I said, “remember Jean-Pierre?” Last night she’d had another of her bad dreams. I wanted to see if she’d remember the next morning. Sometimes she didn’t. When she woke, her brain was washed clean of any memory. “Sort of,” Joss said. “I loved him a lot.” When Joss was small, around four or five, she’d had an imaginary friend named Jean-Pierre. Nobody knew where she got the name. We don’t have any French ancestors. Jean-Pierre came everywhere with us—to the tree fort we built in the old apple tree in our back yard, to the bathroom where Joss had a terrible time making him brush his teeth, and even out to restaurants. My father took us out for spaghetti Sunday nights to the Arrow Restaurant in Westport. You could eat at the Arrow until you burst and it hardly cost anything. The Arrow was my father’s favorite restaurant. Not only was it cheap but you didn’t have to dress up. The first time we went, Joss told the waiter that Jean-Pierre needed a high chair. “He’s not as big as me,”
