Chapter 5: The Place That Was Gone

The nursing school couldn't restore the place Curtis had refused for me; that class had graduated.

I had brought the old offer letter from the luncheon table, where it lay beside Kendra's report.

The staff member across the table kept her hands folded beside it.

'The offer was for that incoming class, Maureen. We can't put you back into it now.'

I had come to ask if I could return to the place Curtis had taken from me.

'Then put his refusal in my record,' I said. 'And put down that he answered without my permission.'

The staff member glanced at Lowell.

He stayed beside the table, his reading glasses still in his breast pocket.

'You may record what she has told you,' he said. 'The school should also keep the dean's note.'

My fingers had gone numb around the silver pin in my purse.

I pulled it out, and it dropped onto the table.

The small metal nurse's cap struck the wood.

The staff member looked down at it.

I had carried it through every version of the life they said I had chosen.

'We can offer you an interview for the next class,' she said. 'It won't promise you admission.'

'It's still an interview.'

'Yes. It is.'

The next class could still be mine, but the place I once had was gone.

I picked up the pin and held it in my palm.

'Does the record say why the old offer closed?' I asked.

'It says you declined,' the staff member replied. 'That is why we need your account beside it.'

'I never declined.'

She looked at the letter again.

'Then we'll make that clear in the record.'

'Write that Curtis answered for me. Don't soften it to a misunderstanding.'

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