The Return That Reopened Wounds - Part One.

Chapter 1: Returning to the Broken

When I finally moved to Temora, I told myself it was about escape. Escaping Sydney. Escaping the traumas that had swallowed my life. But deep down, it was also about something else, something more raw. I wanted to fix what was broken when I was a child. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I returned, I could mend those old fractures. That if I brought love and forgiveness into the space, it might be returned. That maybe, this time, I’d be wanted.

I craved family. I longed for it in the way a child would. Without logic, just a deep ache. I believed I could heal myself by building something with the people who left scars on me, So I walked back into the past. Full of hope, Hoping it could be rewritten. I wanted my Nan, I wanted a version of family that didn’t leave me bruised or hollow. But what I stepped into was not healing. It was a hard, unfiltered education in power, manipulation, and the illusion of love.

Chapter 2: Playing Nice with the Devil

I forgave my step-grandfather, not with words, but silently. Just to be close to my Nan. I knew he wasn’t my real grandfather, and I didn’t trust him. But I played nice, I let him hover on the edges of our moments, pretending it didn’t sting. My focus was on her.

She had moved from Sydney, lost everything, and needed companionship. I gave her that. I remember after work, I’d stay up late with her, talking and laughing. She smiled again. For a while, I believed coming back was the right choice.

But his presence lingered like a shadow, a reminder of everything I was trying to forget and that small joy? It didn’t last, not where control hides behind kindness.

Before long, I became a tool of convenience. My grandparents planned a six-week trip to Europe and asked me to house-sit, but I was also staying there at the time so it was some what expected. I agreed, thinking it would help but I wasn’t alone. Their house was covered in cameras, inside and out. I’d come home from long shifts at the pub only to feel the weight of invisible eyes. I couldn’t walk from the shower to my room in a towel without wondering who was watching. It wasn’t trust, It was control. Another prison I hadn’t signed up for and one I was done pretending to be comfortable in.

Chapter 3: Surveillance and Sacrifice

Before long, I became a tool of convenience. My grandparents planned a six-week trip to Europe and asked me to house-sit, but since I was already staying there at the time, it was less of a request and more of an expectation. I agreed, thinking it would be helpful, the hope that maybe I was finally part of the family again. But I wasn’t alone.

Their house was covered in cameras, inside and out. I’d come home from long shifts at the pub, exhausted, only to feel the weight of invisible eyes pressing in from every angle. I couldn’t walk from the shower to my bedroom in a towel without wondering who might be watching. It wasn’t trust, it was control.

The cameras weren’t just mounted on walls, they were in the air I breathed. Every movement, every moment, filtered through the fear of judgment. Not because I’d done anything wrong, but because boundaries didn’t exist for them. Privacy was a luxury I wasn’t afforded.

The hotel wasn’t just where I worked, it was part of the same legacy that had once abandoned me. My dad and stepmother, who had left without a word when I was younger, now owned it and my presence in Temora? It wasn’t seen as a reconnection. It was convenient, I was useful. Not loved, not cherished just functional.

So, I said nothing. I swallowed the discomfort like I always had, but inside I started shrinking again. I began policing myself in my own space, I stopped doing anything that might be “misinterpreted,” even though there was never anything to hide. I wasn’t free, I was monitored. Reduced to the girl I had fought so hard to outgrow. The one who tiptoed, the one who apologised for taking up space. The one who lived in cages built by other people and called it survival.

Chapter 4: A Flicker, Then a Flame

That’s around the time my eldest son’s father came into the picture. Things were casual, until I fell pregnant. I didn’t know yet that I’d be losing that child. It was an ectopic pregnancy, and it hit like a freight train. One minute I had a flicker of hope, a whisper that maybe something good was forming in the middle of chaos. The next, I was being given methotrexate shots and booked in for emergency surgery and one of my fallopian tubes had to be removed.

I hadn’t just lost a pregnancy, I’d lost a part of my body and with it, something deeper was taken from me. The illusion that motherhood would come easily, naturally, painlessly. That experience cracked me open in a way I didn’t expect. It made me see the battlefield that so many women walk silently, faithfully in pursuit of motherhood. The grief they carry before they ever get to carry a child in their arms.

I began to understand what it means to mourn something you never got to hold. To love without time. To feel pain and still offer gratitude to God for the lesson buried inside it. That ectopic pregnancy shifted something in me permanently. It taught me about resilience and about reverence. About the sacred strength it takes to try again after loss and though I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, I carry it now as part of my story, not as shame but as proof that I survived.

Chapter 5: Another Light, Another Test

After the chaos and loss of the ectopic pregnancy, I knew I needed space, my own roof with my own rules, my own air to breathe. I moved into a small house in town, hoping it would be the fresh start I craved. He came with me and at first, it felt like maybe we could make it work. But reality settled in quickly. He wasn’t working, he wasn’t contributing. The weight fell on me again.

He injured his hand not long after getting a job at the abattoir, and just like that, I became his nurse, his taxi, his emotional support. I drove him to appointments. I helped him with medications. I took on every responsibility again. But this time, it felt heavier, like I had already seen how the story ended but was too tired to stop it.

And in the midst of all of it, I found out I was pregnant.

God had blessed me with a baby again. But this time, it didn’t come with joy or excitement. It came with fear, with doubt. After what I’d been through with the ectopic pregnancy, my body still remembered the trauma. My heart wasn’t sure it could take another loss. I stood there, staring at the test, and whispered, “Am I ready for this?” But I was scared and I was alone.