wasn’t happy with her meal and went straight for the toy. “Oh, ratties. I already have this one.” Unwrapping the burger, she carefully removed both pickles and picked off every microscopic bit of onion before dumping French fries on the wrapper.
“Sorry, baby.” Trying not to feel too guilty about all the fast-food meals they’d eaten recently, Brandy poked a straw in the milk carton. She squirted a packet of ketchup in a neat red pile, careful not to let the condiment touch the fries. Chloe had a thing about mixing food. She preferred to dip.
“That’s all right, Mommy.” She tore the wrapping off the disappointing toy and laid it aside. “I can start a collection.”
Sipping her super-size diet cola, Brandy sat at the computer and pulled up the file containing the case documents her boss needed for the conference. She couldn’t believe someone as anal as Futterman could misplace something so important. Moving anything on his desk an eighth of an inch left or right resulted in a major freak-out. Today’s weirdness just kept piling up. And it wasn’t Friday or the thirteenth.
Deciding to make a spare this time, she set the printer control for two copies and started the process.
“So, baby, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Mommy.”
She blotted a dot of ketchup from her daughter’s mouth with a paper napkin. “Do you think school is a kid’s job?”
“Uh-huh. Like being a pair of legals is your job.”
“Right.” She smiled. “Amy says you have a new friend. Tell me about her.”
Chloe’s dark brown eyes seemed much older in her baby face. “It’s a him. His name is Celestian.” She blended the four syllables together into two. Sles-chun.
Ah, Celestian. She’d heard the unusual name before. “Your dad’s dog?”
“No. It’s a different Celestian. He’s supposed to help me, but most of the time I don’t need any help and he gets his feelings hurted. I told him to go home today.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “It’s kindergarten, not college. He’s too sensitive.”
Brandy nodded. “Can you see Celestian?”
Chloe gave her a look she would have considered insulting had it come from anyone but a five-year-old. “’Course I can.”
“Can I?”
Chloe laughed and dipped another fry. “Nope. He’s inbisible. He says I’m the only one who can see him.”
“So you named your pretend friend after the little white dog that sleeps on your bed when you visit Daddy?”
Chloe’s blond bob swung in vehement denial. “I didn’t name him. That’s his real name. And he’s not pretend. He’s real too. He’s just inbisible to people who don’t need to see him.”
“He talks to you?” Brandy didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. On one hand, it was unsettling to think her daughter could ‘see’ invisible people, but on the other, the child’s fantasy was probably just a way to personalize the little dog she missed.
What was her fantasy all about? Was the man who visited her dreams the personification of her own secret longings?
“Yep. Sometimes he talks too much. He’s funny.” She sobered. “He said other people wouldn’t understand about him. Let’s don’t talk about it.”
Was Chloe afraid to share feelings? Did she think her mother wouldn’t understand or care? She’d never kept secrets before. Doubt settled on Brandy, weighing her down. Motherhood had never been easy, but she had managed, even without Joe’s help. This problem was more complicated than making sure Chloe ate enough protein and got her vaccinations on time. Brandy had no more idea how to handle an invisible playmate than the girl at the after-school program. At least Amy had taken a child psychology class.
The printer continued to spit pages, the noise loud in the quiet office. Distracted by her thoughts, Brandy helped herself to a French fry. “We’re buddies, punkin. Powerpuff Girls. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
“I know. This isn’t a real secret.” Chloe fingered the plastic toy. Made Barbie do a dance. “More like…private.”
“I understand. What do you and Celestian talk about?”
Chloe took a bite of her baby burger, chewed and dutifully swallowed before speaking. “Stuff.” She picked up another French fry, dunked it in ketchup and extended the dripping offering.
Chloe laughed when Brandy snapped up the fry with a wolfish growl. Maybe Chloe wasn’t any more upset about the move than she had a right to be. Children were resilient. Brandy had not studied child psychology, but she knew that much. It wasn’t unusual for a bright child to have an imaginary playmate. And parents often worried about things long after children had forgotten them.
If Chloe had invented Celestian because her mother was preoccupied with work, well, she’d fix that. She’d spend more time with her. Quality time. Do everything she could to make her daughter feel safe and loved. It was probably no coincidence that the playmate was male and named after Joe’s dog. Maybe Chloe missed her father more than Brandy realized.
After nearly three years of benign neglect and indifference, Joe Mitchum had finally taken his parental responsibilities seriously. A near-death experience with a bolt of lightning had jump-started his daddy engine, and he and Chloe had finally forged a good relationship. Unfortunately Chloe saw her father less since the move to Odessa. Creating an imaginary Celestian was probably her way of bringing a little bit of her old home to her new one.
She understood the feeling. Something was missing from her own life as well. A quiet gentle man who shared her values. A true partner to love her and Chloe and put their interests first.
Now where had that thought come from? She could make a life for her and her daughter on her own, thank you. She didn’t need a man. If the right one came along, so be it. If not, well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
“What stuff do you and Celestian talk about?” Brandy turned her wandering attention back to Chloe.
“Getting along stuff. Being happy stuff. But mostly trick stuff.”
“Tricks? What kind of tricks?” Chloe wasn’t the type of child to test boundaries with misbehavior and blame it on the imaginary friend.
“You’ll see.” Chloe sipped her milk. She cocked her head to one side again as though tuned in to a voice Brandy couldn’t hear. After a moment, she said, “Can we not talk about Celestian anymore?”
“Okay. But you’ll let me know if you have a problem, won’t you?”
Chloe’s sunny face lit up with a wide grin. “I don’t have problems, Mommy. I’m only five, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” The powerful scent of cinnamon permeated the room, and an unsettling sense of expectancy set Brandy’s nerves on edge. Maybe it was the strange encounter with Stetson on the road today that had her twitching. She’d never been into new age ideas or dream analysis or anything that wasn’t totally down to earth. So why couldn’t she shake the feeling that something life-altering was about to happen? “Honey, is Celestian here now?”
After a long pause, Chloe nodded.
“Where?” Brandy’s gaze darted around the room. The suite of offices was empty. The rest of the staff had gone home, and the cleaning people had not yet arrived. Outside on the street, traffic had thinned out. Night had settled over Texas like a dark, smothering blanket.
Chloe slowly lifted her hand and pointed. “Right over there.”
Of course, no one was perched atop the file cabinet, but Brandy looked anyway. The invisible playmate was a figment of her daughter’s overactive imagination. Still, gooseflesh rose on her arms at the thought of another presence in the room. She squinted, playing