Charlie knew our neighborhood well. He visited people up and down my parents’ dead-end street, and everyone knew where he lived. When friends came to our house, we even had to check their cars before they left, in case Charlie had decided to go along.
One day, Charlie disappeared.
We looked for him, but several days passed with no sign of him. Then a neighbor called my mother. She thought she had seen Charlie sitting in the window of a house whose owners had moved away.
My mother called the realtor, who came and unlocked the vacant house. There was Charlie. Somehow he had gone inside while the neighbors were moving and had been shut in when they left.
I can imagine him at that window, watching the street he knew so well and waiting for someone to notice him. Fortunately, someone did.
Charlie had made plenty of visits around the neighborhood before, but this was the one time he couldn’t send himself home.
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