“Harbor traded his education for yours.”

“Wh—” I must have misheard. “What did you say?”

She repeats herself, but I still can’t wrap my head around what she means. My head spins through hundreds of scenarios, but I still can’t make sense of it. How would his education have been traded for mine?

What did he do? I need to sit, but I lie down on the bed, setting the phone next to my ear. My head hurts, but my heart is aching.

“Lark, are you still there?”

I turn just enough to say, “Kind of,” in the direction of the phone.

“I know, it’s a lot.”

“It is a lot.” Pulling the phone closer, I turn on the speaker. “I don’t understand how he sacrificed himself for me. Tell me again, slower this time.”

“Harbor . . . talked my parents . . . into paying,” she says, overenunciating every word like we don’t speak the same language. “For your medical school . . . instead of his.”

I sit up, take it off speaker, and hold the phone to my ear again. “I hear what you’re saying, but that’s just not true, Marina. Your parents didn’t pay for my education. I got a full scholarship from Yale for medical school. I still have the letter.”

“I don’t know the details, Lark. I just know that’s what went down. I remember them having a big fight months before he left. I found out later that’s what caused it.”

I just can’t make sense of this, and the shuffling on the other end of the line keeps distracting me. She says, “I need to run, but it’s good to hear from you.”

“You, too. Let’s talk soon. I want to hear about everything going on in your life.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

When we hang up, I pace the floor a few rounds because I can’t stop thinking about what she said. I shouldn’t give it a second thought, but it makes no sense. Why would she be under that impression? Weaving around the bed, I kneel in front of the two-drawer filing cabinet I use as a nightstand.

Flipping through the bottom drawer, I find the Yale file and the letter tucked inside. When I read it, though, nothing jumps out as odd. It’s even on official letterhead with a seal from the financial department.

I set it down on my small desk by the window and take my dress off, not wanting to wrinkle it. I hang it back up and slip on my Yale School of Medicine sweatshirt, sit down at the desk, and pull up the department’s webpage. Locating the number, I call and ask to whom I speak with regarding the scholarship. The lady on the other end transfers my call to a man who sounds ready to call it a day, telling me he’ll look into it and send me an email in response.

Why am I nervous?

I’m a doctor. It doesn’t matter now. What will they do, tell me they made a mistake and force me to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars back? I exhale, thinking it’s wise not to get worked up over imaginary scenarios. I might not have been nervous before, but I am now.