From the bestselling author of Call the Nurse and Nurse, Come You Here!, the moving story of her young life and her path to independence training to be a nurse.
Mary MacLeod's mother died in childbirth when Mary was five, an event that marked for the child a "before time"-a lost joyful time-and after. She was shunted from one relative to another while her father coped with his grief. He married again only nine months later, perhaps to have a mother for his child, but her new mum, harsh and withholding of her love, quickly exerted complete control over her thoughts and deeds, with her father oblivious. Her name was changed to her stepmother's choice of "Julia." Yet the pale, thin, quiet little girl didn't know she was unhappy: things were just the way they were.
Narrating from the perspective of the child she was but with the understanding and empathy of the nurse and mother she became, the author of Call the Nurse recounts the...