IHAVE A SECRET to share. I was not always an only child. Once upon a time, I had a Baby Brother. I’m pretty sure I hated him.

I’m not talking about an imaginary friend. I’ve had those. They are way, way better.

No, Baby Brother was a bird. Read that again: a bird. He was a red-bellied woodpecker who was raised by his mother in our Tennessee backyard, when I was about 7 years old. He was a shameless flirt, and my mother adored him. She adored him so much, she named him Baby Brother.

She built a special woodpecker feeder, and stocked it with homemade food from her own recipe. When the little darling chased away his mother and sister, the better to keep all the food my mother served, he wasn’t satisfied. He still had competition, and he knew it.

Every afternoon, Baby Brother waited in the woods, watching for my school bus to stop at the bottom of our hill. From the bus stop, I had a 10-minute walk up a steep, windy road to get to our front door. All I wanted when I walked into my kitchen was my very own after-school snack. Every afternoon, Baby Brother flew to the back feeder just as I turned the knob of the door, and started calling out for more food. I’m quite sure, from the snippy tone of my writing, you’ve already figured out who got fed first.

This year, my mother moved in with me. I’d been planning to build one of her special woodpecker feeders with my son, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet, so I suggested that they do it together. We heard woodpeckers every morning last spring, and spot them constantly–their urgent, swooping flight patterns always give them away. I was pretty sure we’d have some takers for my mom’s special blend.

Sure enough, within a week, a young red-bellied woodpecker, a male, made an appearance. I called to my mom to come downstairs to see him. “He looks just like Baby Brother,” I said to her. “He must be his seventh cousin.”

She turned to me, genuinely surprised. “I can’t believe you remember him.” She laughed. “You know, he used to try to beat you home every day after school so I’d feed him first.”

Oddly enough, I remember.

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JUST THE OTHER morning, sipping my green tea and surfing The Sister Project, I was transported in a flash to a backyard I haven’t visited in nearly 40 years. It’s all Marion’s fault.

Like Marion (maybe) and her daughter (for sure), I had an imaginary friend as a child. Her name was Mary, and I particularly liked to play with her in my backyard. She liked to perch with me on the rocks overlooking my mother’s fish pond. We may have talked to the goldfish, but I’m not sure–I was only 3.

Sometimes, I think, she took me to her backyard, too, where she had a swing set, something I lacked, and coveted. I talked to her, a lot, out loud, and sometimes in front of my parents, who tried hard to hear her side of the conversation. I think, if I’m not mistaken, Mary also had a pet bear, but I don’t believe that I ever met him.

As an only child, much younger than any of the neighbor kids, I needed Mary. She kept me company, answered my questions, and gave me a scapegoat for misdeeds. (Though I’m pretty sure the time I Crayola-ed my parents’ bedroom walls floor to 3 feet high as punishment for my mother taking an escape-the-toddler daytime bath, I didn’t even bother trying to foist the blame on Mary.)

When we left Cincinnati, my second of several childhood homes, for Chattanooga, Mary decided not to come with us. To this day, I don’t know why, though I think I do remember discussing her decision with my (very understanding) mother. Not so long after we arrived in Tennessee, I managed to replace my pretend friend Mary with a real friend Mary. Real Mary didn’t have a bear, but she did have a beagle named Happy and two real sisters of her own. Those brilliant, beautiful girls became the standard against which all future sister-groups would be judged, and though Mary and I lost touch for many years (we moved again when I was 10, leaving Tennessee for Chicago) we recently reconnected thanks to the miracle of Facebook, and I’ve been able to ask her all the questions I could think of about life as the middle of three incredible sisters.

My kids have yet to reveal any imaginary friends to me, though my daughter does often talk to her feet (the left one is Finn, the right Kiki) and play with them as though they are babies.

I suppose I could have done that with Imaginary Mary. But probably not with the bear…

Do you or someone you know need an imaginary friend? You could make your own–the Imaginary Friend doll above is available online. (Her name is Mona.)

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