excerpt
Chapter Three
The ambience of the nurses’ residence at the Holy Cross Hospital
in Calgary did not fill Tyne with enthusiasm on the day of her return.
The air that met her as she opened the front door felt hot and stuffy,
and more depressing than the atmosphere of the bus on the three
hour ride from Emblem. She responded to the house mother’s greeting,
signed the ‘In’ register, then carried her bags down the corridor
to her first-floor room.
The tins of cookies and fruit cake, which her mother had packed
that morning, weighed her down more than her suitcase of clothes
and personal items that she carried in her other hand. But the enjoyment
the goodies would afford was worth the effort, not only to her
but to her roommates as well. They would provide a welcome supplement
to the hospital food which was seldom appetizing.
Tyne opened the door to the room she shared with two of her
classmates. The smell of paint, although more than three months
old, assailed her nostrils as it always did when she had been away for
any length of time. But it was a clean, homey smell and Tyne recalled
with amusement their efforts to decorate the unpainted walls, and to
hang curtains at the bare windows. After two years in the stark dormitory,
Maureen had declared she could not spend another twelve
months living like a nun. Tyne and their other roomie, Carol Ann,
had readily agreed. Afterwards, they wondered why they had waited
so long.
Tyne dropped her suitcase on the bed nearest to the door, and
deposited the box of her mother’s baked goods on the desk across
the room. Only then did she catch sight of the note…
Manolis Aligizakis 