Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (27 page)

That is not what I call being in charge.

‘This has been the toughest time in my twenty years as an administrator,’ Mrs Palmer says. ‘But God willing, we’ll get through this and Max will come back to us safe and sound. Now what can I do for you?’

‘I know this is bad timing, but I’d like to take a leave of absence. My condition isn’t improving and I’d like to spend some time with my sister out west. But I have no intention of leaving you in the lurch. I’m in no rush. I’ll wait until you find a replacement, and I’ll make sure I cooperate with the police in any way needed and stay in Connecticut until they no longer require my assistance. But when it’s possible, and as soon as it’s possible, I’d like to take the rest of the year off.’

‘Of course,’ Mrs Palmer says.

She sounds surprised and maybe a little relieved. I think she thought Mrs Patterson was meeting with her about something else.

‘I don’t know much about lupus, and I feel terrible about it. I would have done more reading about it, had I not been focused solely on Max these past few days. But is there anything we can do?’

‘Thank you, but I’m okay. I’m taking several medications that seem to have things under control for the moment, but it’s an unpredictable disease. I’d hate to wake up one morning and discover that I don’t have the time to see my sister and get to know her kids. Let them get to know their auntie.’

‘It must be hard,’ Mrs Palmer says.

‘I didn’t think I’d ever stand up again when I lost my Scotty. But this place has been so good for me. It brought me back from the dead. It reminded me that there is still good in this world, and that there are kids who really need me. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my boy, but I’ve moved on and done some good, I think.’

‘You have,’ Mrs Palmer says.

‘But Max’s disappearance has really got me thinking again about how unpredictable life can be. I pray every night that Max is okay, but there is no telling what has happened. Here today, gone tomorrow. Just like my Scotty. That could be me someday. I don’t want to wait until my life is piled high with regrets before I do something about it.’

‘I certainly understand,’ Mrs Palmer says. ‘I can call Rich tomorrow and have Human Resources start interviewing replacements immediately. I’d do it myself but I just don’t think I’ll have the time. But there are a lot of teachers on the market without jobs, so hiring a qualified replacement shouldn’t be difficult. Do you think you’ll want to return next year?’

Mrs Patterson sighs, and it sounds so real even though I know that everything she is saying is a lie. I can’t believe how good she is at pretending to be someone else.

‘I’d like to think that I’ll be back,’ she says. ‘Would it be all right if I let you know for sure in the spring? It’s hard to tell how I will feel in six months. To be honest, it’s been hard to come to school each day, knowing Max is not here and knowing that had I been working last Friday, none of this would have happened.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ruth,’ Mrs Palmer says.

‘It’s not ridiculous,’ Mrs Patterson says. ‘If I had been—’

‘Stop,’ Mrs Palmer says, holding her hand out like a crossing guard. ‘This is not your fault. Max did not run away. Someone took him, and if they didn’t take him on Friday, they would have taken him another day. The police say that random abductions are almost unheard of. Someone planned this. This is not your fault.’

‘I know. But it’s still hard. If Max comes back to us, I could see myself coming back next year. But if, God forbid, he is still missing next September, I don’t know how I could bring myself to walk through those doors ever again.’

Everything Mrs Patterson says makes her seem more innocent to Mrs Palmer and more dangerous to me.

‘Just don’t blame yourself,’ Mrs Palmer says. ‘You had nothing to do with this.’

‘When I’m lying in my bed at night, thinking about Max and where he might be, it’s hard not to think this is all my fault,’ Mrs Patterson says.

‘Don’t. You are too good to be blaming yourself, Ruth.’

Sometimes I ask Max if I exist just to get him to admit that I exist. To remind him that I exist. Now Mrs Patterson is doing the same thing. Mrs Patterson, Max’s kidnapper, has walked into Mrs Palmer’s office and tricked her into insisting that she did nothing wrong. The bad guy is sitting right in front of Mrs Palmer, and all Mrs Palmer can do is tell her over and over that she is innocent, even when Mrs Patterson admits that she is to blame.

Mrs Palmer is dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, and she is losing badly.

And now Mrs Palmer has agreed to let Mrs Patterson take the rest of the year off so she can head to a place out west, to visit a sister who probably does not exist. I think Mrs Patterson is planning to leave Connecticut, and she might even be planning to head out west, but it’s not to see her sister.

She is going to take Max away, and if she does I don’t think that either one of them will ever come back.

I have to hurry.

I have to break another promise to Max.

CHAPTER 45

I ride the school bus home but get off at the Savoys’ house again since the bus did not stop for Max. I walk to the house to check on Max’s mom and dad, but that is not why I rode the school bus home. I do not know how to get to the hospital from school, so I have to start at the house.

I wish I paid better attention to the streets. Max’s dad says that he carries a map inside his head that lets him get anywhere. All of my maps start at Max’s house. My map looks like a spider. Max’s house is the body and all the places that I go are the legs.

No two legs connect.

I also cannot get to Mrs Patterson’s house without driving in her car, which means that if Mrs Patterson decides to never come back to school again, I am in big trouble. I will never find Max again.

If everything goes according to my plan, I will be back in Mrs Patterson’s car tomorrow.

Max’s parents are home. I saw their cars in the driveway when the bus drove past. Normally Max’s dad would be at work and Max’s mom would just be getting home in time to see Max off the bus. But today they are both home.

His mom is in the kitchen. She is baking cookies. The house is quiet. No radio or television. The only sound I can hear is Max’s dad’s voice coming from his office. He is on the telephone.

It is weird. I did not expect cookies and telephone calls.

The house is clean, too. Cleaner than usual. There are no books or mail piled on the dining room table and there are no dishes in the sink. No shoes piled by the front door.

It reminds me a little bit of Mrs Patterson’s house.

Max’s dad comes out of his office and walks into the kitchen.

‘You’re baking cookies?’ he asks.

I’m glad because I wanted to ask the same thing.

‘I’m making them to take to the police station.’

‘You think they need cookies?’ Max’s dad says.

‘I don’t know what else to do, okay?’ Max’s mom says.

She pushes the bowl of cookie batter across the counter. It slides over the edge and falls to the floor. The bowl breaks. It makes a cracking sound but most of the bowl stays together. It is held together by the cookie dough. Only a couple pieces of glass separate from the bowl.

Max’s mom begins to cry.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Max’s dad shouts.

He stares down at the broken bowl. One of the broken pieces has slid across the linoleum and stopped in front of his shoe. He stares at it and then back up to Max’s mom.

‘I’m sorry,’ Max’s mom says. ‘I just don’t know what to do. There isn’t a book that tells you what to do when your little boy disappears. The police tell you to stay home and wait, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Watch TV? Read a book? You’re in there playing amateur detective and I’m stuck in here, staring at the walls and wondering what the hell is happening to Max.’

‘The police said that it was probably someone who Max knows,’ Max’s dad says. ‘I’m just trying to figure out who it might be.’

‘By calling everyone we know and hoping that they will admit to taking him? Did you hope to hear him playing in the background with the Parker boys or with my sister’s kids?’

‘I don’t know,’ Max’s dad says. ‘I have to do something.’

‘You really think my sister could’ve taken Max? She can’t even talk to Max without getting nervous. She can’t even look him in the eyes.’

‘It’s something, goddamit! I can’t just sit here and do nothing.’

‘And you think baking cookies is nothing?’

‘I don’t see how it’s going to help us find Max.’

‘And what happens when you run out of people to call?’ Max’s mom asks. ‘Then what? How long do we put ourselves on hold before we go back to work and resume our lives?’

‘You want to go back to work?’

‘No, of course not. But I keep wondering what will happen if they don’t find Max. How long are we going to sit in this house waiting for news? I know it’s awful, but I keep thinking about how we will ever move on after the police tell us to give up hope. Because I’m starting to give up hope. God help me, I am. It’s been five days and they have nothing. What’s going to happen to us?’

‘It’s only been five days,’ Max’s dad says. ‘The chief said that people make mistakes. Maybe not in the first week or even the first month, but you can’t be careful for ever. Whoever has Max will make a mistake and that’s when we’ll find him.’

‘What if he’s already dead?’

‘Don’t say that!’ Max’s father says. ‘Don’t fucking say that!’

‘Why not? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’

‘I’m trying not to think about it,’ Max’s dad says. ‘For Christ’s sake, why would you even say that?’

‘Because it’s all I can think about!’ Max’s mom says. ‘My little boy is gone and he’s probably dead and we’re never getting him back!’

Now Max’s mom is really crying. She throws a wooden spoon covered with cookie batter across the counter and crumples to the floor, her head dipping into her arms. For a moment, she reminds me of Wooly, sliding off his wall and onto the floor. Max’s dad steps forward, stops for a moment, and then goes to her. He eases himself down to the floor and puts his arms around her.

‘He’s not dead,’ Max’s dad whispers. He is not shouting his words anymore.

‘But what if he is?’ Max’s mom asks. ‘What then? I don’t know how we’ll ever go on.’

‘We’ll find him,’ Max’s dad says.

‘I can’t stop thinking that there was something we did. Or forgot to do. That somehow this is our fault.’

‘Stop,’ Max’s dad says, but he says it gently. Not like a crossing guard. ‘That’s not how the world works and you know it. Some awful person decided to take Max from us. It doesn’t have anything to do with us. It’s just an awful thing done by an awful person, and we’re going to catch the son-of-a-bitch and bring our son back. He’s going to make a mistake. The chief said so. When he does, we’ll get Max back. I know it.’

‘But what if we don’t?’

‘We will. I promise.’

Max’s dad sounds so sure of himself even though he keeps calling the kidnapper a he.

I suddenly realize that Max isn’t the only person who I have to save. I have to save his parents, too.

CHAPTER 46

I start at the Children’s Hospital. I have no reason to be here, but I want to see Summer. I’m not sure why, but I do. I feel like I need to see her.

I make my way to the recess room. The elevator drops me off on the fourteenth floor this time. No stairs. I decide that this is a good sign. Things are already working out.

I make my way to the recess room. It is after seven so the kids will probably be in their beds and the imaginary friends who leave the rooms will probably be in the recess room by now.

As I walk in, Klute jumps up out of his chair and shouts my name. His head bobbles uncontrollably as he does so. Three other imaginary friends jump up from their seats in surprise as well. None of them are Spoon or Summer.

‘Hello, Klute,’ I say.

‘You look so real!’ says a boy who looks like a robot. Shiny and boxy and stiff. I have seen many robot imaginary friends before.

‘He really does,’ says a brown teddy bear about half my size.

The third, a girl who looks like a human person except for missing eyebrows and a pair of fairy wings on her back, sits back down and folds her hands in her lap without saying anything.

‘Thank you,’ I say to the robot and the teddy bear. I turn to Klute. ‘Is Summer still here? Or Spoon?’

‘Spoon went home two days ago,’ Klute says.

‘What about Summer?’ I ask.

Klute looks at his feet. I turn to the robot and the teddy bear. They both do the same.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

Klute shakes his head back and forth slowly, but it causes his head to bobble. He will not look at me except when his bobbling head forces his eyes up for a second.

‘She died,’ the girl with the fairy wings says.

I turn around and face her. ‘What do you mean she died?’

‘Summer died,’ she says. ‘And then Grace died.’

‘Grace?’ I ask. Then I remember.

‘Her friend,’ the fairy says. ‘Her friend who was sick.’

‘Summer died
and then
Grace died?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ the fairy says. ‘Summer disappeared. And then a little while later the doctors said that Grace died.’

‘It was sad,’ Klute says. It sounds like he is going to cry. ‘She was sitting in here with us and then she just started to fade away. I could see right through her.’

‘Was she scared?’ I ask. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘No,’ the fairy says. ‘She knew that Grace was going to die so she was happy that she was going to die first.’

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘So she could wait for Grace on the other side,’ the fairy says.

‘The other side of what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says.

I look at Klute. ‘

‘I don’t know either,’ he says. ‘She just said that she and Grace would be together on the other side.’

‘I wasn’t here,’ the teddy bear says. ‘But it sure sounds sad. I never want to disappear.’

‘We all disappear someday,’ the robot says. He talks like a robot from the movies. All stiff and choppy.