I invited the Hunts for dinner later this evening.” I stared at him; he wiped the droplets of tea from his gray mustache, gazing at me inscrutably.

Trying to sound casual, I said, “Who all’s coming?”

He cracked a smile. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t stop until you got ahold of that woman. She’ll be among them, since they were expecting her for the holiday.”

I leaned back in my chair with a gasp. Gracie giggled, gazing at my father’s face like he was a magician who had just performed his greatest trick. Janette reached over to rub my arm, which was covered in goosebumps. This was by far the best news since finding Charlotte on Facebook, yet I didn’t know what to say. Maybe my father ran into them at the grocery store. But I wouldn’t put it past him either if he drove to their house to explain my obsession with searching for my babysitter.

* * *

Approaching sunset later that day, all I could think about was what my encounter with Charlotte would be like. Maybe she would surprise us all before any reintroduction, remembering babysitting the little boy I once was. We all dressed up in our casual outfits. The smell of roasted acorn squash and parmesan roasted potatoes filled the house. “Thanks for coming,” my father said, opening the door for the Hunts.

The old couple entered the house, dressed as if they were going to church, stiff and polite. As I took their coats, the nervous smile I had been wearing faded away. Charlotte wasn’t with her parents. I peered outside; she was nowhere to be seen.

I saw Janette glancing at me with a worried expression. I shook my head a little, doing my best to hide my disappointment.

“You must be Sammy,” said Mr. Hunt as my father ushered him and his wife to their seats at the table. “It’s been a long time.” They sat down opposite my wife and daughter. Their faces seemed clenched tight; they looked uneasy.

“I’m afraid Charlotte couldn’t make it,” Mrs. Hunt said. “She missed her flight.”

“That’s what she said, anyway,” Mr. Hunt added. He didn’t look at his wife.

I put my hand involuntarily over my mouth. Their frowns told me all I needed to know; Charlotte and her absence would be sore subjects tonight. Standing there a few feet from the table, I felt a wave of embarrassment creeping over me, like I was a chef who had to present a meal that had not turned out quite as he had hoped.

“Where was she coming from?” my father asked, trying to keep his voice light.

“Indonesia,” Mrs. Hunt said.

“Maybe,” Mr. Hunt said, not quite under his breath.

I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means she might be anywhere, son,” Mr. Hunt said. He forced a tiny smile. “Charlotte moves from place to place. Depression does that to people.”

Mrs. Hunt stared down at her empty ceramic plate, her eyes sad. I glanced at my father, who was opening the wine, but his face had no expression. It didn’t seem as though he had the faintest idea of what the Hunts were saying.

“Did she ever settle down?” I asked Mr. Hunt, trying to keep my voice normal.

He only stared at the turkey on its platter, skin crisp and harvest-gold. At first, I thought he had not heard me. “Once,” he said at last. “A long time ago. Her husband passed away not too long after, though.” He exhaled. “And things—well, things were different after that.”

I knew I should pry no further, but I had come so far. “What happened, Mister Hunt?” I asked. “To Charlotte’s husband, I mean. If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Home invasion,” he said.

The silence was heavy. “Did they have any kids?”

He shook his head, still staring at the turkey.

“What if I wanted to call her? I mean, is there a number I can call?”

“We haven’t had a regular phone number for Charlotte in years,” Mrs. Hunt said. “She usually calls us from wherever she is.”

I had a thousand other questions, but none of them seemed important now. Janette took me by the arm. “Come sit down,” she said. I took my chair at the corner of the table, next to my father. Janette rubbed the back of my neck. “Are you okay?” she asked in a whisper.

I gave her hand a grateful squeeze. My father cleared his throat. “Let’s pray,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. I looked across the table at the Hunts. “I’m glad you could be with us tonight.” I smiled. I nodded to my father, and he began his blessing.

Janette took Gracie’s little hand in hers, and reached out to me with the other. We closed our eyes, and I prayed in darkness and in the silence of my heart: O Lord, I am forever blessed. Thank you for this bounty you have given us. In your mercy, watch over those we hold dear, wherever they may be. Amen. Janette’s hand in mine was warm and strong; I felt I could hold it forever.