My daughter Sophie is six years old. She's been talking about her imaginary friend since she was four.
Most parents, I know, think imaginary friends are sweet. Creative. A sign of intelligence, supposedly. I thought so too, at first.
Her imaginary friend's name is Sophie.
Not a coincidence, Sophie explained to me when I asked about it. They had the same name because they looked the same. Because her imaginary friend looked exactly like her.
I thought this was a little strange but not alarming. Kids do strange things. I let it go.
The first thing that troubled me was a Saturday in March, about eight months ago. Sophie and I were in the kitchen. She was drawing at the table and I was making lunch, and she said, very casually, "Sophie knows about the box in the basement."
I turned around. "What?"
"The brown box. In the back. She says that's where Grandma's things are."
I hadn't told Sophie about the box. I hadn't told her that my mother had died four months prior, or that I had boxed her belongings and put them in the basement because I couldn't deal with them yet. Sophie had been told her grandmother moved away. She was four when she last saw her.
I asked how she knew about the box.
"Sophie told me. She goes everywhere in the house. She sees everything."
I said nothing. I made lunch. I spent a long time not thinking about it.
The second thing was worse. In June, Sophie came and found me in my office and asked me to sit down. She had the manner of a child conveying a serious message she'd been asked to memorize.
"Sophie says to tell you she was here before me," she said. "She says that's why she looks like me. She practiced. She wants you to know she got it right this time."
I asked Sophie what she meant.
Sophie thought about it. "I don't know," she said. "That's just what she said."
I started watching my daughter more closely after that. Not fearfully — I want to be precise about this — just watching. Looking at her and looking for anything that seemed like it wasn't her.
I found it on a Tuesday morning. Sophie was in the backyard playing, and I watched from the window, and for about thirty seconds I watched her play in a way that was entirely normal and then something shifted. It's hard to describe. Not her face. Not her movements. Something behind both of those things. A quality.
She turned and looked at me in the window.
Sophie smiles with her whole face. Always has. Eyes crinkle, nose wrinkles, full expression. She smiled at me from the backyard.
It did not use her whole face.
It was gone in a moment. Just Sophie again, waving at me from the yard.
But she has two smiles now. And sometimes, when the wrong one comes out, she catches herself. She replaces it. She practices.
She's getting better at it.
I don't know what to do with that. I don't know who I'm supposed to call.
I still tuck Sophie in at night. I still kiss her forehead. She still says she loves me.
Both of them do, now.