The Daughter They Abandoned Is The Doctor They Can’t Reach Chapter 04
It was just past noon when the train pulled into Durham.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder, walked out of the station, and followed the directions from the email to catch the campus shuttle. Outside the window, streets gradually gave way to deep stretches of green, and in the distance, a bell tower rose above the treetops.
Duke was bigger than it looked in the photos.
Gray stone walls, pointed arch windows, and ivy-covered Gothic buildings stretched along the road. Then you’d turn a corner and see an entire glass-walled lab building. Students in white coats worked with instruments behind the glass, while on the lawn nearby, someone sat under a tree with a book.
Old and new stood side by side, neither one crowding out the other.
I got off in front of the student center. I had just taken out my phone when an upperclassman in a blue volunteer T-shirt walked over.
“Summer merit program?”
I nodded.
“Check-in is on the second floor. Go in, turn right, take the elevator up, and follow the blue signs. You can leave your bag at the service desk first.”
He explained it clearly, even pointing out the entrance for me.
“If you can’t find the dorm afterward, come back and ask. Volunteers will be here all day.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Welcome to Duke.”
He didn’t ask where my parents were. He didn’t look at me strangely for showing up alone.
A whiteboard was set up outside the registration office.
It read: *Welcome, 40 Merit Scholarship Finalists.*
I signed in, got my packet, and stepped aside. Inside were a student ID card, a dorm key card, a campus map, and a two-week schedule.
My photo was printed on the left side of the ID.
On the right was only my name.
Nora Hale.
Not someone’s daughter. Not someone’s sister. Not the child who never needed worrying over.
When it was my turn, the program coordinator behind the table took my materials and found my name on her list.
“Ah, Nora Hale.”
She looked up and smiled.
“Your paper on computational neuroscience made a strong impression on our review committee.”
My hand tightened around the packet.
Over the past year, I’d heard plenty of praise for being sensible, independent, easy.
This was the first time anyone had named the actual work I had done.
“Thank you.”
“The modeling section was very mature.” She opened my file. “Which teacher supervised the project?”
“I didn’t have one.”
Her hand paused.
“You didn’t?”
“I used open-source courses, academic databases, and online coding platforms. My school library had database access, and I wrote the code on public library computers.”
The coordinator looked at me again.
Longer, this time.
She didn’t pity me. She didn’t ask about my family. She just picked up a yellow highlighter and marked the first page of my file.
“There’s a lab introduction session tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Don’t miss the computational cognition group.”
I wrote the time on my schedule.
“I’ll be there.”
The dorm was on the east side of campus.
The double room was nearly twice the size of my old bedroom. Two beds stood against opposite walls with a broad space between them. Each of us had a separate desk, bookshelf, and walk-in closet. The air conditioner hummed softly, blowing cool air.
Outside the window was a green courtyard shaded by trees.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the stone path below. A few other students rolled suitcases past, and one of them looked up and waved at my window.
My roommate hadn’t arrived yet.
I stood between the two empty beds and chose the one by the window.
No one had picked the better-lit side for Tessa first, then told me the other side was basically the same.
No one said I was adaptable enough to live anywhere.
I just liked the window, so I took it.
I hung my clothes in the closet and locked my documents in the desk drawer. My student ID went in the corner of the desk, the schedule went up on the wall, and my charger went into the outlet.
The backpack was empty in no time.
Everything I owned took up only a small part of the closet, but that small part didn’t have to make room for anyone else.
When I finished unpacking, I sat on the edge of the bed and turned on my new phone.
No missed calls.
No messages.
Only the school, the bank, Ms. Alvarez, and my bookstore manager had this number. I’d dropped my old phone into an electronics recycling bin at the station before boarding the train, leaving that number, and that life, behind in Pittsburgh.
At that moment, my parents were probably helping Tessa make her bed.
My mother would be hanging her clothes by color. My father would be checking the window locks and the AC. Tessa was probably filming her orientation, waiting to bring the footage back for me to edit into a moving family video.
They wouldn’t start looking for me right away.
Not tonight.
Probably not tomorrow, either.
I poured myself a glass of water and opened the curtains. Afternoon light spilled across the desk and bed.
Maybe they wouldn’t remember there had been a fourth person in that house until there was no one left to wash the dishes, or until the lawn needed mowing.