No social media post from Gwendalin showcasing her perfect life while subtly mocking my existence. I had blocked them all, and the relief was physical, like setting down a weight I carried so long I’d forgotten it was there. My co-workers became my chosen family. There was Jerome, a 50-year-old former Marine who worked the pediatric ward and cried every time a kid went home healthy.
Destiny ran the night shift with an iron fist and a heart of gold, covering for me when I was sick and sharing leftovers from her grandmother’s Sunday dinners. Patricia, who would later witness my family’s hospital room confession, started inviting me to her book club, where we drank wine and pretended to discuss literature while actually gossiping about hospital drama.
I dated occasionally, though nothing serious. A physical therapist named Derek took me to dinner three times before I realized he reminded me too much of my father. A fellow nurse named Christina and I shared a brief confusing connection before she transferred to a hospital in Portland. I wasn’t ready for intimacy. Not really.
The walls I built around my heart were too high, too thick, constructed from years of learning that love always came with conditions. My therapist, Dr. Angela Morrison, helped me understand why. We met every Tuesday evening in her office decorated with plants and soft lighting and she asked questions that cut straight to the bone.
Why did I flinch when people raised their voices? Why did I apologize constantly even when I done nothing wrong? Why did I struggle to accept compliments? Always waiting for the insult that would follow. The answers were always the same. Gwendalyn Harriet Donald the holy trinity of my trauma. Dr. Morrison taught me about complex PTSD, about the way prolonged childhood abuse rewires the brain.
She explained that my hypervigilance wasn’t weakness, it was survival. That my difficulty trusting people made perfect sense given that the first people I ever trusted had betrayed me completely. She gave me tools, coping mechanisms, ways to talk myself down when the panic rose. I was getting better, slowly, painfully, but genuinely better.
Then Harriet called. She had stage 2 breast cancer. She said the prognosis was good with treatment, but she needed support. She needed her family together. She needed me to come home. I should have hung up. Every therapist I’d ever seen would have told me to hang up. But there’s something about the word cancer that makes you forget every wound, every scar, every nightmare.
I heard my mother crying on the phone and suddenly I was 6 years old again. Desperate for her approval, willing to do anything to make her love me. I took a leave of absence from work. So ble my apartment, packed my car, and drove 400 m back to the house where I’d learned that love could be conditional, that protection could be selective, that some children were simply worth less than others.
Gwendalyn met me at the door with a smile so sweet it should have come with a warning label. She’d put on weight since I’d last seen her and her husband Travis lingered behind her looking uncomfortable in the way people look when they know something bad is about to happen. Their twins 8-year-old Helens named Brandon and Britney immediately began demanding to know what presents I brought them.
I’d forgotten how exhausting my family could be within minutes of arrival. The first week passed in a blur of doctors appointments and hospital waiting rooms. Harriet’s treatment was progressing well, but she milked every moment for maximum sympathy. Donald waited on her hand and foot while Gwendalin criticized my nursing skills and Travis drank beer on the porch avoiding everyone.
