Under the fluorescent lights of St. Jude’s basement, nervous people sat in a circle of mismatched folding chairs.

“My name is Gary,” the man in the Hawaiian shirt whispered. “And it’s been three months since I’ve been near a body of water larger than a toilet.”

“Hi, Gary,” the group droned.

Gary shuddered. “I still hear it. That relentless cello music. I took my kids to a museum last week, saw a full-size replica of a prehistoric Megalodon shark, and I hid in the bathroom for two hours. I just … I can’t live like this, guys.”

“Trauma is a tide, Gary,” sighed Brenda, the group leader. Brenda was a retired school teacher who now wore a garlic garland like a fashionable pashmina.

“At least your trauma stays in the ocean. I can’t go to a wine tasting without checking the host’s incisors, or wondering why he doesn’t have a reflection in........

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