Imaginary Things

by Andrea Lochen

  “That’s great,” I said. “Does that mean she’s getting better?”

  “MS isn’t like cancer. It doesn’t go away. But there are periods of remission, and then there are relapses.” He turned his head to examine a dilapidated barn. “We’re not going to talk about my pathetic life all the way to Milwaukee, are we? Tell me about you.”

  “Oh, so you’d rather hear about my pathetic life?”

  “Yes, please. Maybe it will make me feel better about myself.” We both laughed a little.

  Despite my best intentions to present myself as a competent, successful woman who’d had only a minor setback in life, I found myself revealing way too much information to Jamie. His gentle brown eyes encouraged me somehow. I told him about Lakeview Dermatology’s downsizing, closing the clinic location I worked at, and my losing my job. I told him about selling my bed and sleeping on the couch so I could pay our electric bill. I told him about selling my couch and sleeping on the floor to pay for groceries. I told him about my fear of overstaying my welcome in my grandparents’ house, my haphazard job search, and my inability to make up my mind about what to do or where to go next. I told him that I was worried I’d never amount to anything.

  “Amounting to something,” Jamie said. “I’ve always thought that was a weird expression.”

  My incessant talking had gotten us all the way to Milwaukee. We were on the zoo interchange, only a few short miles away from the exit we would take to get to my old apartment.

  “It makes it sound like life is an equation,” he continued. “If you do a, b, and c, you will be happy and successful. You will amount to something.” He turned to look at me, his voice suddenly low and as soft as a caress. “But you already are something, Anna. You always have been.”

  I tried not to show how much his words affected me. I took a deep breath and focused on the billboards on the side of the road. I hadn’t been gone for even two months, and already many of them had been changed. Some of them advertised the upcoming Wisconsin State Fair in August. When we pulled onto South Avenue, I was surprised to see all the medians planted with red and purple flowers. Summer was still marching on in Milwaukee even if David and I weren’t there.

  “Which house is it?” Jamie asked, as we crawled down 57th Street.

  “The green and white bungalow on the left,” I said.

  “Right. The one with the moving truck parked in front. That would make sense.” He grinned sheepishly.

  Stacy and Brett were arguing in the detached garage when we strolled up the sidewalk.

  “It’s ugly, and it hasn’t worked in years! We’re either going to junk it here, or we’re going to junk it once we get to Rhinelander, so I say we junk it here and save ourselves the trouble of hauling it,” Stacy said. She was a tall blonde with a trim figure; she’d always liked to joke that she could’ve been mistaken for my older sister.

  “I’ve had it since high school,” Brett said and held up the item presumably in question. It was a neon-lit sign for a beer company, the kind that hung in bar windows. “I think one of the tubes needs to be replaced, and if that’s the case, I think it would look really cool in our new rec room.”

  Stacy huffed out a heavy sigh. “You said that five years ago when we moved here, and you’ve still never fixed it. Don’t you think it’s time to just let it go?”

  Jamie shot me an amused look. I had a feeling that the argument would go on for a lot longer if we didn’t interrupt.

  “Hey, guys!” I called out, and Stacy literally sprinted from the garage to crush me in a hug.

  “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Anna! I’ve missed you and David so much!” She pulled back to squeeze my upper arms and spotted Jamie over my shoulder. “Well, well. Who’s this?”

  “An old friend,” I answered hurriedly, lest she get ideas. “Jamie.”

  “He’s hot,” she whispered in my ear before pulling away to shake his offered hand. Brett, who’d been a burly, muscular football player in high school and was now a burly, muscular construction worker, came out of the garage to say hello as well. After the introductions were through, I noticed him slink away with the neon sign tucked under his arm, to put in the moving truck, I suspected.

  “Where are the kids?” I asked.

  Stacy squinted toward the house as though she had X-ray vision that allowed her to see through the siding. “Breanne is at her friend’s house, saying her goodbyes, and lamenting what horribly unfair parents she has. And Nick is still cleaning out his closet, I think.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “You don’t want to see some of the things that kid’s unearthed in there. Where’s your kiddo?”

  “He’s playing at a friend’s house,” I said.

  “Wow, making friends already? Way to go, David.” Stacy wiped a smudge of dust off her shorts and eyed Jamie appreciatively again.

  Calling Gunner a “friend” was a bit of a stretch. Probably he was subjecting David and King Rex to a viewing of his Titanic documentary at that very moment.

  “Yeah, we’re adjusting alright to life in Salsburg,” I said, testing the statement out to see if it was true.

  “I’m psyched to get out of this city too,” Stacy said. “The house we bought in Rhinelander comes with three acres of land, and I think it’s going to be so good for the kids. I’ll write down our new address, but my cell phone number will be the same, so there’s no excuse not to keep in touch. You hear me, Anna?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  Brett reappeared empty-handed and sidled up to Jamie. “Want to give me a hand with the chair? It’s not heavy, but you can drop the tailgate for me, and I can help you tie it down.” They walked inside the house together.

  “He’s really cute,” Stacy gushed once they were out of earshot. “Are you two seeing each other?”

  “No,” I protested. “We’re just friends. He’s my grandparents’ next-door neighbor, and we’ve known each other since we were little kids. He’s practically my brother.”

  “I think the lady doth protest too much.” Stacy batted her eyelashes.

  “Stacy—”

  “Alright, I’ll shut up. Anyway, I have something important to tell you.” She motioned for me to follow her to the tiny backyard. The yellowish grass was still pitted with little craters from David’s digging phase. “I didn’t say anything on the phone because I didn’t want to alarm you—”

  “What? What’s wrong?” A swift range of horrible scenarios flashed before my eyes. Stacy had cancer. Brett was cheating on her. She was cheating on Brett. My last rent check had bounced, and a collection agency was going to come after me.

  “I’m sorry. I know how upsetting this will be,” Stacy said. “Patrick stopped by a week ago.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Patrick? Patrick stopped by here?” I sat down on the grimy, bird poop-stained picnic table. I tried to take a deep breath, but it felt like something was caught in my throat.

  “Yeah. He knocked on the front door and asked if I knew where you guys were.”

  “He did? What did you say?”

  “I told him it was none of his damn business and that he had no right to try to contact you with your restraining order still in effect.”

  God bless Stacy and her absolute fearlessness. “How did he seem?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “He was dressed nice and trying to act friendly to me, but underneath it, he seemed agitated. I just wanted to give you the heads up in case you want to report it to the police.”

  My heart was sinking slowly like a weighted corpse in a lake. I gripped the picnic table’s wooden edge. The last time Patrick had broken the injunction was an absolute nightmare. Two years ago, I had come home from grocery shopping one evening to find him waiting for me, concealed in the shadows of the outdoor staircase, barefoot and wearing only a pair of jeans despite the 40 degree weather. Startled, I had dropped the bag of groceries I was carrying and grabbed for David’s arm to pull him behind me. With the tatto
os on his naked chest and arms gleaming in the moonlight, Patrick had ranted about Caravaggio, Saint Paul, and the road to Damascus in a voice not his own. I kept trying to back away from him and escape to the front of the house and Stacy’s doorstep, but Patrick kept obstructing my path. Thankfully, Stacy had heard the commotion and called the police. I was also grateful for the small favor of David being too young to remember the frightening ordeal.

  “He doesn’t have your grandparents’ address, does he?” Stacy asked, voicing my own concern.

  “No, and neither do his parents. He knows they live in Salsburg though, and it’s a pretty small place.”

  She toed a divot in the grass with her sandal. “It’s probably nothing. Just one bad day off his meds. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah,” I said, hardly knowing what I was agreeing to. “Thank you for telling me.” The feeling of vertigo I got around Patrick, or even at the mention of him, was back. His boldness in coming to the front door this time instead of waiting for me in the shadows was almost scarier in a way. It showed his brazen disregard for the injunction.

  “Got the chair in the truck bed,” Brett hollered triumphantly. He and Jamie joined us in the backyard. When Jamie caught sight of my face, he raised his eyebrows questioningly. I stared straight ahead at the outdoor stairs that led to the upper flat, my old apartment. Our old apartment. I remembered how Patrick had threatened to jump from the top landing on a few occasions. Please, Anna. Don’t make me do this.

  “Do you all want to stay for some lunch?” Brett asked. “The grill’s probably around here somewhere. We could put some burgers on.”

  “No, no,” I said. “Please don’t go to any trouble for us. We actually need to get going. I’ve got to pick up David soon. Stacy, thanks so much for calling about the chair. We’ll have to talk soon once you’re all settled.”

  “Yes, of course.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m so glad you were able to come on such short notice. And it was so nice meeting you, Jamie.” She gave him a not very sly wink.

  Back in the cool cabin of the truck, I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, but Jamie sensed my distress. “Is something wrong? You seem upset.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  His hand drifted across the center console, like he might take mine, but it stayed there and didn’t come any closer. We were quiet for a long time until we were well out of the city limits.

  “So, what’s the story behind the chair?” Jamie asked.

  “It’s the chair I rocked David in when he was a baby.” I peered through the back window for the first time at the cherry wood rocking chair strapped down in the bed of the truck. It had a blue padded back and seat tied to it. “Rocking David was the only thing that soothed him for the first six months of his life.”

  I could tell Jamie wanted to ask more questions, but he politely held his tongue. Asking a woman about her unplanned teen pregnancy could be a touchy subject. So when did you get knocked up? And why didn’t you stay with the father? If you could go back and do things differently, would you?

  “It was Patrick’s chair. His mom rocked him in it when he was a baby too. She said she wanted me to have it. For her grandson to have it. I asked a few years ago if she wanted it back, and she said no. To keep it.”

  “That was nice of her. Patrick is your ex-husband?”

  “No. I wasn’t stupid enough to get married. Just stupid enough to get pregnant.”

  He was silent for a long time, clearly unsure how to respond. Finally, he said, “You know I saw you once. When you were pregnant.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, my junior year. I was outside, putting away some tools in our shed at night, and I saw you in your backyard. You were standing on the deck, and you were really pregnant. You had one hand on the railing and the other on your belly, and you looked so sad, like you were on the verge of tears. I thought about coming over to talk to you.”

  I turned to study him in profile. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Pride, I guess. I was still mad at you.”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” I said, feeling the shame anew. “I wish I’d had half a brain and been a loyal friend to you.”

  He held up his hand between us like a peace offering. “I’m sorry, too. Obviously you were going through a lot and could’ve used a friend that night.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, remembering the night Jamie had witnessed. “I was crying because I’d found out Patrick was bipolar. He kept disappearing and he became really unreliable. Threatening. He refused to take his meds consistently.” It was such a short summation of Patrick and all that he was. All that he had been to me. Bipolar. Unreliable. Threatening. But Jamie seemed to accept it for what it was.

  I thought about confiding in him what Stacy had just told me, that Patrick was looking for David and me. I considered telling him about the four-year injunction against Patrick, which would be expiring this fall. But I didn’t want him to view me as even more of a victim than he probably already did. And I didn’t want to think about the restraining order lifting in only a few short months…unless I could somehow be granted a renewal in light of recent events. I wondered if the court would grant me an extension based on Patrick’s two incidents of harassment. Maybe even a permanent restraining order? But instead of calming me, this possibility made me feel worse, like a jagged rock had lodged itself in my stomach. To be the one who settled things irrevocably, the one who determined there was no hope for Patrick to change, no chance for him to ever be in his son’s life? I didn’t know if I could bear the weight of that responsibility.

  Jamie was slowing down in the right lane, like he was going to get off at an exit, but we were still half an hour away from Salsburg.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I could see from his fuel gauge that he still had half a tank.

  “I thought maybe we could stop for a bite to eat,” he said. “There’s this amazing sandwich shop out here. Best hand-scooped malts in the state.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” I said, “but we really can’t afford to stop. I told Edna I’d be back to pick David up by lunchtime, and it’s already twelve o’clock.”

  “Oh, okay.” Jamie flicked off his directional and slammed his foot on the accelerator. A car behind us honked and sped around us. The driver flipped us the bird as he passed.

  “Maybe some other time,” I said, but even as I said these words, I realized that there might not be another time with all of the turmoil in my life. The sharp stone in my belly felt even heavier.

  “Okay.”

  I could tell he was disappointed, but I was suddenly desperate to lay eyes on David. Hearing about Patrick’s audacity had given me the same foreboding feeling I got after watching a horror movie—that something bad was waiting for me just out of sight. As soon as I got home, I would call Abigail Gill and find out if she knew what her son was up to; from there, I would determine if the police needed to get involved again. I doubted they would find his chat with my former neighbor as concerning as I did, but at least they would document it and maybe give him a fine or something. And then if I decided to petition for a renewal, all the evidence would be on file. I slipped my feet nervously in and out of my sandals and watched the blue numbers on the dashboard clock creep higher.

  “Do you mind if I make a quick call?” I asked Jamie. “Just to let the babysitter know I’m running a bit late.”

  He shook his head. “Of course not.”

  I pulled my cell phone from my purse and dialed Edna’s number. “Hi, it’s Anna. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. The errand took a little longer than I expected. How did things go?”

  “Terrible,” Edna replied tartly. A little boy was wailing in the background; I couldn’t tell if it was David or Gunner.

  I flattened my ear against the phone. “What happened?”

  “Your son,” she hissed, “attacked my grandson.”

  “Attacked?” I repeated. It seemed like s
uch a melodramatic word for the slap or push that forty-one-pound David had maybe inflicted—and even that seemed out of character. When playing with other children, David was usually generous and eager to please. The pushover type, not the aggressor. “Is Gunner okay? Did you see what happened?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she huffed. “But it looks really bad. He’s bleeding. I might have to take him to the doctor.” The wailing got louder, and I could differentiate now that this was not my son’s sobs but the frantic cries of an injured Gunner.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Bleeding? A visit to the doctor? Pictures flashed through my mind of the freckled boy, puncture wounds and cuts all over his body. It wasn’t possible. There was no way. David was as gentle as a lamb, and King Rex was imaginary and therefore incapable of physically affecting anything or anyone. Right? Unless I didn’t know my own son. Or unless…I dried my sweaty palms on my thigh and dredged up my hide-and-seek encounter with the T-rex and how I’d thought for just a split second that I could feel and smell his awful prehistoric breath. But that clearly had just been the result of my shock because it was one thing to see my child’s imaginary friends; it was quite another to believe they might be becoming tangible… and dangerous.

  When we got back to town, I hardly waited for Jamie to unload the rocking chair and carry it into the house. I thanked him profusely and then apologized just as profusely for having to take off for the Franklins’ house to collect my son. Jamie just nodded. “It’s fine. I get it,” he said. “I hope everything is okay.”

  Edna opened the door with David’s backpack slung over her wrist, as though she couldn’t get rid of it and him fast enough. “David! Your mom’s here!” she called sharply and thrust the backpack at me. He raced toward me and clung to my knees. His eyes were pink from crying, and his nose was runny. King Rex’s absence felt somehow ominous.