“Did you ever know that you’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had since I was seven years old?” I asked Jamie.
He turned to me and gave me a half-hearted smile and then fixed his attention on the road ahead.
“You’re dependable and trustworthy. You’re absolutely essential to me. And I’m really sorry if I made you feel disposable.” I pressed one of my knees to my chest and studied his unreadable profile. “Duffy helped me realize that I’ve been harboring a deep-seated fear for a while—it sounds kind of pathetic when I say it aloud, but here it is anyway—that I’m not really worthy of love. And I didn’t want to turn out like my mom, looking for love in all the wrong places when she had this child, this perfect vessel of love for her, me, right there in front of her. I wanted David to be enough, all the love that I needed, because I didn’t trust my instincts with men anymore, and I didn’t want to make a mistake that would eventually hurt him.”
Jamie adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “I understand, Anna. You forget that I was raised by a single mother, too. My dad abandoned us, and my mom never dated again, even before she was diagnosed with MS. And after this nightmare with your ex, I can kind of see why you were quick to jump to conclusions when you found my mom’s pills. It looked really bad, and you were just trying to protect David.”
“I was,” I agreed. “But even after you told me the truth, I still couldn’t admit to myself that you were different.” I thought of the 3 x 5 photo buried in my purse. The photo of us as rowdy, sun-bronzed dreamers with no idea what the future held in store for us. The photo that he had held onto for all these years. While I had been clinging fiercely to Leah Nola and, in effect, myself, he had been there all along. Jamie my protector, Jamie my champion. Jamie my best friend, Jamie my lover. How was it possible that someone who had known me for so long could love me so profoundly? I still didn’t feel worthy of that kind of love or devotion, but for once, I wasn’t going to question my good fortune. “You said you knew right away when we were kids that you loved me. But it took me a lot longer. Maybe I’m stupid, or maybe I’m just really slow to recognize good things.”
I leaned toward him, against the gentle tug of my seatbelt. “Because you are a very good thing. In fact, one of the best that’s ever happened to me. I couldn’t have survived the last twelve hours without you, but I want you to be more than just the person I turn to for help. You are so much more to me than that.” I took a deep breath. “I want you to be the person who teaches me the names of flowers. I want you to be the person I show my sketches to. The person who memorizes every inch of my body—from my ticklish zones to the pleasure spots. The person who compliments my grandma’s cooking and humors my grandpa when he’s on a history ramble. The person who goes to David’s games with me to cheer him on. The person who helps me teach David how to catch fireflies and make wishes on them.” I lifted my arms, sweeping them open to encompass the front seat, the back seat, the road ahead of us, everything. “The person I rent an RV with one day to go out West and wherever else our hearts desire. I love you, Jamie Presswood, and I really want to be your girlfriend, if you’ll have me.”
Jamie let out a deep belly laugh, the kind that made me want to laugh right along with him and never stop; it felt so good to finally have a reason to laugh. He reached across the front seat and cupped my knee. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.”
EPILOGUE
A full year had passed, and we were celebrating David’s sixth birthday. My grandparents’ backyard and the Presswoods’ backyard had been transformed into one huge soccer-themed extravaganza. Two goal posts were set up on either end, and Winston had even spray-painted the grass in an approximation of a soccer field. A lumpy soccer ball piñata hung from one of the trees; black, white, and green balloons bobbed from the patio railing where they were tied; and the picnic table was covered in a spread of hot dogs, fruit salad, potato chips, soccer-ball cookies, and green-frosted cupcakes topped with miniature plastic soccer balls. David was zooming around the backyard, kicking a soccer ball with his best friends Maddox and Mason; Izzy, whom he’d met a few months ago on his co-ed soccer team; and even Gunner, who turned out to be an acquired taste.
On the patio, the adults milled around, chatting and snitching soccer-ball cookies: Duffy and Winston, Wendy, Carly and Sam, Abigail and Quentin, Edna and Chuck, the parents of David’s friends, and even Stacy and Brett and their kids, all the way from Rhinelander. Duffy had convinced me to invite my mom as well, and though she RSVP’d yes, she’d called Duffy a few days ago to say she wouldn’t be able to make it after all because something had come up at the last minute. She’d sent a birthday card with a fifty dollar bill inside it instead, and I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t too crushed.
Jamie strode across the lawn from his house—our house, I corrected myself. David and I had gradually been moving in for the past few months, and our transition was almost totally complete. Duffy and Winston didn’t say as much, but I knew they were happy to have some of their old privacy and lazy days back, although they were still over the moon that David and I were only a stone’s throw away, and David still spent many of his afternoons with them. As Jamie walked past the wild and disorganized soccer game in progress, he gave the ball a light kick to help it back into bounds, and David and his friends cheered. Jamie was carrying a huge present, the one that we had picked out together. It was a plastic artist’s easel and a huge kit of art supplies—pencils, wax crayons, oil based crayons, charcoal, watercolor, and tempera paint. We wanted to nurture David’s creative, artistic side.
Jamie had been encouraging me to nurture my inner artist as well. Last spring, I had enrolled as a part-time student at the University of Wisconsin-Glacial Hills, and since then, I’d accrued twelve credits in various art classes and one creative writing class. My major goal was to write and illustrate a children’s book called David and the Dinosaurs. In addition to other children’s reading and enjoying it, I wanted it to be a kind of memory book for David, a record of the amazing things his imagination had created one summer in Salsburg. I thought that one day when he was older, it would be the perfect centerpiece to start a conversation about how I’d been able to see his imagination once upon a time and how it helped me to understand him and appreciate all the beautiful things about him. He’d met with Dr. Da Costa for a few months following his abduction, and we hadn’t seen the panther since.
Jamie reached the patio, and I leaned my head over the railing to kiss him. “Is it time for presents yet?” he asked eagerly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you think? Piñata, cake, and then presents? Or presents, piñata, and then cake?”
“Let’s start with the presents,” Jamie said. “I don’t think I can wait much longer to see David’s face when he opens his gift.”
We gathered the lawn chairs in a loose circle on the grass in the shade. Jamie helped his mom maneuver her wheelchair. Abigail and Quentin sat a little outside of the circle, a present that rivaled our own in size balanced on their laps. They both looked older and more careworn than they had one year ago. David’s kidnapping and Patrick’s subsequent sentencing of eighteen months in prison had really taken a toll on them. He would be getting out in April, maybe even sooner for good behavior, and it was something I tried not to think about, but something I suspected they thought about all the time.
With his friends clustered around him, David joyfully unwrapped a steady stream of presents. When he opened ours last, he grinned and said, “Thank you. I already know what I want to draw!”
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair, bringing Jamie’s hand, which was clutched tightly in mine, with me. My diamond engagement ring sparkled in the sun.
“Our family,” David replied with a big smile.
The rest of the birthday party was a huge success, judging by the squeals of glee from the kids. Around four o’clock, our guests started to leave, and Winston, Duffy, Jamie, and I all
started to clean up the party’s aftermath. David was still sitting in the backyard, his pile of presents surrounding him, as he carefully examined and touched each one. Duffy and Winston disappeared inside to put the leftover food away, and Jamie set off to our house, lugging behind him a garbage bag full of dirty paper plates, wadded-up napkins, and crumpled-up wrapping paper.
“I’ll be right back to help carry the presents over,” he said.
“Okay, thanks.” I glanced back at the picnic table and patio, but really there wasn’t much left to be done, so I watched David, trying to freeze this moment in my mind, trying to keep him from growing any older.
King Rex and Weeple had joined him. I hadn’t seen much of the dinosaurs since he’d started first grade, and even now, they didn’t look as colorful, crisp, and life-like as they once had. They were fading, and I didn’t know if this meant I was losing my ability to see them or if David was gradually letting his imaginary friends go.
They both lowered their heads, bowing before David, as though they wanted him to pet them. He reached up to each of them, laying his palm flat against their leathery, prehistoric snouts. His lips moved as he talked to them, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Weeple was the first to turn away and amble toward the trees. King Rex continued to study David for much longer, and David had to give the Tyrannosaurus rex a second urging. King Rex gave him one last look, and then he followed Weeple to the tree line, where they both slowly started to dissolve until they were gone.
Acknowledgements
In preparation for writing this novel, I read psychology professor Marjorie Taylor’s Imaginary Companions and the Children who Create Them, which helped me to understand this childhood phenomenon. It also assisted me in writing my fictitious version of the book Anna reads, Imaginary Friends, Your Child, and You, although of course, I took great liberties and stretched the truth for my own purposes.
I am deeply indebted to my early readers, especially Becky Vinter, Kate Blakinger, Rebecca Adams Wright, and Kodi Scheer, whose invaluable feedback helped me navigate the sometimes murky waters of Anna’s journey and David’s imagination.
Thanks to my wonderful agent, Stephany Evans, for finding the perfect home for Imaginary Things. Thanks also to the terrific people at Astor + Blue for their enthusiasm and the great care they showed my novel, especially my brilliant editorial team, Robert Astle and Jillian Ports, and my publicity and marketing gurus, Tony Viardo and Shelby Howick. I sincerely appreciate the talented Julie Metz for designing my gorgeous cover, which I fell in love with immediately.
My heartfelt thanks go out to my family, both nuclear and extended, as well as my in-laws, the Lochens, for all their support and encouragement. I feel so blessed to belong to such a warm, loving bunch of people who would do absolutely anything for each other.
And last, but certainly not least, thanks to the love of my life, Matt, who has been a great champion for this book from the very beginning. Without his thoughtful insight and unwavering belief in me, I’m not sure this story of Anna and David would have ever made its way out into the world.
Book Club Discussion Questions for Imaginary Things
1) At the start of the novel, Anna feels defeated to be returning to Salsburg, which she connects with boredom, failure, and provincial attitudes. What changes her perception of life in the small town, and how does it change?
2) Duffy and Winston each have their own personalities and styles of being a grandparent. How does Duffy demonstrate her affection, and in what ways does Winston show his? How do their different approaches help Anna in different ways? Do you see examples of either in the way Anna parents David?
3) After the end of her relationship with Patrick, Anna speculates that “mania was true love. And it could consume you like it had consumed Patrick, or it could leave you feeling tired and used up, like it had left [her.] Nothing seemed to exist in between.” How and why does her attitude about love change over the course of the novel?
4) Why does it take so long for Anna to see Jamie as someone other than her childhood friend and the “boy next door?” What qualities does he possess that make him a good fit for Anna?
5) Why do you think David creates his dinosaurs? What do King Rex and Weeple individually represent and what roles do they serve for him? In contrast, why does he create the panther and what function does it perform?
6) What do you think really happened between David, Gunner, and King Rex during the disastrous play date? In the world of the novel, do you think that imaginary friends could be capable of physically affecting their environments? What other clues might suggest this?
7) As a child, why does Anna dream up Leah Nola as her imaginary friend? What role does Leah Nola play in her life, and what light does this shed on Anna’s own personality and past?
8) What do you think of Kimberly’s character and the choices she made as a parent? Do you agree with Anna’s assessment of her? Why or why not? Do you think the mother and daughter could ever restore their relationship?
9) Do you think seeing imaginary friends is a hereditary trait, or do you think there is some other reason both Anna and her mom, Kimberly, were given the opportunity to see their child’s imagination? Compare and contrast the ways the two women handle the surreal situations.
10) Did you or your child ever have an imaginary friend? How do you think this and other games of make-believe affect children’s development? In what ways do adults use their imagination? Is there anything we can consider as imaginary friends for adults?
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