Over Her Head by Shelley Bates

of the day, I missed her.”
    “Wow.”
    “It was like there was this big space beside me all the time where she used to be. And even after she’d been gone a long time,
     the space didn’t go away. It just traveled around with me, reminding me of her.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I went to church, went to school, hung out with the cousins and my youth group. That space beside me began to shrink after
     a while, until finally it was small enough for me to put it in my heart and tuck it away for good.”
    “You still miss her?”
    Laurie nodded. “As you guys would say, we were tight.”
    Anna’s eyes clouded. “But I wasn’t tight with Randi. I hardly knew who she was.”
    “I know. But her empty space will still be felt at school, won’t it? Traveling around from class to class?”
    “But nobody’s going to put her in their heart. She didn’t have any friends.”
    “It would be pretty sad to have only one person in the world—like her mom—left to remember her, wouldn’t it? It would be nice
     if there was a little place in your heart for her, too.”
    “Maybe,” Anna conceded and picked up the pen.
    “So if you can do that, maybe you can say sorry to your brother. Because I know he has a big place in your heart, no matter
     how much you guys complain and argue with each other.”
    Anna glanced over her shoulder. “You’re grasping now, Mom.”
    Laurie leaned over and kissed her. “You’d miss him if he was gone.”
    “Yeah, like zits.”
    If her sense of humor was reestablishing itself, maybe it was time to go a little deeper. “Getting back to what I said about
     Sharon, you see that it’s okay to grieve, and okay to move on as well, don’t you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Sometimes our emotions can scare us, maybe make us feel as if we can’t handle them. Then we lie awake at night thinking all
     kinds of things that maybe aren’t even real. Are you struggling with that?”
    “No.” Anna turned a page and began a fresh drawing. “I was up late studying, that’s all. Math is really hard this year.”
    “So things at school are all right, then. You’ve got lots of friends, right?” The pen faltered for a split second, and Anna
     turned the page again and started over. “Anna? Is everything okay with you and your girlfriends?”
    “Sure.”
    “Then how come you just messed up that drawing?”
    With a sigh, Anna put the pen down and rolled over. “Because I can’t concentrate with you hovering over me.”
    “We were having a talk.”
    “You were talking, you mean. You’re always talking. You hardly ever give me a chance to say anything.”
    Laurie sat back and stared at her. What had she just spent the last ten minutes doing, if it wasn’t encouraging her to talk?
     “I’m giving you the chance now, sweetie. I honestly want to know how it’s going at school. About your friends. How you’re
     feeling about Randi. All of it.”
    “Why? Why now, all of a sudden?”
    “Because you’re not sleeping, that’s why, and you whacked your brother with a pillow, and Nick was here on official business.
     These things are not normal. That’s why I’m concerned.”
    Anna’s eyes closed briefly, as if she were marshaling her resources. When she opened them again, Laurie realized her little
     girl wasn’t so little anymore. There was a reticence, an adult sense of reserve seeping into her gaze that Laurie hadn’t seen
     before. The gaze of a young woman who wasn’t going to spill everything to her mother the way a child would, with complete
     confidence that Mommy would know how to solve any problem she brought to her.
    “Everything’s fine at school, Mom. Math is kind of a pain, but I’ll sweat it out. My friends are cool. You know them. Kelci,
     Michelle, Jaimi.”
    “Are they the popular girls?”
    Anna pulled her chin in and frowned. “Popular? What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Well, you know.” Laurie shrugged. “We all want to have lots of friends.”
    “Mom,”