Twelve Chairs and a Desk

The doorway

Sierra was standing in the doorway. She had on that gray hoodie, and her bun was coming loose.

Her face was pink all the way down her neck. One hand was pulled up into her hoodie sleeve, and she was trying hard to smile.

The laughing stopped. Not all at once. It sort of ran out, the way water runs out of a sink, one woman at a time, until it was just the woodstove ticking in the next room and twelve women looking at one girl.

I thought she was going to tell us all to leave. I was ready for it. I had my words lined up.

I was going to be calm. I was going to be kind. I was going to win.

“I’m sorry,” Sierra said. Her voice was very small. “I just need to get my laptop. I have something due at midnight and I can’t do it on my phone. I’ll be fast. I’m sorry.”

She came into the room, sideways, keeping close to the wall. She went to the desk in the corner and started stacking up her things with shaking hands. The books. The index cards. The laptop and the charger.

That was when Patti set down her fork. Patti was a nurse at Marion General for thirty-one years.

For the last twelve of them she taught the student nurses on their clinical rotations. She has seen everything a person can see.

She turned all the way around in her chair and looked at the books in Sierra’s arms.

Then she asked her the one question nobody in my family had thought to ask in eight months.

“Honey,” Patti said. “Are you in the practical nursing program over at the career center?”