Imaginary Friend (ARC) Read online

  It was the only tree around it for a hundred yards. It sat dead center in the middle of the clearing. A crooked hand ripping out of the earth’s cheek like a pimple.

  The boys were silent. They had forgotten all about the deer, who stood still, staring at them. They began to walk. Little by little. Moving silently toward the tree. Mike’s arms, which had been so heavy under the weight of the wheelbarrow, suddenly felt light. Matt’s throat, which had been scratchy with thirst and the last gasp of strep throat that antibiotics had wiped out, swallowed and felt no pain. Special Ed, who had been scheming for the last five minutes as to how to avoid sharing the two bags of Oreos, suddenly didn’t care if he ever ate again. And Christopher’s dull headache, the kind that couldn’t be drowned with Children’s Tylenol or Advil mixed with applesauce, finally left the space behind his eyes, and he felt relief. There was no pain. No fear. Not anymore.

  Christopher arrived at the tree first. He reached out his hand, half expecting the bark to feel like flesh. But it felt right. Strong weathered bark with ridges like wrinkles. It reminded him of Ambrose, that nice old man from the hospital.

  “We’ll build it here,” Christopher said.

  “It’s so creepy,” Special Ed said, following it with a quick, “Awesome.”

  Christopher unrolled his blueprints, and the boys began. While they unloaded the supplies, Christopher peeled the Bad Cat backpack off his shoulders and let the tools fall with a clank. He pulled out a hammer and a nail.

  “Matt. You get dibs on the first nail,” Christopher said.

  “No,” Matt said. “It’s yours, Chris. You do it.”

  Christopher looked at his friends. They all nodded in agreement. Mike and Matt held the first 2x4 up to the tree. Right next to a century of initials that teenagers had carved on their way to adulthood. WT + JT. AH + JV. Names in rows like identical houses. Johnny and Barbara. Michael and Laurie. Right before he struck the first nail into the tree, Christopher saw the freshest name initial carved into it. A single letter.

  D.

  After the first nail had punctured the tree, the boys started hammering the 2x4s. One on top of the other. A little ladder reaching up the tree like a row of baby teeth. They would have run out of wood quickly, but Christopher had foreseen this problem. The boys never asked him where the big pile of wood came from. Maybe they didn’t notice. Or maybe they just assumed.

  But he had already started building.

  He had actually worked on it for three weeks. Talking to the nice man. Making trips back and forth to the Collins wood pile. Preparing and planning. Stocking up for this moment with his friends. The nice man said it was best to keep quiet about these things until you had to make noise.

  Luckily, the security guard was always in the foreman’s trailer, watching sports on a little portable TV. He was so busy screaming “yes” “no” and “you call that interference, you blind asshole!?” that he never saw the little boy raiding his boss’s woodpile.

  Christopher wanted to talk to the nice man now, but he didn’t want to frighten his friends. They had no idea he was there, watching them. At one point, Mike reached out to grab the white plastic bag and fill it with nails.

  “Don’t touch that,” Christopher said.

  Mike immediately put the bag back on the low-hanging branch and returned to work. It was never said that Christopher was in charge. But nobody questioned him. Not even Mike, and he was the strongest.

  Somehow, children always know who the leader is.

  As they worked, the sky got so windy that the trees swayed back and forth like teenagers’ arms at a concert. But despite the wind, every time Christopher looked up into the sky, the cloud face never moved.

  It just seemed to watch them, building.

  Chapter 22

  After she dropped her son off at Special Ed’s house, Christopher’s mother had a little time, so she took the scenic route to work. She looked into the sky. The clouds were glorious like big fluffy marshmallows left in the microwave right before the burn. But they weren’t nearly as beautiful as the Mission Street Woods. The leaves had already started to change, and the trees looked like an artist’s palette, messy and clean at the same time. She rolled down the car window and took a deep breath. The crisp autumn air was that refreshing. The sky was that blue. The trees were that gorgeous. The moment was that perfect.

  So why was she so anxious?

  Over the years, she had considered her mother’s intuition a blessing. No matter the circumstances, she always believed that the quiet voice in her head kept him safe, kept her sane, kept them surviving.

  And right now, it was humming like a tuning fork.

  Of course she was overprotective. What mother wasn’t? After that hellish week Christopher went missing, she could have kept him under lock and key for the rest of his young life, and nobody would have blamed her. But the little voice that kept things pointing north told her that she had to let him live his life, not her fear. Mother is just one letter away from smother. Right now, her son was safely at Eddie’s house eating bad food and playing video games. He would be there for the rest of the night. So, why did she feel so bad?

  Maybe because you don’t have your own life, Kate.

  Yeah. Maybe it was that.

  She arrived at Shady Pines, punched the clock, and got busy. Whenever Christopher’s mom got worried, Super Kate got manic. She turned over beds. Cleaned the bathrooms. Helped the nurses with Mr. Ruskovich, who used his degenerative muscular disorder as an excuse to “accidentally” grope the women all day.

  “A thousand pardons,” he would say in his broken English, tipping an invisible hat.

  After breakfast, the manic had burned through all of her chores, and there was precious little to do but worry about her son. Luckily, today was “New Candy Day.” That’s what the nurses called it. One Saturday a month, Shady Pines welcomed new volunteers to train as candy stripers or kitchen help or whatever horrible chore Mrs. Collins could imagine for the low low price of college credit (or community service hours).

  The volunteers were usually the same crop. Local high school kids who realized that their college applications were looking a little too thin because outside activities such as “texting,” “pot,” and “compulsive masturbation” didn’t exactly wow Harvard. The kids would work every Saturday for a month. Then they would get a certificate for college. And then they were never heard from again. That is, except for a few guilty Catholics who might stay two months. The record was four.

  It was a great quid pro quo.

  The owner of Shady Pines, Mr. Collins, would get free labor. His wife, Mrs. Collins, would get fresh children to torment for not taking proper care of Mrs. Keizer, also known as her demented seventy-eight-year-old mother, all the while telling her frenemies at the country club that she just wanted to “give back to the community that had given her family so much.” And the kids would get to pad their college applications for a bright future of thinking they would be young forever.

  Win. Win. Win.

  Father. Son. Holy Ghost.

  Since college applications were due in the new year, the holiday season was the holy grail of volunteerism. Before one could say “Ivy League,” Shady Pines was swamped with eager young faces, looking to trick colleges into thinking they cared. Kate counted about twenty faces. Ten times more than usual.

  Normally, Christopher’s mom would have skipped orientation, but she had a vested interest in this “New Candy Day.” Because right in the front of the pack wearing a long skirt, a fuzzy sweater, and a nervous smile was the beautiful teenage girl who had found Christopher on the road after he had been missing for six days.

  Mary Katherine MacNeil.

  She was standing next to her boyfriend, a poor whipped kid named Doug. They were both so nice. So wholesome. So legitimately God-fearing Catholic that they had no idea what Mrs. Collins had in store for them. Christopher’s mother wanted to make sure they got the least painful assignments, so she quietly approached t
hem.

  “Hi, Mrs. Reese,” Mary Katherine said. “How is your son doing?”

  “Great,” Christopher’s mom whispered. “Now, move to the back. Don’t interrupt her orientation speech. Volunteer for the kitchen.”

  With that, Christopher’s mom winked and slinked into the adjacent room and pretended to turn over a bed as she watched Mrs. Collins pretend to smile.

  “Welcome to orientation,” she said.

  And thus began the speech Christopher’s mom had heard twice already. How Shady Pines is an institution of caring. How a society will be judged by how it takes care of its elders. How her family bought this elder care facility because seniors deserve dignity (even if the workers who provide it do not). Bullshit bullshit. Yadda yadda. Country club country club. Christopher’s mom waited for the first kid to make the dreadful mistake of interrupting the speech. And like clockwork, it happened…

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Collins? When do we get our certificate?” a boy asked.

  Christopher’s mother saw that the voice belonged to none other than…

  Doug.

  Stupid Doug.

  Mrs. Collins smiled. “You’ll get it at the end of the month.”

  Doug smiled back. “Good. I’m applying to schools in December.”

  “That’s wonderful. You are so eager to help. What a nice young man. Is that your girlfriend?” she asked, pointing to Mary Katherine.

  “Yes, Mrs. Collins. Hello,” Mary Katherine said.

  They were doomed.

  “Would you two like a special assignment?” she asked.

  Doomed.

  Mary Katherine looked like a deer in headlights. She turned to Christopher’s mom, who quietly shook her head no. She turned back to Mrs. Collins.

  “Well, uh…I am good in the kitchen. I’d love to volunteer there,” she said sweetly.

  “Are you sure? This would be very special. You’d be taking care of my very own mother.”

  Fucking Doomed.

  “Well, uh…that’s quite an honor,” Mary Katherine said. She turned to Doug to think of something. Bail them out. Anything. But he was silent.

  And then, a miracle.

  “Yes, it’s quite an honor, kids,” a voice said sarcastically. “Her mother is a mean crazy old bitch just like her.”

  There was a collective gasp, a nervous laugh, and a turn to the voice. Everyone looked at the owner of the coke-bottle glasses.

  It was Ambrose.

  The old man from the hospital.

  The old man with the cataracts.

  The clouds in his eyes.

  Mrs. Collins turned to him. “How dare you,” she said.

  “How dare me? Mrs. Collins, these kids have to listen to your bullshit for their college applications. I don’t. So, go fuck yourself, you dime-store bully,” he said.

  The kids laughed.

  “Sir, you will watch your language in front of the children, or you will leave Shady Pines.”

  “Promise?” he said sarcastically.

  Then, he turned to the group.

  “Hey, kids. You’re here for your future, right? Well, look at all the old people here. That is your future. So, don’t fuck around and waste time. Go to college. Get laid. Make some money. Travel. Then, get married and raise your kids to be nothing like Mrs. Collins or her husband. Capiche?”

  Without waiting for a response, the old man hobbled on his bad knees back to the parlor, leaving behind a room full of adoring fans. Of course, it did nothing to stop Mary Katherine and Doug from getting the worst assignment in the place. It didn’t stop Mrs. Collins from being even more abusive to the kids and the staff because she couldn’t get her mani-pedi’d claws on Ambrose. But it did give them all a little ray of sunshine to pass the time.

  Like a song to a chain gang.

  Right after lunch, Christopher’s mom went into Ambrose’s room to clean. He was watching Jeopardy! on his television. He knew every answer and called them out. When the commercial break came on, he turned to her.

  “I saw you try to help that poor girl,” he said.

  “Yeah. I heard you help her, too,” Kate said back.

  Christopher’s mom knew a lot about Ambrose from the nurses. Between his cataracts, glaucoma, and age, she heard that his eyes were not healing. His eye doctor told him that he would be blind soon. Probably by Christmas. He took the news with a bark of “Fuck it. No one to see anyway.” He had no relatives. No visitors. No one to take care of him. Nowhere to go for Christmas.

  And yet, somehow, he was the brightest light in the place.

  “Mrs. Reese…this is your future, too, you know? You’re a nice lady, and your kid is great. So, don’t fuck around.”

  She smiled at him and nodded. Then, Christopher’s mom left the room, taking Ambrose’s smile with her.

  * * *

  Ambrose turned off the television and took a sip of water. He put the plastic cup by his bedside. Next to the photograph of the pretty old woman with the wrinkles. She was still beautiful after fifty years of marriage.

  It had been two years.

  She was gone. Like his brother when he was a kid. Like his parents when he was a middle-aged man. Like the men he served with in the army. The only person he ever dared to love as a grown man was gone. And now, his only companionship came within the walls of Shady Pines. All of these old people like kids left in day care with Mom and Dad never coming to pick them up again. All of these nurses and doctors who tried their best to give them a quality of life. And that nice Mrs. Reese with the great smile.

  His wife was gone.

  By this point, everyone had told him in one manner or another that he needed to move on. “Move on to what?” was his response. He knew they were right. But his heart refused. He woke up every morning, remembering the sound of her breathing. The way she wouldn’t throw away anything (except his things of course). And right now, he would give anything for one more morning of a good fight with her over bacon and eggs. For the chance to see her flesh wither. As his did. And telling each other the lies about how beautiful their bodies still looked. But the truth of how beautiful their bodies actually were to each other.

  That’s the kind of thing that Anne would say. A mixture of self-help and “walk it off” working-class Irish. Every morning now, he would wake up and turn over on the bed. And instead of her face, he would see a plastic cup of water. The old people weren’t allowed to have glass here. Not after Mrs. Collins’ mother cut herself up in a bout of dementia. The old man kept his wits about him. Thinking about escaping this place like Clint Eastwood and Alcatraz. He could escape Shady Pines, but there was no escaping old age. Not with two bad hips, two worse eyes, and enough arthritis to make a thirty-year-old cry. Growing old was not for sissies indeed. And the physical pain was the least of it. He could take watching boyhood heroes become footnotes. He could even handle seeing his color memories become black-and-white footage. But the old man knew he would never get over the death of his wife as long as he lived.

  Ambrose was raised Catholic, but ever since his brother died when they were kids, he thought that no God could let what happened happen. Seeing an empty room where his brother used to be. Seeing his mother cry like that. Even his father. Since that moment, there were no thoughts of God. There was only a staunch belief that we are carbon and electricity and that was that. When you’re dead, you’re dead. And his Anne was in a beautiful plot that he visited when the shuttle could take him. And when he was lying in the ground next to her, her photographs would be thrown in the trash because her face wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. He was the last person alive who knew her and loved her. Like his little brother. Like his mom and dad. Like his wife who said, “Don’t worry. Dead is just an asleep you don’t wake up from.” His wife who made him promise to throw her a traditional Irish Wake with the joke, “You can’t have a good Sleep without a proper Wake.”

  Right before he closed his eyes for the afternoon nap, he lay in bed like Clint Eastwood on Alcatraz. Trying to
figure out a way to escape old age. He squinted through the clouds in his eyes and prayed in his heart just like he did every nap and every sleep that he wouldn’t wake up. He whispered, “God, if You’re up there, please let me see my family again. I beg You.” He wouldn’t know when his eyes closed. He would simply open them and realize that God was keeping him alive for a reason only God could say. For purpose or punishment. Or both. Then, he would turn…

  And see a plastic cup where his wife used to be.

  * * *

  Kate was thinking what a nice man Ambrose was as she walked through Shady Pines. She looked at the old folks in the parlor. Some playing checkers. Some chess. A little Saturday afternoon television. Some talking. Some knitting. Mostly sitting. A few eager beavers lining up for lunch early to have first dibs on the Jell-O.

  Mrs. Reese…this is your future, too, you know? You’re a nice lady, and your kid is great. So, don’t fuck around.

  The thought was not depressing. It was realistic and sobering. She felt the tick tock in her chest. And she remembered a line from one of her self-help books. One of the early ones that got her out of her horrible small town with a horrible small family.

  We have this time. We have no other.

  She knew that Friday nights would always be for her son Christopher.

  But maybe Saturday nights could be for her.

  She got up and went to the phone. After a moment, she dialed.

  “Hello. Sheriff’s office,” the voice said.

  “May I speak to the sheriff please? It’s Kate Reese,” she said.

  “One second, ma’am.”

  She stood there, listening to the Muzak. The song was Blue Moon. After a moment, the phone clicked.

  “Hello?” the sheriff said. “Everything okay, Mrs. Reese?”

  “Yeah. Everything is fine,” she said.

  She could hear him realize that she wasn’t calling for police work. His voice changed.

  “Oh. Good. That’s good,” he said.

  He waited.

  “Yeah. So, look, uh…I don’t have work tonight,” she said.