Chapter 9 MILES TO NOWHERE
Chapter 9
M ILES TO N OWHERE
When Charli gets back to Boston, she walks Tiny and then spreads the photos out on her dining room table. There are twenty in total, five of them in frames. She takes her time with each of them, staring into the eyes of her young mother and aunt, of their mother, Priscilla. Then of their father, Barrett, who took his own life. In one photo, he’s out working in the yard. Looks like a beautiful Pennsylvania day. He’s in shorts and sandals, holding a shovel. Charli sees herself in him, the same annoyingly innocent brown eyes. It’s an old photo, but they might share the same slightly dimpled chin as well.
“Why did you do it, Barrett? What hurt so badly?”
The answer waits for her in the next photo, the one that includes her third great-grandparents, Samuel and Margaret, standing out in front of the house. What was life like for them? What happened to Samuel or Margaret to pass it along to their children and then the next generation and so forth? They were so young to be troubled.
What year was this taken? She turns the frame over. The brittle tape is cracking. She breaks the seal and pulls back a piece of cardboard so she can see the other side.
A smaller photo slips out and falls to the table.
Charli’s heart skips a beat as she reaches for it. Its condition suggests the photo is even older than the one behind which it was hiding. In it, a young couple, most likely teenagers, stand by a tree along the river. He has his arm around her. She is beautiful, exquisite even. Her thick bouncy hair is pinned down on one side by a flower-shaped hair brooch with a jewel in the middle that looks elaborate, despite the photograph’s fading details.
The young woman’s smile is bright enough to bring color to the black and white of the photograph. Her dress stops before some leather boots. He has dimples and wears a suit and tie and looks familiar ...
“No,” she says, squinting and leaning in. “Is that ...?”
She looks at the other photo, the one of Samuel and Margaret. He has the same rounded features, the same determined eyes as the young man in the photo. They are unquestionably both photographs of Samuel, taken decades apart.
But it isn’t the same woman, that’s for sure. Even odder, Samuel shows a smile with those dimples that is at once mischievous and alive. Charli is no expert on love, but she knows these two are enraptured by one another. A longing to know a love like that presses down on her. Though Charli has been a skeptic of true love for most of her life, she’s secretly hoped that it might be out there. And this photograph feels like it’s proof that it is.
Charli flips the photo over to find some faded writing. It takes her a moment to make out that it reads: For Miles .
The handwriting looks feminine but not neat.
“Who is Miles?” she asks out loud. Maybe he’s not the same man as the first photo. She scrutinizes the photo again. It has to be. Could the inscription mean I love you for miles ? Samuel was born in London, which could mean the picture was taken somewhere in England, probably not London considering the rural setting. They certainly didn’t use miles. Was it the metric system? Phone in hand, an internet search sends her down a rabbit hole. She determines that she’s mistaken. They did use miles as a measurement, but not the same miles that are used now in the United States. A mile is eight furlongs, whatever those are.
“I love you for eight furlongs,” she says in a silly voice. She puts herself into the skin of the girl in the photo. She imagines herself saying to Samuel, “I love you for miles and miles.” Perhaps that was their form of love talk.
Or ... was this photo a gift to a guy named Miles? She leans toward the latter assumption, then thinks back to the constellation in Costa Rica. Who was the angry man who stands in the way of her green lights? Purportedly he was the original cause of the Hall family’s doom. Samuel doesn’t look like the kind of person who could be that angry.
She dials her aunt. “Kay, yes, I made it home safe, thanks. I’m going through these photos and found one hidden behind the photo of Samuel and his family. But it says, For Miles . Does that name ring a bell at all?”
“I don’t think so. Miles. Nope.”
“Okay, just trying to figure things out. Do you happen to know when Samuel immigrated? He was born in London. I’m wondering if this photo was taken here or over there.”
Considering there is no record of his parents, Charli has a hunch that she needs to fill out Samuel’s side of the tree. It’s the obvious place to start. Besides, she is pulled to him, as if she knows him. It’s more than the fact that they share the same blood.
“You know what you can do?” Kay says. “Check the Ellis Island records. He probably came through there. How many Samuel Halls could there be?”
“That’s a great idea, thank you.”
It takes her a little while, but Charli’s soon searching immigration records at Ellis Island. Hundreds of results come up for Samuel Hall, but the birth year matches for only two, and those Samuel Halls both arrived too late to be hers. She’s mashing the keys harder now, getting frustrated. She thought she was making progress. She tries the name Miles Hall, also to no avail, but then gets a break. She reads that not everyone came in through Ellis Island, as it only opened in 1892. Before that, there was Castle Garden. She looks for him in the immigration records on Family Search.
There he is.
She can’t believe it.
Well, it could be him. According to the records, he arrived on a boat from Southampton and reached Castle Garden on September 30, 1881. She eventually confirms what she thought: he was eighteen. He must have come with his family. But they aren’t on the records, or at least not tied to him. She searches for the last name Hall. No other Halls came on the boat. Did he travel alone?
“What in the world is going on?” she says, tasting the edges of a desperate curiosity. And how about the woman in the photo? Was that taken before or after Samuel left England? Did she come with him? Or did he meet her shortly after arriving in the US?
Giddy with that feeling that every detective must get when they find a solid clue, she goes back to the family tree. Samuel’s wife, Margaret, was born in 1870 in Maryland. She died in 1927. Samuel surely met her in America, after he immigrated in 1881.
Charli rubs her eyes and realizes her brain is fried. Taking a step back before she quits for the day, she writes out what’s on her mind.
Who else could I talk to in the family?
Search newspapers. There has to be an archive online.
Find out more on Miles. Find his family. Check records in London.
Track down more information on Margaret and her family.
Charli wakes early on Monday, two days after visiting Kay. She walks Tiny and still has thirty minutes before she has to leave for work. More research on Sunday led her to believe that she might find answers from the City of London. Once she has her recently found information splayed out in front of her on the dining room table, she calls the London Metropolitan Archives and introduces herself.
“I’m calling from the US and trying to locate more records of my third great-grandfather. All I’ve found is that he arrived at Castle Garden Depot in September of 1881. That’s it. Nothing I’ve searched on your site or anywhere is showing his name. Can you help?”
“I’m so sorry,” the man says. “We don’t provide service over the phone.” Charli has to try hard to understand, due to the heaviness of his accent coupled with a robotic overtone. “To be quite honest, we don’t have the majority of our information online yet. You’d be much better served coming into the office on Monday through Friday, nine to four.”
And here’s a red light, she thinks. “That’s a long journey from Boston. It said on the website that you have staff who can help.”
“Not over the phone, I’m afraid. We certainly have staff who can help on-site. You might be interested in our bimonthly starter sessions. They’re the best way to learn how to search here. We’ve millions, if not billions, of archives.”
“What do I do if I can’t come to England?”
“Well, I suppose ... I ... quite, I don’t ...” He’s apparently having a system error. Finally, he spits out something coherent. “I suppose you could hire someone?”
“Hire someone? Like a private detective. I can’t afford that.”
“Not a PI, more a professional genealogist.”
“Ah, okay.” She thanks the man and hangs up with a heavy hand.
She cuts wedges out of a grapefruit and pops them in her mouth as she searches for professional genealogists. A few come up in Boston, but she realizes she’s best to hire one in London. Otherwise, she’ll have to pay for the genealogist’s travel expenses.
She finds a slew of information on professional genealogists in London, more than she could ever possibly contact. She doesn’t even know where to start but tries the office that owns the top of the Google search. A woman with a British accent answers quickly. Charli introduces herself and explains her situation.
“Sure, that’s what we do.”
Charli smiles. “Can you just tell me about price and timing and all that ...”
“We’re taking clients for early next year. The cost is based on exactly the depth of information required. Can I take down your name, and we could put you on the list?”
“Yeah, that would be great.” Charli’s already given up on this one.
She makes ten more calls, and it’s more of the same. Months of waiting. She doesn’t want to wait.
During lunch, she contacts several local genealogists who quote outrageous prices and can’t make any promises. That’s the thing that frustrates her. Thousands of dollars, and they may not even be able to find anything more than what’s on Ancestry.
The next few days go by, and she’s fighting hard not to give up. A side of her knows it would be so easy to let it all go and return to the way things were. Still, though, the fight in her is not going away.
Charli heads over to William’s house at six on Thursday, and she tries to stay chipper but is doing a bad job at it. Seeing the way her father is kills her, and as she hears the tone in his voice and sees the glimmer of doom in his eyes, it feels like she’s losing him.
After letting Tiny run, they go into the kitchen. William slips an apron on and starts braising lamb shanks. He’s more quiet than usual. She takes a seat on a stool around the island and watches him as the smell of rosemary wafts through the air. She pours them each a glass of wine. He takes a sip and leans against the counter with the lamb sautéing behind him.
“Are you going to make me pry it out of you? I want to hear more about Costa Rica. Sounds like an adventure.”
“You could say that.”
Appreciating his curiosity, even if he might be faking it, Charli fills him in and answers all his questions. She can’t bring herself to say that it’s him! It’s mostly him that’s the reason she’s doing all this. It’s a total long shot, but it’s the only idea left.
As she’s wrapping up, she says, “I’d like to figure out what happened. Or what all this means. You have to admit, there is some serious darkness in Mom’s family. And I want to escape it. I also understand if you think that it might be time to stick me into the schizo program at Mass Gen.”
She gets a smile out of him. Sometimes it takes a departure from politically correct to stir the soul.
He crosses his arms. “No, I don’t think I need to check you in anywhere. Look, Charli, I’m all out of answers. You might have figured that out. If you have an angle that I haven’t tried, I fully support it. Understanding where you come from is an important part of growing up. Even if you’re not proud of who or what you find.”
She wants to explain more, but she could potentially make things so much worse by shining a spotlight on her worry about him. His sigh and facial expression show a father who hates hearing his daughter wrestling with such heavy challenges.
“It’s freaking hard, Dad. All of it.”
“You’re telling me.” He dips his chin. “But I’m here for you.”
But you’re not, she wants to say. He’s fading away right in front of her. She presses her eyes together. She’s suddenly ten years old and hiding in the closet, crying.
She can barely look at him as a heavy weight of sadness settles in her heart. William goes to her and pulls her in as the tears come. She cries into his neck.
When they pull away, she sees that he’s crying too. “What are you crying for?” She reaches for his tears.
Her dad cries like an old man, his body shaking. “I don’t know, honey. I ... I can’t stand to see you hurting.”
“I feel the same way about you,” she says. “I don’t know why you’re hurting. I mean, Mom, I guess, but that was a long time ago. I don’t know what’s going on with you, selling the boat and everything.”
Both wet with tears, they look at each other until they share the same thought as the smell of carbon wafts up into the air.
He cracks a smile. “The lamb chops are burning.”
She laughs despite the tears. There’s nothing that makes her feel safer than seeing his lips curl upward. He gets up and tends to them.
“I’m glad that I can still make you laugh,” Charli says, “even if it is at my expense.”
“You have a way with delivery,” he says over his shoulder. “I think you could make a living doing stand-up of the self-deprecating variety.”
“Right, I’ll add that to the list of potential new careers to fail in next.”
He sets down the tongs and turns to her. “You know what I think ... I think you should go to England yourself. Take this picture and a name and see what happens.”
“My boss won’t give me any more time off.” She’s too ashamed to admit how she lied to get the time off for Costa Rica.
“From what I’m hearing, this job is not as important as what you’re doing now. Your boss sounds like a jerk, and I’m not seeing the work as being exactly satisfying.”
“That’s not true. I adore poring over poorly written advisory reports for porta-potty rentals and car washes. I feel like I’m doing what I was put on this planet to do. I’m saving the world, Dad.”
William drops his head and seemingly fakes amusement. What Charli sees through his mask is serious concern. Does he feel like he’s the one to blame for the disaster that she’s become?
He goes to her with a face that melts with sadness. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he stares into her eyes. “You’re exactly the person I want you to be. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.”
They both know he’s lying. Or, at least, pushing the truth. That’s what you have to say to your daughter, just like how Kay must have felt obligated as an aunt to say something similar when Charli had visited her in Lowell.
“I’m serious,” he says, letting her go. “You turned into this miraculous young lady despite how much I screwed up. And I ...” His voice cracks. “I ... I’m sorry.”
She can barely get out, “You did your best, Dad.”
Tiny senses Charli’s pain and comes to her. She finds comfort in petting him. It’s not fair that her dad is apologizing, as if what happened could ever be fixed.
William wipes his eyes, reaches for his daughter’s hand, and flashes a weary smile. “I’m so proud of you for doing what you’re doing. You don’t ever let up. Quite frankly, it’s inspirational. Makes me want to raise my fists a little.”
“Well, you should, Daddy. You’re too young to give up.”
He’s the one to look away this time, and that’s when she knows for sure. He’s not going to raise his fists. He’s completely given up.
That’s why she has no choice. She’d do anything for him, even chase ghosts from the past with a baseless hope that she might be able to alter his outcome.
Friday morning, Charli’s editing a report for a company called Wish and Wash that’s been growing throughout New England, and the words are blurry. She’s determined to somehow convince Marvin to give her another week off. Just one week to save the life of her father. One week to save her own life. Then she’ll return to this shithole with unwavering enthusiasm and gusto, the likes of which Marvin has never seen. She’ll get back to her car wash reports as if she’s been tapped on the shoulder to save the entire human race—with her astounding car wash advisory reports.
Because car washes are a big deal. And we must keep them in business. The section she’s editing now has to do with the wasted overtime pay due to a lack of depth on the employee roster. Seriously, what is more important than trimming the fat and making sure hourly wage workers don’t make one more freaking dime than they’re supposed to? Overtime is a killer, and it’s wasted on people who oddly like to work more than forty hours a week. Don’t they have anything better to do?
Charli takes a pause to lower her head. No, not drop it like her father sometimes does, as if he’s been beaten. She lowers her forehead all the way down to the keyboard and feels the keys press against her skin. Nonsensical text is surely muddying up her report, and she cares one iota less than zero.
“A little morning nap there, Charli?” a voice says. Marvin’s voice. He must always be watching her. Are there cameras?
Resisting the urge to be snarky, she pops up like she’s the most chipper person since Julia Child. “Oh, no, I was just brainstorming about Wish and Wash, making sure we’ve dotted all the i ’s. You know, crossed all the t ’s.” Clichés are the worst, and they seem so fitting when she refers to the life-changing work she’s doing.
He second-guesses her look but eventually nods in satisfaction. She looks down the row at her coworkers. There’s a steady chatter coming from the army of keyboards in this room. Marvin rarely stops to talk with anyone else. She’s apparently the chosen one.
“Listen, I wanted to ask you something ...” She can’t believe she’s doing it, asking for more time off. The Costa Rica request felt like she was asking if she could have Marvin’s left kidney.
“Ah, yes, Charli Thurman needs more from me. I don’t know whether to be honored or afraid.”
She ignores him and presses on with everything she has. “I need some more time off.”
He cocks his head toward her, then jerks it right and then up and down, as if she’s caused him to self-destruct. Finally, he says, “I don’t think I heard you correctly. More time off?”
“That’s right. My mother’s not doing well.” She can’t remember what kind of cancer she gave her mother in the first excuse, so she goes garden variety. Was it cancer at all? Had to be.
“The cancer looks like it’s gone,” she says, “but during the surgery, she picked up an infection. She’s on heavy antibiotics, which she’s allergic to ...” Charli wonders where she came up with that, but she’s on a roll and keeps going. “So she’s bedridden and swollen and has no one to take care of her.”
Marvin looks at Charli like Hercule Poirot stares at potential suspects, as if he’s searching for any hint of a lie. “Firstly, I’m sorry about your mother. But let’s consider everyone in this room. They all have things going on. Trust me, because I hear about them. Every single day. What if I let everyone take more time off. We’d go out of business.”
Wouldn’t that be terrible, Charli thinks. We must stay in business so we can protect companies from overpaying employees who barely have a pot to piss in already. Heaven forbid they get a few extra dollars for working hard. Then it occurs to her—all while Marvin continues his soliloquy—that she’s become a part of the evil machine.
When he’s done, Charli says, “I totally get it. And I feel awful asking, but”—this is when she turns on her charm—“she’s my mother. Despite having a difficult life, she gave me her all. And now she’s quite possibly dying. This is my chance to pay her back for all that she’s done for me.” Charli almost laughs but is reminded that none of this is funny. “I don’t have a choice. But I do like this job, and I will come back after a week ready to give it my all. No more time off the rest of the year.”
Marvin is wide eyed. “You’re good. You know that? You’re really good.”
Charli is on the verge of tears. And it’s not because she’s faking. Real tears are coming. Maybe because in this desperate plea she created the mother she wished she’d had.
One tear actually escapes, and that’s when she knows she’s won. Who could say no to this pity party?
“Okay, my God,” Marvin says. “Don’t start crying on me. And don’t cause a scene.” He leans down. “You can have another week. One last week. But you need to take your computer, and you need to be available.”
Charli wipes her eye and feels like Pinocchio when he sheds his first tear. Maybe she’s a real human with real feelings after all.
“Thank you, Marvin. You’re a good man.”
That seems to satisfy him. “You’re welcome.” He extends his hand and briefly touches her leg, causing her to cringe. She resists thrusting a knee up into his crotch. She’s gotten what she needed, and now she doesn’t have to see him for a while.