When the nurses finally told us we could go home, I thought I’d feel relief.
Instead, I felt nothing but empty.
After months living in hospital rooms—whispering prayers through clenched teeth, braiding my daughter Callie’s hair as it thinned from treatment—I stood at the exit doors with two duffel bags and no clue where we were going.
Callie, ever the light, waved to the nurses with her stuffed bunny under one arm, her spirit still somehow shining. But the truth? We had no home to return to.
The apartment was gone. My job—lost after too many missed shifts and silent apologies. And Callie’s father? He vanished the moment life got hard.
I smiled for her sake. I always did.
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