“And your degree?” Brenda asked.
“I am a safe bet,” I said. “They do not need to worry about my returns.”
“Every student needs a family at graduation, Clara,” she said. “It is a long ceremony to sit through alone.”
“I will be on the stage,” I said. “I will be busy.”
I reached into my coat pocket and felt the cold plastic of my stethoscope. The rubber tubing was cracked near the bell, held together with a thin strip of black electrical tape. It was a used model I had bought from an older resident three years ago, but it still worked.
She shook her head, but she didn’t argue. She knew as well as I did that the administration didn’t issue degree certificates to students with outstanding balances.
The dry heat of the concrete plaza outside the stadium felt heavy through the thin fabric of my gray trousers. It was eleven in the morning on May twenty-four, and the sky was a flat, pale blue.
