The girl’s name was Charlotte, and she stood in front of a large television set.
Her hair was gold and reached her waist.
Misty left them.
Patch looked at his daughter, and she stared back coldly.
“Do you like Muppets?” he said, noting the stuffed toys.
She wore denim dungarees, her feet bare on wood floor that caught the shine of the morning sun.
“You’re friends with my mom,” she said, holding his gaze so intently he knew then that she was blessed with her mother’s confidence. That way of looking at the world like your place was warranted. Deserved. He felt the relief acutely.
“Yes,” he said.
“How come I don’t know you then?”
“I’ve been searching for someone.”
“Who?”
He cleared his throat lightly. “A girl I knew.”
“What’s her name?”
“Grace.”
Her eyes belonged to him, he noticed then. The lightest brown and the heavy dark lashes.
“Mom said she was friends with a pirate, but I thought it was BS.”
He watched the bow of her lips as she spoke.
“She also told me you’re the bravest boy that ever lived, which I also think is BS.”
She moved so close he could smell the lotion on her skin as she studied his face. “The girl you’re searching for, maybe she isn’t real. That’s what my grandmother said. Which I think means you’re crazy.”
He smiled, but she did not.
“She is…she was real,” he said, matching her whisper.
“So she’s it,” Charlotte said.
“What?”
“Your rainbow connection.”
“What’s that?”
She rolled her eyes in a move that echoed her mother. “Everyone on this earth is placed here for someone else. You follow your dreams and find them, and you make a match and nothing else matters. Haven’t you heard the frog sing it?”
He shook his head.
She stood beside him and together they watched the green frog clutch a banjo.
She mouthed the words, told him someday they’d find it.
At the door Misty stood.
Patch could have stopped then. Right then, at that point he could have pressed stop and their world would have shuddered and groaned and finally come to a close.
“The lovers, the dreamers and me,” Charlotte said.