And I didn’t look back.
DAY MINUS 8
Chapter One
Jamie
Depression is more than just feeling blue.
- Feelings of sadness, guilt, helplessness, or hopelessness
- Changes to sleep patterns and/or eating habits
- Impacts to physical health, including joint pain and muscle ache
- Anger or irritability
* * *
Check. Check. Check. And double-check. My entire existence had been summed up in four bullet points. Although, depressed wasn’t exactly right. It was more like wallowing.
Deep, committed wallowing.
For two long days and two sleepless nights, Copper Ridge Regional Hospital had been my home.
Halfway through day three, I was desperate enough to dig through discarded medical pamphlets, hoping one might tell me why I felt like I was unraveling.
I folded the little booklet in half, then in half again, until it was small enough to disappear into my pocket. Like that would make anything better.
How could it? My real problem didn’t have a neat and tidy diagnosis.
My father was dying, and it was slow, painful, and ugly. The worst part—the part I didn’t want to admit out loud—was that the strongest thing I felt wasn’t sadness. It was resentment. Sharp and bitter, it curled in my gut every time I thought about what I’d left behind in Toronto.
Who I’d left behind.
I’d built a life there from nothing. Scraped and fought and planned until every piece fit just right. And now I was back here, in the place I’d promised never to return, disconnected from the things that mattered most. All while I sat at the bedside of a man who hadn’t wanted me for years.
Guilt followed close behind the resentment, heavy and obligatory. What kind of daughter resents her dying father? What kind of person feels trapped by someone else’s death?
Me, apparently.
My chest ached again, the now-familiar tightness pulling at my ribs. I pressed my palm to my diaphragm, breathing carefully, counting down the way my father’s nurse, Judy, had shown me.
Stress, she’d said. Your body’s just reacting.
I believed her. Sort of.
Still, my mind drifted where it always did when things felt too big, too heavy to deal with. To my son, Hunter.
He was more than two hours away, safe with people I trusted. People I had no reason not to trust, anyway. But the distance gnawed at me, a low hum of worry I couldn’t shut off.
My phone sat face-down on the table.
I flipped it over. No new messages.
He’s fine. It’s the middle of the school day. Silence doesn’t mean anything’s wrong.
At least, that’s what I told myself. But I’d told myself so many things over the years. A lot of them lies.
