Raft of Stars by Andrew Graff (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

“You can wait in the lounge and can visit during breakfast. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

The nurse seemed to buckle a bit beneath Miranda’s gaze. Miranda played the part well of a woman scorned. But then again, she wasn’t playing it. Upstairs lay a man in a soft bed who had done something evil enough to make her boy shoot him, or at him, while Miranda’s son was sleeping somewhere in a forest filled with coyotes. If that wasn’t scorned, Tiffany didn’t know what was.

“Come, Tiffany. We’ll wait,” she said.

“Let me know if I can get anything for you,” said the nurse, and Miranda didn’t respond as she turned away toward the chairs lined up in the lobby.

The lobby smelled like sweat and lemon Pledge. On the wall next to the restroom doors hung a framed picture of a beaver, swimming into current with a stick in its mouth. There was another photo of a sailboat with a blue and orange sail tacking into the wind. In the corner of the lobby sat a popcorn machine with the lights turned off, and a small table with a trash bin and a coffeemaker. Tiffany sat and watched Miranda pace the lobby. Miranda looked at the nurse, then at the clock on the wall, then at the nurse again. She folded her hands under her arms and turned toward the coffee pot. She spoke to herself in a whisper as she walked. But she did more than just speak. She was having a conversation. Agreeing. Arguing. Stating her case.

Could they not leave now? thought Tiffany. Was the fact that the nurse wouldn’t let anyone up to see him not proof enough that the man was indeed alive? Tiffany was beginning to fear Miranda’s lead in this. Tiffany hardly knew this woman. She hardly knew the family. What was she doing here in a hospital impersonating the daughter of a gunshot man she had never even met? She’d heard of him, of course. Breadwin was a name everyone knew in Claypot. It was synonymous with cheap auto work and the worst kind of man. She’d once seen Jack passed out in a lawn chair next to his shop, the sun burning his face, his work boots unlaced. He no doubt got what he deserved when that boy shot him, but this hospital business was going too far. Tiffany pulled her legs up under herself. And the pitiful constable, too, waddling out onto the porch the way he did, yelling for them to come back, spilling coffee on himself. She ran from a deputy. She ran from the law. And now she was here getting into who knows what kind of trouble. She thought of Cal then, his handsome face and his stupid dog. She had tried to do the right thing by Cal, by this woman, but now felt confused and fearful and very tired. Like she did with most things in life, she’d simply decided to go along with it all. When a door shut, she stayed put. When it opened, she walked through. She hated that about herself, and wished she could muster more direction, more backbone. She remembered walking into the bright kitchen when she was a little girl, rubbing her eyes in the morning light and hoping someone would put breakfast in front of her. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t. She grew up knowing she wasn’t worth the effort, and the world wasn’t really worth hers. She thought about it specifically, in those very words.

Miranda stopped pacing in front of the coffee machine. With her arms folded and shoulders hunched like that, she didn’t look as strong and certain as she did behind the wheel of her dad’s truck. She looked wounded and afraid. Tiffany felt a pang of pity, and then guilt. She was here because of this woman’s need, those hunched-up shoulders, this woman with fire kilns for eyes who was missing her son. That was reason enough to come along.

Miranda reached out toward the box of coffee filters. She lifted one filter partway out, then another, and then she reached inside and grabbed the rest and dropped them into the trash. Tiffany felt awake again. This beautiful denim woman was very odd. Empty box in hand, Miranda strode over to the information desk. Tiffany stayed put.

“I’m sorry,” Miranda said, “for being rude earlier.”

“I understand,” said the nurse. “Family hardships are—”

“I haven’t slept in some time, and—”

“I understand.”

“I was wondering if you had more coffee filters hidden someplace? I can’t seem to find any. A cup of coffee would be a great comfort.”

“Certainly,” said the nurse. Tiffany heard the nurse’s soft shoes squeak away down the corridor.

Miranda spun on her heel, pressed the front of her dress flat. “Do not follow me, Tiffany. Go to the truck and start it. I will meet you there in five minutes.”

Tiffany swallowed and watched Miranda disappear through the double doors leading farther into the hospital. Without thinking, Tiffany was on her feet. She felt her heart in her neck as she sneaked toward the front desk. Each footstep seemed as if it might break glass, or make an alarm go off, even though she was tiptoeing through a lobby with no one in it.

“Miranda,” she hissed. The double doors rocked to a stop on their hinges. “Miranda!”

When she heard footsteps squeaking back from the opposite corridor, Tiffany froze in midstep. It was now or never. Bolt for the swinging doors and find a stairwell, bolt for the exit, or be caught standing like a cat burglar in the middle of the hospital lobby.

She decided to bolt for the exit. She crouched low. The nurse’s footsteps arrived in the lobby as her hand reached the door frame. Too late.

Tiffany stood up. “Hi!” she said.

The nurse gave a start to find Tiffany standing beside the information desk. She clutched a box of coffee filters to her chest, then looked around the room. “Where’s your mother?”

“Restroom!” yelled Tiffany, plastering what