Sometimes, I would catch her peering through a crack in my bedroom door as I changed, watching me with those blue dagger eyes. “Do you think you need some new bras?” she might say later, “those no longer seem to fit.” A way of letting me know what she’d seen.  Locks were not allowed in our house, not even in the bathroom, and sometimes she would stand outside of the door while I bathed, chatting away like we were friends.  She’d rattle the doorknob, just to let me know she could come in if she wanted to.   Come here, I…

One morning, she told me the story of how her friend’s baby died in a car accident.  “They were stopped at a red light. Someone came up from behind and slammed into them. My friend thought immediately of her baby in the back seat, but when she turned around to reach for it, she saw the baby’s head pop off, its arms and legs break, its chest cave in.” All I could think about at school that day was the baby. Its head popping off. We were supposed to practice writing our letters, but every time I came to the…