Throughout the novel, Jake interacts with an imaginary friend, a young girl about his age in a blue dress. In a few instances, he also interacts with a character who he calls “the boy in the floor” (100). Jake’s imaginary friends are a misdirection—it’s implied that a supernatural element may be at work in the story, though eventually Jake’s interactions are explained as an outgrowth of his knowledge about his mother’s childhood and his interactions with Francis Carter. In each case, the imaginary friends represent Jake’s attempts to cope with trauma and the adult world, as he often relegates the things he fears to conversations with his imagined companions.

Toward the story’s end, another imaginary friend enters: Mister Night, the one that Tom had as a child, who the narrative reveals represents his father’s late-night visits to see his son. In the novel’s closing pages, Jake talks to an imaginary figure that represents Pete. Each of these imagined figures represents loss and the struggle with grief; they’re “ghosts” only in that they stand in for people that the characters have lost.