Searching For- Connie Carter In- -

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.

A Connie Carter in Portland sells handmade soap. Another in Tampa runs a dog rescue. A third—deceased, 2014, no photo. I filter: Arkansas. High school. Approximate age. Zero matches. Then a comment on a forgotten reunion page: “Connie? She changed her name. Doesn’t want to be found.” The account that posted it is deleted. Searching for- CONNIE CARTER in-

Searching for Connie Carter in the static. Tonight I search my own face

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. I see the shape of a story I will never finish

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.