Her Name in the Sky

by Kelly Quindlen

“You’re too good,” Hannah says after they take the girl home. “I’m not,” Baker promises. “You would have done the same.” “I don’t know that I would have,” Hannah says honestly. “But I do,” Baker says with her deep, dark eyes. Hannah knows that Baker does not see in herself the same miracle of goodness Hannah sees in her. She knows that Baker struggles to measure up to her brother, that she desperately craves her mother’s approval, that she worries constantly about whether or not she’s a fair team captain or an effective student council president. “You’re amazing,” Hannah wants to tell her. “You’re the best thing that’s ever been.” But Hannah knows that Baker, when she’s not smiling at parties and laughing with their friends in the parking lot, carries these secret worries in her heart, worries that Hannah wishes she knew the full extent of, worries that Hannah sees in Baker’s eyes when Baker thinks no one is looking. “You’re so much better than you even know,” Hannah says one afternoon when they’re sitting in Baker’s car, talking through Baker’s latest argument with her mom. “You’re just—you’re so—I wish you could believe me—” “What’s funny,” Baker says, blinking down at their sun-spoiled sweet teas in the console, “is that, when I tell you these same things about yourself, I wish you could believe me, too.”