“No, baby, let me finish.” Her voice broke, quiet but steady. “I thought I was protecting you and your brothers by hiding it. I thought if you didn’t see it, it couldn’t touch you. But I see now that you saw it anyway, and the son of a bitch damn sure made you feel it.”
She finally looked at me, her eyes full of tears and guilt. “I am so sorry, Calla. I should have left. I should have shown you what it looked like to walk away. For years, I was quiet because what could I say as a woman who failed to protect her kids from the one person who was supposed to love them the most?”
The air in the room felt thick, heavy with everything she had carried alone.
I reached for her hand, my own shaking. “You did what you had to do to survive,” I said. “You don’t have to keep apologizing for surviving. Our bodies and minds are not wired to handle abuse and harm gracefully; it’s trauma, and you go into survival mode once you realize you are living through and with trauma.”
She covered her face with her free hand, the sound that left her somewhere between a sob and an exhale. “I thought I was being strong,” she said. “But hiding it only made the pain louder. It became part of the house, part of our skin.”
Dr. Morgan sat quietly, letting the silence stretch, giving the words room to breathe.
I wiped at my eyes, tears falling anyway. “He made us afraid to feel safe,” I said quietly. “And you paid the highest price for it.”
My mother nodded, her chin trembling. “I did, and I don’t want you to. You are not him, Calla, and you’re not me either. You’re free.”
Those words broke something open in me. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her. It had been decades since I hugged my mother, and she didn’t stiffen or hold back. She cried into my shoulder, and I let her.
For a long time, neither of us said a word. There was nothing left to explain.
When the tears finally slowed, Dr. Morgan passed us tissues and said softly, “That’s the work. Not reliving it, not justifying it, letting it go.”
I nodded, wiping my face. “It’s time,” I said quietly. “For both of us.”
As we sat and cried, my mother reached for my hand again, not because she needed to be held, but because she wanted to be closer to me.
In this moment, I didn’t feel like her protector; I felt like her daughter.
After the tears came silence, the kind that felt almost sacred. The air in Dr. Morgan’s office was heavy but calm, like we had opened a wound that finally had room to breathe.
Dr. Morgan gave us a few minutes before she spoke again. “You’ve both been carrying generations of pain,” she said gently. “And now that it’s out in the open, you get to decide what happens next. The patterns don’t have to repeat unless you let them.”
Her words sank deep, and before I could stop myself, something else spilled out. “That’s what scares me,” I admitted quietly.
My mother turned toward me, wiping her face. “What do you mean, baby?”
I took a breath, staring at my hands. “I’m in love with James and Amiyah. It’s real, it’s deep, and it’s healthy, but sometimes I still feel this panic in my chest. This voice that says I’m too much, that I’ll ruin it, that I’ll become him. That maybe I don’t know how to love without control.”
My mother’s expression softened with recognition. “That voice is fear,” she said quietly. “It’s not truth.”
Dr. Morgan nodded. “Fear often comes from the parts of us that still live in survival mode. You grew up watching control being used as a weapon. But you’ve turned it into structure, care, and leadership. Youjust have to learn when to set it down.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I want to build something beautiful with them, but what if I hurt them the way he hurt us? What if I become cold, or distant, or use love like leverage without even realizing it?”
Dr. Morgan leaned forward slightly. “Calla, awareness is what separates you from him. Abusers don’t question their behavior. They justify it. You are doing the work he never had the courage to do.”
My mother reached for my hand again. “You have his strength, but not his cruelty. You don’t destroy people, you build them. I’ve watched you do it your whole life. You love hard, but you don’t harm, that’s the difference.”
Tears burned my eyes again. “I just want to do right by them,” I whispered. “By James, by Amiyah. They make me feel seen in ways I didn’t know I needed. I’m ready to admit I want a family of my own, but not in the traditional sense. I want to create something that feels like peace.”
Dr. Morgan smiled softly. “Then that’s what you focus on. Not recreating someone else’s version of family, but building one that aligns with your truth. You’ve already broken the cycle by naming it.” My mother squeezed my hand tighter. “You don’t have to be perfect to be loved, Calla. You just have to be honest. They already know your strength, but letting them see your tenderness will keep you grounded.”
I nodded, my throat thick. “It’s hard to believe I deserve something that good.”
“You do,” Dr. Morgan said firmly. “You all do. You’ve lived your whole life trying to prove your worth to someone who never had plans to see it. Now you get to permit yourself to be happy.”
The room went quiet again, but this time it felt lighter. The pain was still there, but so was the possibility. My mother leaned her head against my shoulder and whispered, “You’re nothing like him, Calla. You’re the woman I prayed you’d become.”
I closed my eyes and let myself feel that. I honestly believed my mother’s words and felt the love and sincerity in how she spoke them. It was as if she was breathing the life into me that Sr. had tried for so many years to take away.
