Imaginary Things

by Andrea Lochen

  So maybe Duffy was right. Kids didn’t think to judge one another’s clothing choices until second grade or so. But parents and teachers most definitely did. Good thing they couldn’t see King Rex. If David’s hideous shirt earned us these kinds of stares, I could only imagine the reaction we would get had they come face to face with the king of the dinosaurs.

  We passed Mrs. Banaszynski’s classroom and stopped outside Miss Hanna’s. Miss Hanna didn’t have twenty years of teaching experience under her belt, but as far as I could tell from the kindergarten preview day, she was nice enough and seemed competent, and she had the obvious advantage of not having the infamous Gunner in her class.

  “We have to say goodbye now,” I said, crouching down to David’s eye level.

  He jerked his head away, facing King Rex instead. One tear sparkled like a diamond in the corner of his left eye. He was still upset with me.

  “I need to get going so I’m not late for work,” I told him, ruffling up his blond hair, trying to look at him from only the neck up and avoid the repulsive Hawaiian shirt that made him look like a street urchin. A street urchin in Honolulu, maybe. “Can I have a hug?”

  He turned his head, considering my request, and then launched himself at me so forcefully that I fell backwards into the wall. I returned his breathless squeeze.

  “Have a good day at school,” I said. “Grandpa Winston will be here to pick you up at 11:30, and he’ll take you home for lunch, okay, buckaroo? I’ll be home around four o’clock, and I’m going to be so excited to hear about all the things you learned today.”

  He gave me his brave face, the one that made him look older than his years, the mask that all boys learned to wear as the world required them to toughen up. “Okay, Mommy.” And then he and King Rex walked into the classroom as though they were heading toward a firing squad.

  The hallways had emptied some as I walked back out to the parking lot. I tried to discreetly rub my eyes on the sleeve of my blouse. Other moms and dads were exiting the building too, proud tears glistening in their eyes and on their cheeks, shaking their heads in bewilderment. How had we all gotten to this point, our babies grown up and going to school? But beyond that shared sentiment, we were worlds apart. While they were worrying if little Langdon would remember to tell the teacher if he had to go potty and share his blocks nicely, I was worried about David in his extra-large shirt, standing out like a peacock among pigeons. I was worried someone would say the wrong thing to him, and his T-rex friend would lash out. I was worried he would sit in the play car, mumbling to King Rex like a crazy person, and all the kids and even the teacher would ostracize him. I was worried I’d get a phone call from Miss Hanna: Ms. Jennings, I’m just calling to tell you that your son spent the entire day talking to an imaginary dinosaur, and we think he’s a little nuts and should probably see a psychiatrist. Just thought you should know.

  It had been only three days since I’d started working at Galloway Realtors, but so far, so good. The agents, Janet, Brandon, and Gisele, were all friendly, low-maintenance types, nothing like some of the demanding dermatologists I’d worked for in Milwaukee. I’d mastered my job duties by the end of the first day—answering the phone, setting up appointments, faxing and filing paperwork, and creating daily reports of new houses that came on the market. Was it an exciting, totally fulfilling job? Heck no. Did it require only a fraction of my brain power and abilities? Probably. But the pay was decent for the work I did, it was only a ten-minute drive from my grandparents’ house and a fifteen-minute drive to David’s school, and when things were slow, I could sketch or send text messages under the ledge of the desk. I already had one waiting for me from Jamie when I settled in to my work station.

  Good luck to David today! Kindergarten=Very Big Deal, he had typed.

  Thanks, I replied. Only a few tears at drop-off. Which was an understatement, to say the least. I set my cell phone down and scrolled through the new listings of houses that had popped up in our computer database. Only thirty seconds later, my phone vibrated, alerting me to a new message.

  Yours or his?

  I smiled. A little of both, I admitted. But we’ll be fine. (I hoped.) Maybe typing it would make it true. I wished I could tell him the whole story—imaginary dinosaur and all—but I knew how delusional it would sound. I returned my attention to sorting through the house listings and printing out reports for Janet, trying to keep my mind off what David and King Rex were doing at that very moment. When my phone buzzed a few minutes later, I scooped it up eagerly, but it wasn’t a reply from Jamie; it was a message from Carly.

  A little bird told me you and Presswood were on a DATE! Woot-woot! Talk soon? I want to hear ALL about it! XO

  The “little bird” was Sam, no doubt, since he’d seen us together at the firemen’s picnic. I wondered if all of Salsburg already knew about us, but for once, the thought of what the town had to say didn’t bother me. I texted Carly back that I was pretty busy at the moment with David starting kindergarten, but that we should get together for lunch next week.

  Gisele bustled in then with a middle-aged couple who were putting in an offer on a house, so she kept me occupied the next hour preparing, photocopying, and faxing documents. By the time my lunch break rolled around, I thankfully still hadn’t received a troubling phone call from Miss Hanna or my grandparents, and I knew David was home by now from his first day of school. I called Duffy to check in.

  “So how did it go?” I punched the buttons on the microwave to warm up my frozen dinner.

  “Just fine.” Duffy’s voice sounded singsong-y, and I wondered if she was trying to cover something up or if she was just in one of her “singsong-y” moods. “We’re just eating tuna salad on toast for lunch now.”

  She really was a miracle worker; she’d diversified David’s palate considerably since June. “Fine, how?” I pressed. I sat down at the small bistro-style table in the break room and anxiously crossed my legs. Brandon came in and grabbed a twenty-ounce soda from the fridge. I gave him a broad smile, hoping he wasn’t planning to stick around. He smiled back and politely ducked out.

  “Fine and dandy,” Duffy chirped. “He drew a picture; he learned a new song. But oh, I’ll let Davey tell you the rest when you get home.” The oven’s timer started to beep out a steady, high-pitched chorus in the background. “Oh my, I need to take the snickerdoodles out of the oven. Have a good rest of your day, darling. We’ll see you when you get home.”

  I stared at the disconnected phone in my hand, wishing that I’d been the one to pick David up from school and feed him his lunch. I’d been hoping for more details, details that my grandparents, unfortunately, couldn’t give me. What had David’s face looked like right before he’d discerned Winston in the crowd of parents? Cowed and crestfallen, or eager and pleased? Had the other kids been talking to him and including him, or had he been standing a little apart? Had King Rex been standing beside him, and if so, had the T-rex ridden home in Winston’s car? Was he still playing with David at that very moment? Though it was reassuring to know that no major mishaps had occurred, I still longed to see my son and hear his firsthand account. Four o’clock could hardly come fast enough.

  When I arrived home, the house smelled deliciously like cinnamon, and David greeted me at the door with a snickerdoodle and an enthusiastic description of his activities at school that left little room for interruptions or questions. The tension I’d been carrying all day at the base of my neck started to dissolve. He sang his song for me, which required a ball as a prop and some audience participation.

  “Roll the ball to you, roll it back to me,” David sang at the top of his lungs. He pushed up his Hawaiian shirtsleeves, which puddled around his hands when his arms were down. “What’s your name?” Here he stage-whispered to me, “Now you need to say your name, Mommy.”

  “Anna,” I said, rolling the pink soccer ball back to him.

  “No, your name. Mommy.”

  “Okay. Mommy.” It would be a conversation for
another time.

  “And then we sing, we’re very glad you came.”

  We repeated this song at least ten more times, and each time, I felt a little more optimistic that David was going to be just fine in kindergarten, imaginary friends or not. He was not me, I was not my mom, and King Rex was not Leah Nola. Just because one hereditary pattern had repeated itself didn’t mean that the whole story would follow the same plot. David’s story would have a happy ending, I was determined, because I would never put him in the kind of situation that my mom had put me in.

  During dinner, David told us all about playing outside during recess and the identical twin boys in his class, who both fascinated and perplexed him. “Am I two people?” he asked, and I couldn’t help laughing.

  But then at bedtime, he showed me the picture he’d drawn on a sheet of yellow construction paper: a black silhouette that looked somewhat like a cat.

  “What is it?” I asked. “A kitty?” He squinted off into the distance, as if trying to remember his inspiration. He’d done drawings of Vivien Leigh before, but this looked nothing like those fluffy brown, black, and white imitations. “Should we hang it on the fridge? It’s your first official piece of school art!” I held it up over our heads by my thumbs and pointer fingers.

  “No!” He tried to snatch the paper down but couldn’t quite reach.

  “Why not? I think it’s a nice drawing.” I studied first his disgruntled face and then the drawing more carefully. Frankly, I was surprised it wasn’t a drawing of one of his dinosaurs; they seemed like the only subject he and I both drew these days.

  “No!” David repeated. “I don’t want you to hang it up.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against his pillow. After a while, he added, “King Rex doesn’t like him.”

  “Doesn’t like who, David?” Here it was: the other shoe dropping. This was where he told me about the bully in class picking on him or his run-in with Gunner on the playground. I set the drawing down on his nightstand, tucked the loose flap of sheet under his mattress, and waited for it.

  But he pointed at the construction paper. “The bad cat.”

  The bad cat. He had used that term before. When? I sifted through my brain—bad cat, bad cat, bad cat—until I had it. It was the name he’d used to describe the black shadowy substance that his dinosaurs chased. The shadowy substance which, to my relief, we hadn’t seen much of since early July. At least, I hadn’t seen it, but maybe it had been bothering David when I wasn’t around. Or maybe some fear had recently been resurrected to prompt its return.

  “King Rex doesn’t like the bad cat?” I asked out loud to make sure I had it right. “Why?” I felt like we were speaking in nursery rhymes. I longed for David to just spell out his worries for me, so that I could assuage them.

  He blinked a few times, considering, and then rubbed his eyes hard with both fists. “I don’t know.”

  I pulled his fists gently away and kissed his forehead. “You know that you can tell me absolutely anything, right, buckaroo? I love you, and if something is scaring you, I want to help.”

  David nodded soberly. He reached for the drawing next to him and in one quick motion, had it ripped in two. I accepted the paper halves from him and took it one step further. I tore the paper into quarters and then again and again, until the drawing was in a pile of yellow confetti pieces on the bed. David giggled in delight as he tossed a handful of the paper squares upward, and they fluttered back down on us, a few of them catching in my hair. “All gone!” he cried, and I wished that it were only that easy. That the symbolic destruction of the bad cat could somehow rid David of whatever was troubling him in real life as well.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Since we’d moved in, Winston had been urging us to visit the pioneer village, where he volunteered as their resident handyman and participated in the annual Revolutionary War reenactment. Remembering my own dull trip there as a seven-year-old, I didn’t think the old buildings and people in their funny costumes would hold much appeal for David, but I didn’t want to hurt Winston’s feelings. Besides, Jamie had offered to come along with us that Sunday, and David was in such a restless, fidgety mood that any excuse to get him out of the house was a good one. The pioneer village was on the farthest reach of Duffy’s “safe zone,” and as she had a few hair appointments lined up in the afternoon anyway, she decided to stay behind.

  The four of us trooped out of Winston’s car toward a smattering of fieldstone buildings and log cabins—the blacksmith’s shop, the apothecary, the general store, the Indian trading post, the barn, and several model nineteenth-century homes. The sky was cobalt and cloudless, and my heart was soaring and wheeling somewhere up there like a seagull. Jamie and I were together, David had done well in his first week of kindergarten (even though King Rex had continued to escort him), I’d gotten my first paycheck, and the late summer’s humidity was finally dissipating.

  David kicked up a cloud of dusty gravel with each shuffling step he took. One of the sharp stones pelted the back of my foot.

  “Ouch,” I complained, bending down to rub my heel. “Pick up your feet, David. No kicking gravel.”

  He stopped in his tracks, chastened. There were crescent moons under his eyes, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, but he hadn’t woken me up like he usually did if he had a bad dream or a stuffy nose and couldn’t sleep. A rotten night’s sleep would certainly explain his antsy behavior that morning: teasing Vivien Leigh until she scratched him; moving from activity to activity, never settling on one for longer than five minutes; and crying at the slightest provocation. When we got home later that afternoon, I’d have to make him lie down for an extra-long nap.

  “Are you tired, buckaroo?” I asked. David raised one shoulder and let it fall. “Come here. Come hold my hand.” The fact that he consented proved my theory correct.

  Jamie and Winston had gotten ahead of us, my normally reserved grandfather talking Jamie’s ear off about the history of the village, the renovations and maintenance it required, and the upcoming Revolutionary War reenactment the following weekend. Jamie was nodding enthusiastically and asking well-timed questions. He had told me he hadn’t been to the pioneer village since a fourth-grade class field trip and that he’d be game to go back. I wondered if in addition to a love for Greek mythology, he also harbored a genuine interest in American history. If not, he was a talented faker. He noticed we’d fallen behind and tapped Winston on the arm to slow him down.

  The inside of the blacksmith’s shop was dark and smelled like old, pungent cheese. On one wall, a forge gaped with a flickering lantern inside, weakly attempting to simulate the blazing fire that once would have burned within. Several elderly people were gathered around a man in an apron with a cell-phone clipped to the front pocket demonstrating how to operate a few filthy-looking tools. When they saw David, they made room for him, and the blacksmith asked if he wanted to give the crank a try. David half-heartedly agreed, stepping away from my shoulder to spin the rusty hand-turned wheel. The old people, Winston included, smiled indulgently. Jamie took a picture with his phone. I couldn’t help being distracted by something over by the lantern-lit forge.

  Was it another visitor, one I hadn’t noticed upon entering the blacksmith’s shop, obscured by the shadows? But when I glanced back, there was no one there. The dim light revealed that what I’d mistaken for a person was actually a huge pair of tongs leaning against the forge.

  “That was pretty neat, huh?” Winston asked David, as we walked toward the next building. David’s eyes never left his shoes, but he gave a sharp, perfunctory nod.

  “I think he just needs a nap,” I stage-whispered to Winston to try to soften the disappointment on his face.

  A woman in a white bonnet was showing a family with three girls how to churn butter in the next building. While we waited for our turn, Winston taught us about how log cabins were built in the 1800’s. He ran his hand along the wall, describing how sticks and mud were used to fill in the gaps between
the logs. He was our own personal tour guide. Yippee.

  Jamie moved closer to me, his hand only inches away from my hip. David’s eyelids flickered, as if he were going to fall asleep on his feet. Maybe the nap couldn’t wait; maybe it would be a good excuse to cut our visit short, but we would be letting Winston down, and I really didn’t want to do that to him. David’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and he looked around in a paranoid way.

  “David,” I murmured, not wanting to interrupt Winston’s lecture. I draped my arm over my son’s chest and pulled him toward me. I rested the back of my hand against his forehead in a way mothers everywhere seemed to do. He didn’t feel feverish, but what the heck did I know? I pecked the top of his head. “Are you feeling okay?”

  He pulled out of my grasp and dashed toward the butter-churning lady. Right. So I guessed that meant he was feeling okay now.

  We trudged through the other ten buildings, enduring two lectures at each one: one from the dressed-up volunteer and one from Winston. For the most part, David seemed content enough to try out the interactive activities the volunteers offered, and Jamie seemed content enough to learn all about pioneer life in Wisconsin. I was the only one who was bored out of my mind with a steadily building headache. Duffy had been smart to avoid this trip; I was sure Winston had dragged her here several times before.

  The last building was one of the main attractions (according to Winston): a huge barn with a lot of antique farm machinery inside. “Where are all the animals?” David asked as we entered the cathedral-like space.

  Winston immediately launched into an overview of how much agriculture and its tools had changed over the centuries. His words fell on deaf ears as I watched dust motes dance through the streaming patches of sunlight. David trailed behind his great-grandfather, eagerly examining the old tractors and not quite understanding why he couldn’t climb up on them like he could at the parade.