“Dad, please,” I begged. “I can’t explain right now, but one day you’ll understand—”
“Get out.” His voice was colder than ice.
“Dad—”
“NOW.”
Within an hour, I was standing on the front porch with a duffel bag and nowhere to go. Eleanor cried behind the screen door but made no attempt to stop him.
At nineteen, I was suddenly pregnant, homeless, and alone.
Soon afterward, I left Ohio, changed my number, and rebuilt my life in another state.
I kept my baby.
Her name was Grace.
The next decade was the hardest stretch of my life. I worked two jobs while attending community college, studied past midnight, and slept whenever exhaustion finally won. Some days, I had no idea how we would manage.
But Grace always gave me a reason to continue.
She grew into a bright, kind child, far more observant than I expected. As she got older, her questions became harder to avoid.
“Why don’t we ever visit Grandpa and Grandma?”
