Derick

Derick

Janice sat on the floor watching her three-year-old granddaughter playing with blocks. Having not been with a three-year-old since her daughter, was three, she just sat and watched, amazed.

“Are you building something?” she asked.

“It’s a house!” Anna said, excitedly.

“Is it for your friend?” Janice asked, holding up a plastic person about three inches tall.

“That’s not my friend,” Anna said, “That’s just a people.”

“Oh,” Janice said, she hadn’t actually been with any three-year-olds since her daughter Lily was three. Determined to make this work, she went on, “Well! It’s looking like it’s going to be a nice house, who is it for?”

“It’s for Derick.”

Janice hadn’t had time to meet any of Anna’s friends. She’d only moved close a few months ago when her house in Virginia sold. Every time she had seen Anna so far, Anna had jumped to a new age. Now that she finally lived close, she was determined to garner a relationship with her only grandchild.

“Is Derick a friend from daycare?”

“No,” Anna said, as if Janice was teasing her. “Derick lives here. Under my bed!”

Suddenly feeling totally out of control, Janice went into the kitchen to find out what Lily had to say. She told Lily the conversation asking her if she had heard it.

Lily looked a little bored. “She has an invisible friend named Derick. The pediatrician told me it was not unusual. I read it in a book too, we just go along with it, and she’ll outgrow it.”

Janice was not so sure. She didn’t want to scare her daughter, but she had had an invisible friend as a child too, someone her parents spent years trying to get rid of. She hadn’t seen him since she was five… and his name was Derick.