text: When I was little, I always thought my friend Billy was a police officer on account of the blue uniform he wore. It wasn’t until the fourth grade when I first learned about the Civil War that I realized he was a Union soldier. By then, though, my family had moved, so I never saw him anymore. I met Billy when my family moved to the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia in the late ‘90s. I was six at the time, so when I first told my parents about my police officer friend Billy, they assumed he was my imaginary friend. I never needed to use my imagination to see him though; he would always be sitting, clear as day, under an old, gnarled oak tree in the woods behind my house. Billy wasn’t much of a talker-it took me a good three months to get him to tell me he was from Lowell, Massachusetts-but I didn’t care. As an only child, I was just glad to have someone to talk to. I’d climb that old oak tree and talk, while Billy just sat there, with a faraway look in his brown eyes. He once told me I reminded him of his kid brother. When I asked Billy what his brother’s name was, he wouldn’t respond. He just sat there, with that eternal dreamy expression on his face. After I saw a picture of a Union soldier in my fourth-grade history textbook, I told my parents that Billy hadn’t been a police officer after all-he was a Union soldier. They exchanged questioning glances, and my mother replied, “Is that so?” We had moved to northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., so I asked them if we could go visit the old house near Richmond. I wanted to talk to Billy again. My mother responded, “Sorry, sweetie, maybe another time. That’s a far drive, and Dad and I are really busy.” I didn’t visit the old house again until I was in my mid-twenties. It was a bit awkward knocking on the door and asking the current owner if I could have a look around. I explained that I had spent some of my childhood there and wanted to see the woods behind the house for old times’ sake. The owner agreed, if reluctantly, and I made my way around the house. The woods had changed a fair amount since I had left, but that old, gnarled oak was still there. I looked around, but there was no sign of Billy. I swear I could feel his presence, though, so I stood there for a good ten minutes, waiting. Nothing happened, so I made my way back to the house. I knocked on the door to let the owner know that I was leaving. When he opened the door, his daughter was standing next to him-she couldn’t have been older than six or seven. Before I could say anything, she asked, “Did you see Billy?” Her father looked at her with a frown and said, “Please, don’t mind her. She’s always talking about her imaginary friend Billy who sits under that old oak tree.” I smiled at the little girl and replied, “Not today.” Turning to her father, I said, “Thanks for letting me have a look around. I’m going to head out now.” As I turned to leave, I wasn’t quite sure how to feel. The six-year-old inside of me was happy to hear that Billy was still around. However, another side of me was saddened to think that he was still stuck here, after all these years, far away from home.