Searching For- Connie Carter In- ◆ <AUTHENTIC>

Searching for Connie Carter in the static.

Tonight I search my own face. I see my mother’s eyes. I see a stranger’s debt. I see the shape of a story I will never finish.

Searching for Connie Carter in the ghost links. Searching for- CONNIE CARTER in-

The postmaster remembers a forwarding order. “Chicago,” he says, spitting tobacco into a Coke bottle. “That was ’89. Or ’91.” The gas station clerk remembers nothing. The librarian pulls a city directory: Carter, C. – 1414 N. Sheffield, Apt. 2B. I drive twelve hours north. The building is a vacant lot. A for-sale sign bends in the wind.

He wears a trucker cap. Reads the paper. I don’t show the photo. I just say her name. He looks up, slow. “She owes me twenty bucks from 1985,” he says. “You find her, tell her I’m still waiting.” Then he folds his eggs into his toast and leaves. No goodbye. No check. Searching for Connie Carter in the static

Searching for Connie Carter in the silence after.

I don’t know her. Not really. She was my mother’s roommate for six months in 1986. My mother is dying. She whispers: “Find Connie. Tell her I’m sorry about the coat.” That’s all. No explanation. Just the coat. I see a stranger’s debt

Searching for Connie Carter in the leaving.