The Laundry Room

Carrie King

In her family, they call her by her name, Marie-Caroline. But in most English-speaking environments, she uses the nickname “Carrie,” and she often thinks of herself using that variant of her name.

Carrie is a very first-generation Haitian-American, as in, her mother was pregnant with her when her parents escaped the political unrest following Paul Magloire’s presidency. (Her mother learned of the pregnancy at at her first medical exam in the United States.) They initially landed in Florida, but were ultimately resettled in Hyattsville, Maryland. Carrie’s siblings (four younger sisters, three younger brothers) were all born in Maryland, and she does not remember living in Florida.

Carrie’s parents were decently educated — they had been academics in Haiti — and spoke both French and Kreyòl, as well as a smattering of English and Spanish, when they immigrated. Because of that they were well-positioned to open a Haitian restaurant (and eventually, also a market) and the kids grew up helping to run that. They grew up fully bilingual in Kreyòl and English, along with a decent command of French (particularly liturgical French, as the family is Catholic). Carrie took French in high school to learn how to read and write in it, becoming fluent in the process. In college she switched to Spanish and is conversant but not fluent.

Carrie herself was often tapped to help care for her siblings, and she encountered violence at a young age growing up in the 1960s in D.C. There may also have been some domestic violence. By the time she was in high school, Carrie knew she did not want any children of her own — she felt she’d already raised hers, by raising her brothers and sisters. In college, she initially meant to be a nurse, but found her calling in teaching instead, with a particular interest in language acquisition.

Carrie received a B.S.Ed. in Elementary Education (with an emphasis in EFL) from the University of Maryland College Park in 1980 and enlisted in the Peace Corps during her senior year of college. She received her call-up notice in April 1981, to a two-year assignment in Sierra Leone, which she ultimately extended two more years to 1985. Carrie returned home and began teaching in the Arlington, Virginia, school system after that, but between her heritage as a first-generation American and her time spent overseas, she didn’t always feel completely comfortable in the culture.

During her time in Sierra Leone, Carrie also became conversant in Temne. She can (mostly) understand Krio but can’t speak more than a few basic sentences.

In June 1986, she met Joe King at a Peace Corps alumni mixer where he spoke about Estoccia. They hit it off and began dating not long afterward, becoming engaged about six months later. They were married in June 1987, exactly a year to the day after they met. She met Lee Stetson not too long after the marriage, and they ended up becoming friends.

Carrie King was named, but not described or portrayed, in the canonical television series. Her photo was generated by ChatGPT.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• Ruthless People
• Standing in the Dark
• All That Mattered
• A New Horizon

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Tree

• King

⬆️ Top

Jamie King is the younger of Joe and Amanda King’s two sons, born after they relocated to Arlington, Virginia following Joe’s graduation from law school. He began school in 1981 due to having a late-in-the-year birthday, which means he is scheduled to graduate from high school (or, in England, complete sixth form) in 1993.

Of the two King boys, Jamie is more sensitive, more studious, and quieter. His school grades are excellent and his interests range from science and technology, to math, to music and popular culture.

Although Joe was still living in Arlington at the time of Jamie’s birth, he was first deployed overseas in 1977 and Jamie only has the vaguest of memories of living with his father in the house. He does, however, remember his grandmother Dotty West moving in after she was widowed in 1981. He was particularly close to his mother during his preteen years, especially after his parents finalized their divorce in 1982.

When his mother began openly dating Lee Stetson in 1986 (at least to her family’s knowledge), the relationship began on somewhat rocky ground due to Jamie’s jealousy. However, they soon discovered a mutual interest in photography, which began moving things in the right direction.

Jamie is also a sports fan, especially for the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Redskins. As a youth, Jamie played baseball himself, but he aged out of Little League after Summer 1987.

The following October, his brother and grandmother were killed in a car accident, and then-twelve-year-old Jamie was not prepared for that at all. Finding out that Lee was already his stepfather — a revelation which came on the day of the car accident — was a further source of strain.

During that fall, he spent a considerable amount of time acting out, including running away at least once. Joe and Amanda agreed to transfer him to a different school, which further complicated matters but also gave him some desperately needed breathing room. By the end of the 1987-88 school year he had settled into a new routine, though he was still in therapy.

In 1988, when Lee and Amanda were offered a posting to London, they were initially opposed to it. One of the biggest reasons was that they both felt like Jamie had already been through too much change in too short a time period. Both of them were startled when Jamie positively responded to the idea, and they included him in the final decision-making conversations. Lee and Amanda ultimately accepted the postings. Around the same time, his father and stepmother accepted positions in Algeria.

Lee and Amanda left for England on June 18, but Jamie stayed with his father and stepmother for a few weeks afterward. He accompanied them on the first leg of their trip to Algiers, which they arranged to occur through London on July 6. This was to allow him to spend some time with Joe and Carrie while Lee and Amanda looked for a new place to live.

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Trees

• Fessenden-West
• King

⬆️ Top

Gallery

⬆️ Top

Joe King

Joseph Allen King was born on August 20, 1945, in Columbia, Maryland, the younger of two sons in a comfortably middle-class family. His father worked as Director of Procurements for a government contractor, while his mother was a homemaker. Joe grew up with a strong sense of fairness and compassion, though those traits were treated less as virtues than as simply part of his personality. Like his older brother Thomas, he was expected to attend college and pursue a stable professional life.

Tommy altered those expectations when he enlisted in the Army immediately after high school. He was killed in Vietnam on June 7, 1963 — the very day Joe graduated from high school. The loss permanently changed the family and solidified Joe’s own determination to serve.

Joe attended Marshall University on an ROTC scholarship, earning a BBA in Management in 1967 before entering the Army as an officer. He served three years in Vietnam as a supplies and ordnance officer. Although he flatly refuses to discuss his service in the war, it profoundly shaped him. During his deployment, he learned and became fluent in French, as well as developing basic communication skills in Vietnamese. He also discovered an unexpected talent for navigating bureaucracy and cutting through institutional red tape — skills that would define much of his later career.

After transferring to the Ready Reserve in 1970, Joe enrolled at the University of Virginia, pursuing an MBA along with a graduate certificate in public policy. Despite an uncertain start, he excelled academically and his interests in humanitarian and refugee work crystallized. During his final year at UVA, he met undergraduate senior Amanda West while seeking help at the university writing center. The two quickly became close, and Joe proposed at Christmas 1971. They married after graduating in 1972.

Although UVA declined his application to law school, Georgetown Law unexpectedly offered him admission. Joe focused his legal studies on the regulatory framework surrounding humanitarian aid and international assistance. While he was in law school, he and Amanda welcomed two sons: Phillip Thomas and James Richard.

After graduation, Joe briefly worked with the EPA before accepting a humanitarian assignment with the Emergency Aid Organization. Amanda supported the idea, but was unwilling to relocate overseas with two small children. This caused strain and growing tension within the marriage, which ultimately failed. However, they kept the divorce amicable for their sons’ sake. It was finalized in 1982.

Joe remained deeply committed to humanitarian service and spent years overseas with the EAO. In 1985, he returned unexpectedly to Washington after uncovering a conspiracy tied to the apparent assassination of the Estoccian prime minister. He subsequently led the organization’s internal audit and cleanup effort, though he continued to hope for another overseas posting.

In 1986, while speaking at a Peace Corps alumni event, Joe met Carrie Benoit, a teacher and former volunteer with international experience in Sierra Leone. Despite a twelve-year age difference and the demanding nature of their careers, they quickly fell in love and married on June 20, 1987, one year to the day after their first meeting.

Soon afterward, Joe declined a position in Côte d’Ivoire in order to remain close to his younger son Jamie, who was struggling emotionally after the murder of his grandmother and older brother Phillip. Eventually, however, both Joe and Carrie accepted positions in Algeria after learning that Jamie’s mother and stepfather, Lee and Amanda Stetson, had been offered assignments in London. To everyone’s surprise, Jamie embraced the idea of living overseas, and the transition marked the beginning of a new chapter for the extended family.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• Canonical Series (6 Episodes)
• Ruthless People
• Standing in the Dark
• All That Mattered
• A New Horizon

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Trees

• Fessenden-West
• King

⬆️ Top

Phillip King was the older of Joe and Amanda King’s two sons, born almost exactly nine months after they got married. He was born at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, but the family moved to Arlington, VA, shortly after his first birthday. He did not remember living in Washington.

He was the more outgoing of the two King boys, and showed an early aptitude for — and interest in — sports, particularly baseball and basketball. He was also a capable student when he put his mind to it, but often did not see the point of his schoolwork; unfortunately, his grades often reflected that lack of effort and interest. Even so, when he finished eighth grade he was “tracked” into the college preparatory program for high school.

Due to his gregariousness and naturally friendly nature, Phillip had no trouble finding dates once he became interested in girls. However, in seventh and eighth grade his mother forbade him from more than the most casual of dating before he started high school — and, as it happened, he didn’t have a girlfriend at the beginning of his freshman year. While this frustrated him, it didn’t embitter him. He had every reason to believe it was a temporary situation.

Phillip was relatively adaptable and, as he started high school, he enjoyed strong relationships with his immediate family members, including his mother’s ostensible boyfriend, Lee Stetson. He had a cordial relationship with his stepmother Carrie, and they had begun growing closer.

Unfortunately, on October 1, 1987, Phillip and his grandmother were killed in a car crash in Arlington. Subsequent investigation showed that the crash was a targeted “hit” based on a misunderstanding about a school project Phillip had been completing. Effects of the crash and his early death reverberated through the family for years afterward.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• Canonical Series (87 episodes)
• Herdsman and Plow

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Trees

• Fessenden-West
• King

⬆️ Top

Douglas Trent was born in Loughborough, Leicestershire, to Daniel Trent and the former Sharon Hamilton. Sharon’s late aunt was Jennifer Hamilton Stetson, making Jennifer’s son Lee Stetson his first cousin, once removed.

Douglas grew up hearing stories about Jennifer at family gatherings, but as an adult he was never especially close to his mother’s extended family. As a result, he was unaware of the connection until discovering it while working with Lee during an exchange assignment in Washington, D.C. Lee was also unaware of the relationship, since he knew almost nothing about his mother due to her early death.

Following a typical middle-class childhood, Douglas attended Loughborough University, where he earned a B.A. (Hons) in History and Politics with a 2:1 degree. He then completed an M.A. in History at Queen Mary University of London, concentrating on Modern Europe. His dissertation focused on the United Kingdom’s post-war relationships with NATO and its member states.

Through that research Douglas came into contact with members of the UK Intelligence Community, who recognized him as a flexible, systems-oriented analytical thinker with a strong ability to adapt to different circumstances. He also demonstrated an aptitude for languages, becoming fluent in French and German. Following completion of his degree, he was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, commonly known as MI6).

While at Queen Mary, Douglas met Linda Delgado, a Portuguese student who assisted with research for his dissertation. Their academic collaboration soon became a personal relationship, and they married in the summer of 1976. Linda later completed her own M.A. and Ph.D. in History, eventually joining the British Museum. During their marriage, Douglas learned to understand and read Portuguese, although he was not a fluent speaker.

In October 1982, tragedy struck when Linda died of a hemorrhage while delivering their son, Gonçalvo (“Gonzo”), who was stillborn due to complications involving the umbilical cord.

When Douglas returned to work in early 1983, colleagues noted that he had become noticeably quieter and more intensely driven. He sought out increasingly difficult assignments and pushed himself professionally to a degree that initially concerned his supervisors. Over time, however, they recognized this not as recklessness but as over-dedication. Hoping to channel that intensity productively, SIS began steering him toward leadership development, including a promotion to Senior Field Operative in 1985.

In 1987, Douglas was selected for an exchange assignment in the United States, motivated in part by a growing interest in leadership and organizational structure. Reporting to Washington that July, he completed a six-month rotation with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research before being reassigned to the Agency in January 1988.

While working there, Douglas came under the supervision of Billy Melrose, who was impressed by both his intelligence and his operational ability. Recognizing Douglas’s potential as well as the gap between his theoretical understanding of leadership and practical command experience, Melrose approached MI6 about extending the assignment. MI6 agreed, and Douglas accepted a one-year extension.

Douglas Trent is an original character and did not appear in the canonical television series. His photo was generated by ChatGPT.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• All That Mattered

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Tree

• Hamilton

⬆️ Top

Dorothea Lucy Fessenden was born in Stowe, Vermont, the daughter of a university professor and a homemaker. The third of five children, she had two older sisters and two younger brothers. Known from childhood as “Dotty,” she occasionally appears in records under the more common name Dorothy, a mistake that followed her throughout her life.

When Dotty was fourteen, her family relocated to Topeka, Kansas, after her father accepted a tenure-track position at Washburn University. By then, her oldest sister, Lillian, was already married and remained in Vermont, though the two sisters stayed in close contact throughout their lives.

Although encouraged to pursue a college education, Dotty preferred a more practical path. She enrolled in business school and earned a two-year diploma in Legal Secretarial Studies. Shortly before graduation, she began dating Carl West, an Army Air Forces serviceman stationed at nearby Fort Riley. The couple married just eight days after she completed her program.

Their first child, Jay Christian “Christie” West, was born at Fort Riley on April 18, 1948. Carl had already been assigned to RAF Lakenheath in England, and Dotty followed several months later with their infant son. Tragically, the family arrived during one of the last major polio epidemics in England, and Christie died from the disease on November 28, 1949. The loss devastated both parents, but grieving together ultimately strengthened their marriage.

Nearly a year later, on October 29, 1950, their daughter Amanda was born at RAF Lakenheath. Dotty was initially overprotective of her surviving child, though she gradually relaxed as the family settled into everyday life. Carl was reassigned, this time to Air Force headquarters in Washington, DC, in 1952, and the family moved to nearby Arlington, Virginia. When Carl retired from the Air Force in 1962, he began a second career as a technical designer for a government contractor.

After spending more than twenty years as a homemaker, Dotty elected to return to work part-time in 1970, securing a secretarial position at the same aerospace firm where Carl worked. She was quickly promoted into a full-time office management role in the contracting department. In 1973, after Amanda had married and left home, Carl and Dotty relocated to McLean, purchasing what they expected would be their retirement home. Dotty remained with the company until Carl’s untimely death in 1981, after which she chose early retirement.

Following Carl’s death, Dotty spent increasing amounts of time with Amanda and her family. After Amanda’s divorce in 1982, Dotty sold her home in McLean and moved into Amanda’s Arlington house. She contributed part of the proceeds from the sale toward Amanda’s mortgage while retaining the remainder as a retirement fund.

Dotty delighted in helping raise her grandsons and quickly resumed the role of homemaker. At the same time, she maintained an active social life and remained close to friends and extended family. Though she never removed her wedding set and never stopped loving Carl, she eventually found companionship again when she met fellow widower Kurt Ipswich in early 1987. The two understood one another’s losses and developed a close relationship, but chose to move slowly out of consideration for Amanda’s family.

That future together never came to pass. Dotty was killed in the October 1987 automobile accident that also claimed the life of her grandson Phillip King. She was sixty years old.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• Canonical Series (88 Episodes)

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Family Tree

• Fessenden-West

Appears In

• Canonical Series (1 Episode)
• Standing in the Dark
• All That Mattered

Appears In

• Canonical Series (2 Episodes)
• A New Horizon

⬆️ Top

If there’s one thing Eleanor Hale knows, it’s that access to information must be tightly controlled. She has learned the hard way, over and over, that an information leak can lead to disaster. She does not withhold information — she understands it is vital to keeping operations efficient — but she carefully curates and manages who has access to what.

She has been called a control freak. Her response is a strategically raised eyebrow and a sharp look that makes it clear she heard that. But she never engages with the accusation; she does not give it the dignity of a reply. Instead, she redirects attention to the matter at hand. She does not forget.

Eleanor Anna Samada was born in Honolulu in 1931, the third of three children, and came of age during World War II. She will confirm that both of her older brothers were killed in the war, but she never says their names. Doing so would be a giveaway; “Ken” and “George” would invite questions she will not answer. In Hawaii, those names can suggest more than they appear to. She also never mentions that their deaths were only two weeks apart.

Given those experiences, it surprised no one when Eleanor herself enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps after finishing high school in 1949. By the time the Korean conflict began, she was already trained in communications and served with distinction, beginning with a headquarters assignment in Seoul.

While there, she met and married fellow soldier Whitaker Hale. They married on active duty, planning to separate from the military and start a family after the war. That never happened: Whit was killed during operations in eastern Korea, barely a year later. Hale subsequently transferred to Tokyo, where she continued to receive high evaluations — and attention.

After the Armistice, then-Sergeant Hale was selected for Officer Candidate School at Fort Lee. She was commissioned upon completion and remained a career communications officer, rising to the rank of captain. Her final posting was with the U.S. Army Security Agency, where she was instrumental in the planning and deployment of the DARRS Detachment Program. Once the program was established, she retired from active service.

She initially retired with the intention of living a simple, quiet life. After a year, she found that lifestyle intolerable and sought a post with the Diplomatic Security Service. During her time with DSS, she served both stateside and in Japan, the Soviet Union, and India. Her service in India, in particular, drew attention. She was subsequently promoted rapidly, culminating in her assignment to London as Regional Security Officer in mid-1986.

Hale speaks fluent Japanese, Korean, and Russian. She also speaks Hawaiian, though she does not advertise it, and has functional proficiency in both Hindi and Urdu. She earned a B.S. in political science through the University of Southern California overseas extension program in 1960.

She will also confirm that she has never remarried and has no children. Beyond that, Hale prefers to keep her private life strictly private.

Eleanor Hale is an original character and did not appear in the canonical television series. Her photo was generated by ChatGPT.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• A New Horizon

⬆️ Top

Timeline

⬆️ Top

Ted Renno is an original character and did not appear in the canonical television series. His photo was generated by ChatGPT.

⬆️ Top

Appears In

• A New Horizon

⬆️ Top