"I will remember you,
will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by-
weep not for the memories"
-Sarah McLachlan

Lizzie flipped on the radio and sang along absently as she drove down the road. She was meeting Mickey and his daughter Natalie at the old park they used to play in when they were kids for lunch. As she drove past her mother's house she rolled her eyes at the new "keep off the grass" sign staked up near the driveway. Her mother didn't have enough visitors to worry about the grass getting messed up. She pulled into the parking lot of the park, got out of the car, and sat down on the top of the picnic table to wait for Mickey and Natalie.

All around her was the world of her childhood. There were so many memories here in this park. More of her and Fred than of her and Mickey, though. To her right was a small wooded area where a dozen or more pine trees stood together. She could still see a slight indentation in the ground in the midst of them. She grinned, remembering exactly why it looked like that there. She and Fred had decided there were far too many yappy dogs in the park so they - well mostly Fred - had dug an enormous hole which they had covered with broken off pine branches. They hadn't caught a dog, but one of the local bullies had fallen in and been trapped for a few hours before anyone came along to pull him out. She and Fred had deemed it a hilarious success on those grounds and the park department had come by and filled it in the next day.

Fred...she couldn't believe he was with Natalie! It was comforting in a way to have him so close - even if she couldn't see him anymore. Even more comforting was the knowledge that on some level at least, he was real. She couldn't count the times since freeing him from his jack-in-the-box prison that she'd thought maybe she had just cracked. That the stress of her mom and her philandering husband had just finally gotten the best of her and she had gone bonkers and dredged up some half-forgotten memory of a childhood imaginary friend who often seemed a little too real to be imaginary.

"Hey, stranger!" shouted Mickey. Lizzie looked up to see him and his daughter walking up the sidewalk from their house. Lizzie waved and hopped down off of the table to meet them.

As Lizzie and Mickey ate their lunch and chatted, Fred and Natalie played nearby. Fred looked over at Lizzie, remembering similar times at this park so very long ago. Natalie noticed Fred watching Lizzie and asked him if he knew her.

"Snot-face?" said Fred looking back at Natalie. "I used to."

Natalie jumped up and grabbed Fred's hand and started pulling him towards the couple. "Hey, let's go see if she wants to play with us!"

Fred laughed and pulled her back, "Lizzie's turned into a yucky, smelly, big girl. That's what happens when you grow up! Come on, Snaggle-tooth, let's roll rocks down the slide to scare the birds and see if they poop on people's heads!"

"Okay Fred!" Natalie ran towards the slide.

Fred glanced back at Lizzie with a last wistful smile and then ran to catch up with Natalie.

They had finished lunch and packed up to leave when Natalie came over to Lizzie.

"Fred says that you turn into a yucky, smelly girl when you grow up. Is that true? Is that why you can't play with me and Fred?" she asked.

Lizzie laughed, "You can tell Fred that I'm still not half as smelly as he is since he's a boy."

Natalie giggled and turned to follow her dad back down the sidewalk towards their house.

Lizzie got into her car and drove out of the park. She was about to turn towards home when she remembered she had promised her mom to stop by today. Sighing, she mentally prepared her 'prim and proper' persona that her mother would expect. She wondered what her life would have been like if she'd grown up with the storybook family as many of her friends had. She supposed there would be less-